I am trying to install SuSE 9.0 on my hp pavilion ze4420us. It freezes at the welcome screen. Did anyone have the same problem before and know how to solve it? The freeze here is just a welcome screen with different languages, the keyboard didn't respond anymore.

Thanks for any ideas!

Seems other people have issues with this laptop as well. Not only with trying to install, but with many of the features. I'd say if you cant even get past the welcome screen your not going to get it installed.

I have that same laptop and had a lot of problems at first. I tried several distos and couln't get it to work, either video or acpi issues. I didn't try Suse 9 but Mandrake 9.2 came out and worked. It installed with a few tweaks. I love it and have proved to my company that linux can work as a desktop in our environment. If you need any help I can tell you exactly what I did to get it running. The only thing is I don't know if pcmcia is working, I don't have any cards so I can't test it but will be getting wireless network at home soon. Everything else, the dvd/cdr, acpi, video, sound, mouse, function buttons all work without a flaw. It may be worth switching to mandrake. I did have a similar problem when I tried a red hat install. I was able to get past that by turning off usb legacy support in the bios or pass the option nousb before installation. Hope this helps. Just don't give up, it will work.

Thank you guys!

I am using Mandrake 9.2 now and it does work well except with the PCMCIA. But the reason I want to switch to SuSE 9.0 is I believe it has a better software development enviroment. (That's the case when I used SuSE 8.0 on my desktop) For example, I can't even install JBuilder 9.0 on the Mandrake 9.2 system for some reason.

Just like you, dnorseman, I've tried almost all the distos and only mandrake 9.2 worked the best for 90% of the hardware on this "Designed for Windows XP" laptop. :-( I really want to make SuSE 9.0 work on it. So I am just wondering if there is any way to make the installation keep moving on? Anyway to do something like pcmcia=off or ?

Well, I have HP Pavilion too.
I tried to install SUSE 9, but it also freezes on the Welcome display.
A friend of mine gave me the idea, that I could boot from the HDD (I have LILO on the HDD) and from the LILO prompt to try to boot from the SUSE Install CD1. Too complicated...
Now I am with Knoppix, as I transferred it on the HDD (so now it is more Debian, I guess )
The ACPI support was not working, I had to patch the Kernel and to recompile it (I used 2.4.21). And now everything works great!

I have the ze4420us running with SuSE 8.2. Yes I spent a lot of time on it.

The reason for my hang was PCMCIA configuration. If you have, eg, a wireless card plugged in while you are booting, or try to plug one in after, the below may solve your problem.

The other tip I saw while looking around everywhere for info to help me was to disable the Legacy USB support in the BIOS settings. I never bothered doing that as I had the machine installed and booting before I tried playing with the PCMCIA card, so I knew the problem was with the PCMCIA.

(Note: you may be able to ignore some of the steps for my wireless card - MA401RA)

Problem 1: The Hang
The hanging was due to the kernel pcmcia support. Enable the external pcmcia support and *eventually* you can wade your way through. Steps were:
-- change the pcmcia to external (in /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia )
-- I set up an eth1 network card via YaST2, rather than a pcmcia network type. Then set the appropriate wireless settings, which hides under the Hardware button.
-- For the MA401 RA, the default module used (while recognized), was the pcnet_cs. I had to change this to orinoco_cs in the /etc/pcmcia/wlan-ng.conf

card "NETGEAR MA401RA 11Mbps 802.11 WLAN Card"

version "NETGEAR MA401RA Wireless PC", "Card", "ISL37300P", "Eval-RevA"

bind "orinoco_cs"

# changed from bind "prism2_cs"

Problem 2: IRQ conflicts
-- that got the card going, but I ended up with IRQ conflict. This was resolved by working out which of the interrupts was available

cat /proc/interrupts

and also

lspci -v

Then modify the /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia file and set available interrupts, eg
PCMCIA_PCIC_OPTS="irq_list=6,13"

In SuSE 8.2 this line is ONLY interpreted with the EXTERNAL pcmcia!!! I also modified /etc/pcmcia/config.opts to add the line:

module orinoco_cs opts irq_list=6,13

Funny enough, ifconfig reports the wireless card running on Interrupt: 11. But seems to be working.
(Note. Also apparently need to have isa pnp enabled via modules.conf. Mine was already OK).

Problem 3: Go away integrated NIC
No, you're not finished yet!
Finally, it was a matter of disentangling the integrated NIC, which gets confused unless you tell it to go away.

ifdown eth0 (which is what I have the inegrated NIC set to)

ifup eth1 (what I have the wireless card set up as)

Also, I had to make sure that I disable the firewall before doing the above. Enabling it after has no effect. Looks like the SuSE firewall (via YaST2/Security) is pretty savage, and I can't be bothered trying to work it out just yet. Do a 'SuSEfirewall2 stop' before, and then 'SuSEfirewall2 start' and that will re-initialize the firewall.

And you need to do the ifdown/ifup/firewall thingy each time you restart the machine.

So easy!!

HTH
ws

I was able to get 8.2 and 9.0 to instal just fine right out of the box.
Well 9 was a network install from scratch

only problems i've had is getting 3d with the vid card and i've got a few bookmarks i'm reading over.

Well I have the same notebook as well.

I just got the suse9.1 dvd and it too freezes at welcome screen. Yes usb legacy support is disabled. What can I do????? Help I don't want to go back to fedora

ok someone had this brilliant idea of passing parameters through my current fc2 grub to the kernel on the cd to get it to boot.

Can someone please elaborate on that, PLEASE???

I got is working; a friend of mine did a complete bios reset and I worked. Though I don't understand why, it had something to do with video memory set to auto and not user set

Here's another trick I found elsewhere on the web.

When I was upgrading from 8.2 to 9 and also when I was installing 9.1 fresh from scratch both 9 and 9.1 would hang.

And the trick:
- Boot from the 8.2 CD. It booted cleanly to the Install screen.
- Switch out the 8.2 CD for the 9 or 9.1 CD or DVD.
- Press install and you are away

hth
ws