have installed suse 10 final release today. install completes OK but PC will not boot up. busy icon starts then thats it. tried safe mode and i get to the log in screen then i don't know what to type in to bring up a graphical interface.
installed with Gnome only, has i have had problems with KDE on this PC in the past.
PC.
Celron 400mhz
mem 128mb

Major
PS, had been running mandrivia 2005 on the PC no problem.

i think your hardware is a bit out of date,
400MHz is too slow for today's big software,
u need to upgrade to pentium 2GHz and above.

No offense, but that sounds like a typical Microsoft response.

I only say that because of the extreme irony here. This is a Linux forum, and the main mission of Linux is to get rid of Microsoft specifically because MS pulls that sort of thing.

Theoretically, Linux should be able to be installed on that system, especially since the system had been previously running a fairly modern distro. I would say check a couple of things:

I'm not an expert on Linux by any means, but I'm sure there's got to be some startup log files that you can check. I wish I could be more specific. My experience is primarily in Windows environment. Windows has the startup log files viewable in the Event Viewer. I imagine Linux writes startup logs to a text file somewhere. I just don't know where. But maybe this gives you a place to start?

Also, you may wish to ensure that your CDs are, in fact, complete. By this, I mean that when you burned the ISOs, the resulting CDs are in good shape. My initial go at burning the first CD ISO didn't go to well, despite the fact the Roxio had said it did. When I did a media check during the install, Disk 1 came up as bad. Second time I burned it, I got it right.

That's all I can offer. Hope it gives you something to work with.

Once you login at the console after booting to safe mode, you can try to start the GUI by running either gdm or kdm. I would assume it would be gdm in your case since you don't have KDE installed. If that doesn't work, then try running xinit, and running gnome-session in the quasi-GUI that xinit starts up. If there are errors when you try to run any of those, they might give you some idea of what's wrong. You can also view the log files from the console by using yast. The Misc section of yast should have a View System Log thing in it. Atleast it does in 9.3, I haven't tried 10 out yet.

By the busy icon, I assume you mean that its right before it should normally go to the GUI login screen? How long hav eyou tried waiting? Your hardware is kinda slow, if you can put some more RAM in it that might help things out a little bit, though the processor is probably one of the biggest bottle-necks.

You could try reinstalling and selecting a lighter window-manager such as XFCE or something instead of Gnome. Its not going to be nearly as good as Gnome, but it should take up less resources.

Sorry, no. I installed SuSE 9.2 on an old laptop with a Pentium II DX2-66. I have to disable all the graphics intensive stuff in KDE, of course, and you can pretty much forget 3D support, but it works with some tweaking. Even with a fresh install, however, it booted just fine, allowing me to tweak it.

I'm sorry I can't help with the actual problem here, but I don't believe this response is on the correct path.

I've just installed SUSE V10 on a 400Mhz AMD K6-II with 256 MB memory.
Though not really fast :-) it works (with KDE,Wireless,Openoffice...)

regards Kalle

I don't agree,
minimum requirements recommended by microsoft to install XP is pentium 233MHz, anyway, if you really install in such system, it will crawl like snail!
Get a better hardware for suse 10.0, it is not expensive now.

With all due respect, what is and isn't expensive is relative. What's inexpensive to you may be completely out of the question for someone else.

Try re-running YaST at the console (just type YAST) and check your display settings. If you can boot to a console, to me that sounds like something in your graphics card/monitor setup are incorrect.

On another note, the suggestion of "go buy new hardware" is one of the most foolish things I've ever heard in this forum. Firstly, an older processor would only cause the GUI to run slower, not prevent it from running altogether. Secondly linux is designed to run with minumal resources, depending on the choices made during install. If you install every server service and a GUI manager, the system will be very sluggish. I've installed SUSE 9.3 Pro with KDE, OpenOffice, and a few other packages on a 400mhz/64MB RAM laptop and it ran fine.

I'll have to chime in with the others about the, "buying new hardware" jazz.

I'm running Suse 10.0 right now with a PII 450 and 192 mb of ram.
I'll admit it's not optimal with KDE as the window manager, and it hiccups now and then, but it's ok.
I'll change everything to FVWM after I figure things out and where everything is.

It took me a long time to install it. The main problem was that it kept hitting rpms that wouldn't install.
If I looked at some of the rpms during the install process that wouldn't install, I just hoped that they weren't vital to the whole OS to function. After about the 10th time, yes the 10th time, I got all the way through with only about 8 minor rpms that wouldn't install. After boot, I put the CDs back in and installed them.


So a 400 celeron running Gnome or KDE might chug a little bit, but if you go through and turn all the services and things like that that don't really need to be used and scale down to less of a memory hog window manager, it should run ok.

At the risk of turning this post away from it's original intention (and I apologize if that is the case), I want to restate and add to my comment about expensive being relative.

To TigerLinux, I want to first state that I mean no disrespect when I disagree with your suggestion to upgrade the hardware in this case. Your assertion that hardware upgrades overall are not that expensive is agreeable to a certain extent. It all depends on what you're upgrading to, though. If your only intention is to upgrade to a machine that is more modern and with a faster CPU, I would agree that such an upgrade would be considered inexpensive by most. I upgraded to an AMD 1800+ AthlonXP a couple of years ago. The upgrade also entailed buying a new motherboard and half a gig of memory. All for just about $200.00. I believe now that same upgrade would garner me an even faster CPU, possibly even more memory and cost even less.

Still, $200.00 is nothing to sneeze at. For many of us, that cost may not be considered expensive. For some others, though, it may be prohibitive. Also, depending on the situation, a simple upgrade can easily turn into an expensive endeavor if other hardware needs to be upgraded just to accomodate the new stuff.

So while it's tempting to say "upgrade your hardware", in many cases that's a lot easier said than done.

That's not to say your suggestion is invalid, though. Updating the hardware will most likely help the with the problem at hand. But I think we need to be sensitive to the possibility that doing so is not an easy alternative and may be completely outside of the realms of possibility.

That's all I have to say. I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread topic.

A 2ghz processor? Bah! I have a 500mhz with 380 mb RAM and it runs like a race horse!

Wow what a response. For an update. Re installed Suse 10 with KDE and it run up ok. Apart from not allowing an internet connection. It turns of my lan card. This is an old problem with this pc. Thats why i tend to install Gnome it allows th einternet connection to work.
ASo presently am in the process of re installing Suse 10 with Gnome again.
So heres hoping it works if not i will follow the advice on checking the boot logs. If i find any particular problem i will post.
Regards Major.

selective installation of packages can help that a lot. when you install, you can choose parts from kde and parts from gnome, or both, or neither (if you use another window manager, or none at all). for my linux installs, regardless of distro, i tend to install both KDE and Gnome's basic packages. i don't like the way Gnome works, looks, etc, but i love the linux programs that start with G

my recommendation to you is take the parts that you know work; grab the networking packages from Gnome, get the gui stuff from KDE, and make sure you have your dependencies ok (Suse's installer checks those automatically)

good luck with your system, i run a 3 box lab of Suse 9.3 computers, and they're about the same as yours. never have problems with those.

Ok, System now running in both KDE and GNOME. Internet link works in both desktops.
Tried to run KDE and Gnome from fail safe no go. So ran xinit and Gnome-session. Error msg pointed to sound module.
So i disabled the onboard sound chip and everything apart from the sound works great.
So i will pick up a cheap sound card and see if that works ok with th esystem.
Regards Major