i have recently installed Phat Linux on windows XP Home Edition.
Now when it boots it says press "I" for interactive screen or whateva and then nothing happens.

Also when it then boots to the penguin screen which i think is the interactive screen probably is but, you can never be too sure anywayz it asks for login i type root and doesnt allow me to type my password and then it goes into some kind of command mode and i dont get to access the actual linux desktop.


Please Help !!!!

I'm presuming from your question that Phat Linux is a Live CD (Doesn't install to the harddrive).

The 'interactive' stage is talking about being able to step through loading parts of the operating system and will probably not concern you at this stage. You can let it run with pressing anything.

I'm presuming again that the root password for this demo disc is blanked and so will not ask you for a password.

Usually if the install has done its job, you should just have to type 'startx' at the prompt to load the graphical user interface. (A bit like typeing WIN in windows 3.1 if you ever used it).

If this Live CD isn't to your liking. have a look for another such as KNOPPIX.

Seeing as your profile says you live in Australia (as I do), have a look at www.everythinglinux.com.au

They have a wide variety of distributions to play with.

Kind Regards

Richard

when i boot up it says enter interactive start up and when i press I it loads and then says entering non-enteractive start up. later i type start x in when im logged in and then it doesnt work and says an error.

can you help

Do you type
or
and what is the error do you get?

Regards
Jo

Please do not post the same thread in more than one forum. Picking the most relevant forum and posting it once there makes it easier for other members to help you and keeps the discussion all in one place.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/rules.php


That said, you do not need to use the interactive startup. Ignore the message and let the boot sequence complete.

In your other thread (now closed), you say that when you start X (with the command startx), you get an error message - "NO CONFIG FILE" - is there anything else with that error? Can you copy and paste it into your reply.

It would also be worth your while to (at the command prompt) type in dmesg and then copy/paste the last 15 lines into your reply so we can analyse what is going on.

So, your reply should go:

Result of startx
Post full error message here

Result of dmesg
Post last 15 lines here

I got it working and now i cant seem to configure my monitor and graphics card and the resolution as the options are out dated eg. Graphics card the best it has Geforce 2 but, i have a Geforce 4.

does anyone know a way of updating and without the techincal jargon.

1. Common Courtesy - you've received a number of potentially useful replies. None have been overly technical that I've seen. If they were, then ask the person for clarification.

2. 'i' is 'I', 'cant' is 'can't'. Not that I (nor anyone else in this forum) is a grammer or spelling nazi. However, your punctuation is appalling (and and and).

3. Have you considered checking on the phatlinux site? Are you a member there? Maybe they have some later video drivers or maybe you could google 'geforce 4 linux'?

4. Be useful. Tell us WHAT you did to get X going. Tell us what kind of X you are using. Tell us what happens when you try to adjust the resolution. Are the resolutions you'd like to use not listed (and if so what are they).

Now, I imagine that if you are still reading this post you are probably calling me a whole big bundle of fairly unpleasent names. Despite that, if you want us to help you (which most people here are happy to do), you'll need to help us with more information, and a slightly improved attitude.

Cheers
Jo

I to have recently purchased Phat and though have not yet tried the suggestions have had some problems, namely stated in the original post. If anyone has had ANY luck with this distro. ...it would be helpful and encouraging to be knowledgful of.

-thx, <q>.

PS> yeah, almost forgot, I AM 'supposedly' a member with phat or so they said in the letter that was sent with the disk, which by-the-way is NOT a live CD it cost me $25 plus shipping, anyway, it does install to the HDD and then you are to either boot from the phat batch file or the disk, the batch file doesn't work so I use the disk, again, not a live cd though. After boot-up I am brought to a "PhatBox" Login/Logon (w/e) screen ( as of yet have not tried root to create new user) and yes, it does not allow me to enter a password - I type but no text appears.


PPS> the computer I am using is fairly new I would say; I recently (mid-January, 2005) built this computer from factory-new(not pre-owned) parts ordered through/from newegg.com, there is one partition (multiple partitions is another stressful, goose-chase story) that has Win XP SP2 on it and using phat obviously allows me to run both (again-obviously, not at the same time, duh), .....aaaaand that's where I currently stand, I will try out the previous solutions after my classes and if all goes well will thank all soon, later.

I've never use Phat, but it's common Linux usage (Um, actually all the way beck to Multix, I beleve) to not echo anything when a password is entered. Unlike CP/M derivitives like DOS, which usually echo an asterix so you can see how many characters you've typed.

Ok, logging in as root worked but now I have this msg: "[root@PhatBox]# ", and how do I get to the GUI?!!

Well, if you have that, you are ready to go!

Try the command "startx" to start your gui. If it doesn't work, report any error messages back here.

To be honest with you, unles it's been somewhat updated, Phat is based on Mandrake 8.
Mandrake is up to 10.1 now.
You might be better off with a live cd of a more up to date distro.

Yeah, I have that to but I wanted a [more] permanent linux, I have knoppix3.4 live cd

====== update ============

I've reinstalled phat and setup my own account, ben

so I get

[ben@PhatBox]# _ (blinking curser)

is there a command to get to or start-up the GUI b/c I know it has a GUI, it was advertised w/ screenshots of its unique GUI.

-thx, ben.

startx

will start x when you type startx

no need to be root

FATAL ERROR
.
.
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[and more junk of that nature, talking about network and server stuff - w/e]