Hello

I am trying to take a look at the Linux 9.1 evaluation but am encountering a problem loading the CD. I have a dual boot configuration with Windows ME and SuSE 8.2 Professional. A friend of mine downloaded the 672 Mb CD. I reset the BIOS on my computer to boot the CD_ROM as the first device. I loaded the CD and restarted the computer. The activitey light on the CD-ROM flickered a bit and then Grub started and booted the default OS. I then tried to add CD-ROM to the Grub menu under additonal selections but probably have some kind of syntax error since it adds (/dev/null) after my references in root to my CD-ROM.

I have also looked in the Admin. Guide about how to boot Linux from a CD and learned about a procedure using Isolinux starting with the installation of a program called Syslinux and the making of a floppy with code that will refer the boot sequence to the CD-ROM, but that is a bit too technical for me to attempt at this time.

Any other way to allow the boot to happen without uninstalling the 8.2 version of Linux?

When your system is posting (power on self test, checking RAM etc.) you should be able to press a key that will get you into the system BIOS and you can choose the boot order. Some systems have special boot selectors. Common keys are Delete, Ctrl-Alt-Insert, F2, F8, F9. Try those and see what you get.

Thank you Sirra 462 for your response to my question. To enter the BIOS mode on my computer I use the F2 key and that was my first try to load the CD-Rom but it was unable to override the grub bootloader. I am not sure why.

sometimes f8 gives special boot options, one of which is boot to cd. maybe this was only for ntldr, not sure.

try opening the grub boot prompt and trying to boot the cd from that.

Make sure you save settings on exit of your CMOS/BIOS -- if it's booting from the harddrive at all, it wasn't set to boot from a CD. However, it could have looked at the CD and decided it wasn't bootable. Could this be the case?

Thank you drigz & Poetics for your suggestions.
* I will try the f8 key while booting.
* The grub boot doesn't offer the option of booting from CD and when I tried to add that option it was not successful.
* I did save and exit the CMOS/BIOS thats how I installed the 8.2 version of Linux initially.
* Yes theis CD might not be bootable. I will try the 8.2 installation CD for a comparison.

My thanks to all who have contributed to the solution of this question.

I tried the installation CD for the 8.2 version and it flashed Isolinux on the screen and then took over with the questions for installation. This leads me to believe that maybe the 9.1 eval CD is not bootable. I don't know why Novel would publish a non-bootable CD so maybe there was a problem with the download. My friend has a broadband connection and an Apple G4 laptop.

I also wonder if anyone else has had this same problem. Oh well guess that if I want the newest version I will just have to buy it.

Thanks again to linuxquestions.org and those individuals who have helped. Please consider this a closed issue.

alynnz