Boot Restarting?

[Guest AJAH]

The other day I installed Mandriva Free 2006 distrobution of linux. The install wen't swell, and everything seemed to be good when my computer rebooted. I was pumped! As a linux noob, I heard that Mandriva would be an easy start for me. So, I got the OS selection screen, chose the Linux option, and watched as Mandriva was appearantly loading.

 

.... Well, it seemed to be doing good. Then it got to the next screen (one with a penguin on it and FREE in the background). I suppose this is where the log-in prompt would normally pop up. Unfortunately, the screen just flicked black, then wen't to the exact same screen. I waited.... and it just kept repeating that. I never EVER got a log-in prompt or anything. So... Why am I not able to boot into Mandriva?

 

Remember, I am a Linux baby, here. I barely know anything about it.

[ianw1974]

Sounds like misconfiguration of graphics card during installation.

 

You could choose the failsafe option from the boot menu instead, and then log into the system and run mcc from the command line and reconfigure the graphics.

 

Although, it might be better to reinstall from scratch, and make sure at the summary screen that all devices are configured. I find on most if not all of my systems that the graphics option is almost always marked as "not configured" and needs to be configured before completing the installation.

 

I think this might be why you've ended up with this situation.

[Ixthusdan]

Do you know what kind of graphics card/chip you have?

[Guest AJAH]

I have these specs:

 

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice

 

NVIDIA 7800 GT

 

Asrock 939 Dual Sata

 

1 Gig Ram

 

Maxtor 80 GB Hard Drive

 

 

 

Anyway, someone told me to try reinstalling the boot loader. I did, and I got some error that started with : LILO Failed: at /usr/ ......

 

Then, I was told to try GRUB. While grub flicks black, then back to the log-in page again and again, just like before, it does do it a bit faster. No different, though. So, any help?

 

ALSO: Graphics card is configured. I really hope to get this working! Someone recommended SUSE. Any help would be appreciated.

Edited February 15, 2006 by AJAH

[Ixthusdan]

First, the error is a graphics card configuration problem and not a bootloader issue. So it is not suprise that changing between lilo and grub does nothing.

You say the graphics card is configured, but what do you mean? If you are using the Mandriva driver (nv) then it is not going to work correctly. You really need to install the nvidia driver. Here are the steps.

1. When you get to the boot screen (the first one) hit esc and type "linux 3" on the prompt. This should bypass your graphic config and bring you to a command line prompt.

2. Log in with your normal user id and password.

3. Type "su" and enter your root password.

4. Type "mc." Yopu will be presented with a dos shell type file manager/editor. The instructions fro use are right on the screen.

5. Navigate to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

6. Hit F4

7. Go down tyoward the end of the file and find a line that says "Driver=nv" and change the line to read "Driver=vesa"

8. Hit F2 And F10 twice.

9. type exit

10. Type startx.

11. You should get a gui and be able to launch a browser. Go to http://www.nvidia.com and download the linux driver with installer.

12. Install the driver and let it make configuration changes.

13. Log out of x.

14 type startx again. You should get the Nvidia splash screen.

At this point you can boot normally into x.