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Novell SuSE 10.x Freezes or Stops at Hardware Configuration
During the install process of both SuSE Linux 10.0 and 10.1 I encounter a stall situation when the Hardware Configuration is reached. The analysis seems to correctly detect the embedded Intel i845 video chip and the attached monitor. Once this information appears in the list on the screen, the computer either locks completely (10.0) or does not continue even though the mouse does not freeze up and I can click on buttons, with them responding visually but not functionally (10.1).
This is my computer configuration - Intel chipset i810/i845, Intel Celeron 1.8GHz CPU, 640MB RAM, no USB devices attached, no Firewire port, keyboard and mouse are ps/2 style, monitor resolution during install is set at 1024x768, 10/100 NIC connected to 10/100 switch, embedded sound card (not sure what kind it is).
These are the things I've done so far to try to work around it: I have changed the motherboard (same manufacturer - eMachines, same chipset), had a printer both attached and not attached (different attempts), 10.1 is installed from a DVD, 10.0 is installed from CDs, Tried a different monitor on different attempts, investigated to see if the chipset was on the Hardware Compatibility List (it is).
I have had SuSE Linux 9.3 installed and running on this computer and it was able to install without any hangs or freezes and I upgraded from 9.3 to 10.0 without any problem. However, I attempted a "clean install" with 10.1, rewriting the partitions, etc. and it froze at the same place mentioned above every time. I stepped back to 10.0, knowing that it had run on this computer previously. However, 10.0 completely hangs the computer at that exact same spot.
Shutting the comptuer off after it freezes, with 10.0, and then turning it back on and allowing it to boot normally, brings the install process back to a few steps before the hardware configuration (user account setup) and works itself through to the hardware configuartion again, and then freezes again. Doing the same for 10.1 causes Linux to boot up (sometimes into xserver and sometimes just to the command line). But since I am not comfortable with doing a hands-on configuartion such that it gets all the necessary tweeks and whistles needed to get things up to the point that the GUI configuartion does it, I would very much like to have it finish the install process as set up by the SuSE team.
I have yet to try to turn off the on-board video card and install a slotted video card to see if this is where the problem lies, but at this point since the card and monitor are recognized by YAST I have hesitated looking that direction. However, that is my next step.
Has anyone had this problem and if so, do you have a "clean" answer on how to get past it? Thank you for your help.
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