I am trying to boot a General Dynamics Itronix Gobook VR-2 (IX605) with Slackware64 14. First I tried Slax and some others, just to see what it would be like using the machine, and if all the unusual hardware works before I get rid of Windows. Slax and the two other live CDs seemed to hang during boot. Slackware seems to, and says 'bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0,' and stays that way for many minutes (though Slackware64 & Slackware 14 boot much faster on a new x86_64 system, and a very old single-core P4 system, but the VR-2 is closer to new.) Has anyone run Slackware on General Dynamics Itronix hardware before, or does something not have drivers? There was some 'TPM' thing in the BIOS that I disabled after I thought that might be the problem, but it was not.

update
The second time I tried the Slackware install CD/DVD, it seemed to hang after saying what the CPU was. The laptop does boot Windows 7 fine, and I am wondering if I do a Slackware netinstall if the system will then even boot on its own and if all the unusual hardware (touchscreen, GPS) will work.

General Dynamics Itronix GoBook VR-2 Notebook
Product Type: Notebook. Screen Size: 13.3". Standard Memory: 512 MB. Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Dual-core 2.20 GHz. Hard Drive Capacity: 80 GB. MPN: IX605-04B.

If that is what you got then it should be able to run those systems, but maybe the cd drive isn't working properly and that is why it isn't booting, have you tried use pendrive instead ?

Regards

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No; it does not have a USB boot option. Actually my laptop has had its RAM and hard drive upgraded or originally had more. I was talking to some people on Freenode ##slackware and #linux, and someone remarked on the a BIOS, which I had never heard of, though I do not see why that would make a difference. I suppose I will try doing a netinstall (or get a new optical drive.) I just do not want to erase Windows and find that a GNU/Linux actually does not work on the laptop either, because though the ebay seller said it comes with Windows, and it has a code sticker, the laptop did not come with a Windows CD.

You could try plop boot manager. http://www.plop.at/en/home.html
It can load the boot manager from a cd and then load a pendrive even if the BIOS doesn't have the option.

Regards

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If GNU/Linux is not booting from a CD, I am not sure a boot manager will either. A Windows XP CD boots but finds no hard drive, which I do not know is because XP is old or if there really is some problem affecting both it and GNU/Linux. I will see if I can find a friend with a Windows Vista - 7 CD just to try, since this laptop originally had Vista. If that does not work, then I know it is some issue with the CD drive, or with booting from it and not detecting all the hardware. Even if I have to do a Slackware netinstall, or one with a GNU/Linux that has more art software (which I want to largely use it for even if any other OS than Slackware is worse for developing on), it may be easier just to do that than make an entire other CD and boot from something else, though it would mean disconnecting from IRC (where I am an op on many channels), so maybe I will try the Plop boot manager.

The plop boot manager is very small only 1mb around that, the drive wont have problems loading it even if it has some problems.

Regards

This is just a shot in the dark but can you disable the trusted platform module and try to boot Linux without it running.

My first post said 'There was some 'TPM' thing in the BIOS that I disabled after I thought that might be the problem, but it was not.'

dchmelik,
If you care to, please clarify Windows 7 booting: is that from an install disk or the HDD?

You can run the Slackware install from another machine on a LAN by booting the DVD, then running pxesetup rather than setup. Hopefully your laptop has a PXE boot option in the BIOS. Once the pxe server (on the "other" networked machine) is up and running, boot the laptop.
If that's what you meant by "netinstall", it would definitely be worth your time to try it.

I'm curious if this isn't some kind of security measure the mfg. placed in the machine.
What all boot options does the BIOS have?

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HDD. I was not given the Windows CD with the laptop that should have been included. Mostly just normal options... maybe I will list them later.

The BIOS allows booting from internal drives (currently CD-ROM and hard disc drives) and PXE (i.e. booting over ethernet). I tried Slackware's pxesetup, and it worked until when the kernel was doing stuff, it hung at about the same point.

People in Freenode ##slackware said it could be an ACPI issue (of ACPI expecting an OS or not having GNU/Linux support). I found out a little about this, so I am trying to boot the kernel with options of parts of ACPI off... nothing has worked yet, and I hope I will not have to try too many combinations of options... but it is possible that this is the issue. Most the first pages I found on ACPI workarounds, which is what I was told to try, are written for Ubuntu, but the kernel stuff should be the same. I tried each ACPI disable command, and everything but nolapic caused the system to halt after it said various stuff about ACPI. The nolapic kernel boot paramater lets it boot a little past that, but then the system halts about where it normally does when booting any distro.

After following those instructions to disable parts of ACPI, I disabled lapic, which seemed to allow the boot process to go farther, then I disabled all the extra hardware and features... maybe one of those was actually the problem, because as for the TPM, the BIOS seemed to be setting it back to on or half-on every time I went into the BIOS. Anyway, after disabling that repeatedly, and all the other stuff, and lapic, I got to a Slackware installer prompt.

That looks like a pretty neat-o machine.
It would be cool to add your experience to the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL)
here at LQ. It's a good resource, and the relative rarity of that laptop would be a
worthy addition to be sure.

Unfortunately, though I got the Slackware installation DVD to boot and install, booting the system afterwards had problems. It said something about not being able to mount partitions because of unsupported features, and after a few pages of boot information, the screen went blank. Maybe Linux does not have support for the stylus (I chose one in the installer's mouse configuration) but apparently partitions did not mount either, so I am going to have to try some more things. I will boot it again in a simple VGA mode to see if it shows the most messages... and is there somewhere I can get a log of the previous boot so I can post necessary details?

I've stayed out of this thread since I don't run Slackware on my Amrel RT 786EX Toughbook with P4 512MB of ram with 3 Hot swap Hard drives and modular Cdrom and CDRW drives. It is not the model with the passive touchscreen. My older RT 686 had that.

Maybe try a AntiX 13.1 Full iso on cd or pendrive with PLOP (which is use also) and use the F key boot options . Just to make sure everything hardware related works OK at least.
I don't think bios is stopping slackware boot. I outa take one of the hard drives (Vector 7,AntiX core 8.5 LXDE, Puppy Slack0), and I guess try a
Tagfile Slackware install with fluxbox as my windows manager. Too many projects this summer and limited time.

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