Linux (ubuntu 6.06) on HP Pavillion DV5118TX (SATA) giving problems during install
 

Hi,

I recently bought a laptop - HP Pavillion DV5118TX with following major specs -

Intel Centrino Duo Core processor
100GB SATA HDD
1GB DDR2 RAM
nVidia GEforce Go graphics card

It came with Windows XP Home edition but I tried to install Ubuntu on it. After successful installation at that time (at least it seemed so) when i booted the system, it said BIOS Handoff failed, and though after a series of "memory cannot be allocated" errors, it goes to the linux login. I hoped to see the GUI (Gnome) but it never went to that. I logged in as root and did startx or init5 but they did not work either. It said no such command found.

I could not even find the X11 module. I tried installing it again and then again (total of three attempts) and the condition remained the same.

Then I tried to install Red Hat 9.0 and for some weird reason ended up crashing my HDD. So I had to int Windows XP again. During that installation I found out that I have SATA and I had to load RAID drivers from a third source. I had SATA drivers but I doubt that they are only for Windows.

I want to know, what should I do. I read other posts here and I found out that there are people with SATA drives who could install Ubuntu and run it successfully without any problem.

Also, I want to know, as in case of Windows XP you can press F6 to load third party drivers, is there any similar procedure with linux too? And if yes, the drivers I used for windows XP (for reading SATA), can they be used for linux too and how?

Please help me as I need linux on my machine. I have been getting good help everytime I have come on LQ for help and last time was the first time ever that no one bothered to even tell me about the problem. Please help...

Thanks,
AJ

I have aq hunch that this may be related to the graphics card. If--during startup--XWindows cannot find the right driver it will not start--and leave you in the CLI mode.

What did you see during installation that releates to the video card? What options did you choose?

Also, try a Google search with you card model and Linux.

Most modern distros should have no problem with SATA. I am not so sure about RH9

nVidia GEForce Go 7400
 

I thought Linux had good support for nVidia...let me check out though.