Hey. After a few years using Kubuntu, I've decided to try out the latest release of Mandriva and got the 2008.0 KDE live CD. However, the live CD does not work; the boot process goes about 2/3rd of the way, then goes to blank screen, where everything stops. Checking the verbose mode, it seems to go to black screen after showing the message "Starting HAL daemon", but there's not much I can do after it goes blank; keyboard input doesn't change a thing and I have to hard boot. Any clue to what could be going on?

Hardware:
HP Pavilion dv9330us
Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 (1.7 GHz)
2 GB DDR RAM
nVidia GeForce Go 7600
160 GB SATA hard drive

When it stalls, can you switch terminals? alt+f3, alt+f4, etc...? Have you checked the MD5 to make sure you did not download a corrupt CD?

Nope, can't switch terminals. And I've checked the MD5SUM of the ISO, it matches the one Mandriva lists on their site.

I guess for whatever reason, Mandriva just isn't compatible with your system. I'm not familiar with Mandriva, but are there various boot options when booting the liveCD? Such as disabling APM and apci? Normally in GRUB, it is APM=off and APCI=off

HAL is the hardware application layer, maybe you should check on the mandriva site if your hardware is supported.

HTH, Glenn

when it stalls, can you ssh in from another system? (probably not since you have had no chance to set up ssh, but maybe)

Was your ISO corrupted?

Ever get a solution to this? The live CD worked on me 32Bit desktop, but I cannot run on my 64Bit laptop (Compaq v6000)

try adding to the kernel boot, pci=nomsi

That might get around it. check out "msi linux kernel" in a search engine.

for info, see line 412 from here....

http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Docum.../MSI-HOWTO.txt

Cheers, Glenn

I tried all the options that the boot menu gave and never got it all the way up. I did, however, download the FREE DVD and it install and runs fine (although boots very slowly (but 2007 did too) on my laptop).

Sorry, that's all I have to offer.

But now you have an install you can upgrade it.

the packages are in a folder called media. [on the cd]

if you wanted to you could add this new cd to the rpm repo list on your system.

2 ways, copy the media folder to a directory on the hd. or use the cd rom device.

Like this.....
for harddrive copy.
command ______name _____location of files
urpmi.addmedia Local_rpms file://local/Music/rpms with hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia Local_2008.0_main32 file://var/ftp/pub/Mandriva/media/main32 with hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia Local_2008.0_main file://var/ftp/pub/Mandriva/media/main with hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia Local_2008.0_contrib file://var/ftp/pub/Mandrivalinux/media/contrib with hdlist.cz

for cd device,
urpmi.addmedia 2008.0_main32 file://media/hda/x86_64/media/main32 with media_info/synthesis.hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia 2008.0_main file://media/hda/x86_64/media/main with media_info/synthesis.hdlist.cz
urpmi.addmedia 2008.0_contrib file://media/hda/x86_64/media/contrib with media_info/synthesis.hdlist.cz

where to urpmi.addmedia must be a named something different to what may exist. The location must match your install, and cd reference, mine is hda, my cdrom or some directory on the hd you have copied the packages to.

After you have all that you can use urpmi to load/upgrade and install new packages.

regards, Glenn