I installed the mandrake powerpack on my Compaq Presario 710US and the boot menu comes up, i select linux, and the screen turns black. I think this is a compatibility problem with the video card ( an S3 Twister K) but this is over my head.

If i select failsafe it says this.


do_pre_smp_initclalls init/main.c:659
init init /main.c:711
init init /main.c:714
enabled ExtINT on CPU#0
ESR value before enableing vector: 00000000
ESR value before enableing vector: 00000000
Using local SPIC time interrupts.
calibrating APIC timer ...
..... CPU clock speed is 996.0441 Mhz.
..... Host bus clock speed is 199.0288 Mhz.
init init /main.c:716
init init /main.c:718
Checking if image is initramfs...it isn't (no cpio magic); looks like an initrd
ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initrd ... not found!
feeing initrd memory: 171 freed
init init /main.c:724
do_basic_setup init init /main.c:634
do_basic_setup init init /main.c:636
NET: registerd protocol family 16
PCI: PCI Bios revision 2.10 entry at 0xfd7ae, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
mtrr: v2.0 (20020519)
ACPI: subsystem revision 20040326
ACPI: IRQ10 SCI: Edge set to level trigger.

Try booting

linux noacpi nolapic

(hitting escape before selecting linux and typing the above)

It seems to happen on the compaq laptops where acpi screws with things. It happened on my 2199US but by booting without acpi and apic, it was just fine

Same stuff when i type that in as the boot command. I get a blank screen.


EDIT: I just tried
linux noacpi nolapic from lilo.
I got a bunch of text but from what I can gather, MDK said there is a known problem with COMPAQ's ACPI BIOS. Then It said it reenabled the ACPI. At the end it said Calibrating delay loop.... Then stoped just like before.


I may download and try another distro. I checked in the HCL a bit and no one had a 700 series presario working that entered it on the HCL. There was a note that said SUSE fixed the ACPI problems but mandrake did not. So i may try SUSE. I'll post back with my results.

I've had excellent results on my Averatec laptop with "yoper" I tried mandrake 9.1 , 9.2, and 10.1 and none of them could find all of my hardware including my usb mouse and my lan port. yoper found everything and all of it works. I'm not pushing yoper, because Mandrake 9.1 is my favorite of the linux distros, but i couldn't get any of them to work on this laptop.

I think you can also try ACPI=off at the prompt.

Jeremy

Tried SUSE 9.1 personal and it works perfect so im sticking with that. No 3d acceleration but i expected that.