I'm having lots of trouble installing SuSE 8.2 on my new Dell Dimension 4600. I put in the FTP install CD and it boots, I go to Installation, press Enter, and the entire screen turns black. I have waited for it to do something for fifteen minutes, and it just sits there.

This is the second Dimension 4600 I have had - the first one had to go back because it was defective, this one is the replacement. SuSE installed fine on the first one, but refuses to load the installer on this system.

If I press Enter while the screen is black, I notice that the light on the CD-ROM drive flashes, etc. So the program has loaded, it just seems to be having problems writing to the screen for whatever reason.

The specs on my system are:
Pentium 4 2.8 GHZ
1 GB RAM
80GB HD
SoundBlaster Audigy 2
ATI Radeon 9800
Samsung CD Burner
and a 17" flat panel monitor

I also tried the text-only installation, but it did the same thing.

Any ideas?

Turn it in to your vendor and demand a replacement ; something in the hardware is not as it should be.

This machine is already a replacement, which has none of the problems the last did, at least in Windows.

Also, Mandrake's graphical installer boots, just not SuSE's.

I know from experience , That SuSE is rather picky it regards to the quality of the hardware :It has to 100% or you get a "No-Go".
It appears , some part of your hardware is NOT 100% and while other OSes may be tad more forgiving , that's no reason to settle for anything less than 100% ; That's what you paid for and thus that's what you have to get. Nothing less.

Hi Scifience, there is an option at the start up procedure of SuSE installation. You may change the resolution (i.e. 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768) of your screen by pressing F2 have you tried that?