Live CD freeze

[Guest lordhong]

After booting from CD and getting to the selection screen (enter to boot, F1 for more options), and then proceeding with boot, I'm greeted with a completely blank screen, no CD / HD activity. Waited roughly 15 minutes, nothing happened, and I had to shut it down manually.

 

The CD works fine at work on a vanilla HP computer, so it's (most) probably hardware related.

 

Two pieces of hardware I think could pose problem:

1- S-ATA 200GB hardrive (Maxtor)

2- Nvidia 6600GT / LG widescreen flat panel L203WT

 

I am not sure it is the hard drive, although I could be wrong; I managed to install Kubuntu and Freespire without much problems previously. I have a feeling it's video related, as that Kubuntu installation would require me to enter a vga command line (vga=771), else Kubuntu installer would load up unreadable or freeze completely.

 

I'm searching for the right distro for me (a friend had suggested Kubuntu and Freespire first) and from what I saw from the live CD, Mandriva seems pretty much it.

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

Edited September 27, 2006 by lordhong

[scarecrow]

If you have a double LCD connector (VGA and DVI) disconnect the DVI, leave only the VGA one and repeat the boot procedure.

Happens with my nvidia card as well.

I'd advice against the Kubuntu installer, as more than a couple people complained to me that the /home partition could not get mounted after installation. I tried to prove them they were doing something wrong, only to meet the very same problem after a (seemingly succesfull) installation.

[Guest lordhong]

My LCD is connected via the Analog connector (VGA). Nothing is coming to the LCD DVI connector. The XFX 6600GT only has a DVI output; included was a DVI-VGA adapter, which I'm using. Since I did not see any major beenfit in using DVI, and since I did not have a DVI cable, I did not use the DVI-DVI connection.

 

---

Kubuntu was running fine, except that I had problems with display drivers; I could only run in vesa 1024x768. Freespire had many problems, the worst being not unable to connect to update with their CNR application (major issue). I'm sure I could have fiddled a little and eventually corrected either, but since I know I'll be fiddling anyway in the future, I'm looking for a distro that gives me the less problems after install.

Edited September 27, 2006 by lordhong

[Guest lordhong]

Alright, I managed to fix the no booting; a slightly defective MBR was the culprit, I managed to get Mandriva to load.

 

However, I'm stuck with the same problem that I had with Kubuntu: once it starts loading, it comes out as garbled video: I can see the outlines of boxes (language, keyboard, etc.) but once I arrive to what I think is the EULA, I cannot proceed ("enter" doesn't cut it anymore).

 

With Kubuntu I added a vga=771 to the boot command, setting a mode that was compatible. Any ideas what I could try from the "more options" to get it to work?

[scarecrow]

One solution is (after getting the garbled video) pressing alt+ctrl+backspace, which will restart the xserver, and force looking for a usable X configuration. If it doesn't work, then reboot and when the initial LILO screen appears press esc, and then type in

linux 3

Now you will get a working console login. Login as root and run "mcc" to repair your xserver configuration.