Noob ?
Results 1 to 8 of 8

Thread: Noob ?

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Posts
    43

    Noob ?

    OK, I purchased SUSE 9.1 I installed it on an old machine which seems to work but I cna't get passed the GRUB. I understand it has to do with the MBR, but not sure how to give it the correct command. I'm not even sure where the program installed to.

  2. #2
    Registered User Jeff316's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Birmingham, AL
    Posts
    65

    hmmm...

    Quote Originally Posted by digi
    OK, I purchased SUSE 9.1 I installed it on an old machine which seems to work but I cna't get passed the GRUB. I understand it has to do with the MBR, but not sure how to give it the correct command. I'm not even sure where the program installed to.

    I've never used suse or grub, (Turbolinux or slackware & LILO) but maybe we can get the ball rolling... When you installed to you remeber if you wrote to the MBR or not? If you have a Floppy on the computer you may want to try booting from a linux boot disk, or a liveCD such as knoppix - this could help you to confirm that the linux partition is OK and you may be able to see the grub configuration (I'm guessing it would be a file called grub.conf but not 100% sure), which may help some of the folks more experienced with this to help you...

    Call me lazy but the one time I ran into that with slack I just re-installed and all was well.

  3. #3
    Registered User xsrvx's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2000
    Location
    Richardson,TX 75081
    Posts
    278
    Quote Originally Posted by digi
    OK, I purchased SUSE 9.1 I installed it on an old machine which seems to work but I cna't get passed the GRUB. I understand it has to do with the MBR, but not sure how to give it the correct command. I'm not even sure where the program installed to.
    What is actually happening? When you reboot does grub hang?
    You should be able to boot from the SuSE CD and boot the installed system if grub hangs or just does not work for some reason. Then you could make a boot floppy.

    http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-faq.en.html

    see number 4 for the boot floppy. Also scan the rest of the FAQ, perhaps your problem is listed there.

  4. #4
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Posts
    43

    Angry On a break !

    Quote Originally Posted by xsrvx
    What is actually happening? When you reboot does grub hang?
    You should be able to boot from the SuSE CD and boot the installed system if grub hangs or just does not work for some reason. Then you could make a boot floppy.

    http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-faq.en.html

    see number 4 for the boot floppy. Also scan the rest of the FAQ, perhaps your problem is listed there.
    I've loaded..reloaded..and reloaded. Then talked to support ( very helpful) and still have no Os! It's the machine! It's an old Compaq 200 mhz Pent W a built in Grahpics card and that seems to be the problem at this point. Boots directly to Grub. Changed to Lilo went through boot and stoped after enter name and pass @ Linux # ~ or something.
    Basically I will make a better CPu and put it on that then. Right now it's just too much of a pain in ...... !

    Thanks for all the help......"I'll be back" Remember it's just an experiment!

  5. #5
    Registered User Jeff316's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2004
    Location
    Birmingham, AL
    Posts
    65

    prompt?

    Quote Originally Posted by digi
    I've loaded..reloaded..and reloaded. Then talked to support ( very helpful) and still have no Os! It's the machine! It's an old Compaq 200 mhz Pent W a built in Grahpics card and that seems to be the problem at this point. Boots directly to Grub. Changed to Lilo went through boot and stoped after enter name and pass @ Linux # ~ or something.
    Basically I will make a better CPu and put it on that then. Right now it's just too much of a pain in ...... !

    Thanks for all the help......"I'll be back" Remember it's just an experiment!

    That's funny I've had great success with linux and built in graphics (mostly IBM workstations of the same vintage or just a tad better as your compaq).

    If you can get to the login prompt you're golden, (well, maybe) you should be able to login as root (I'm assuming you didn't set up any other users during setup). you can then enter "startX" or "Xinit" to start the GUI. If the GUI is hosed you should be able to run XF86Config (There may also be a SUSE specific utility) to configure Xwindows...

  6. #6
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Aug 1999
    Location
    Duluth, MN U. S.A.
    Posts
    2,352
    While I'm no expert of linux by any means but I do use suse and I've tried installing it on a compaq. I've had no end of problems getting linux to run on them. I was using suse 8.1 I think but it may have even been 7.0 as I had both at the time. Often times the compaq just wounldn't boot.... I think it has something to do with the old compaq bios....
    Don't hate me because I'm a US citizen!

  7. #7
    Registered User xsrvx's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2000
    Location
    Richardson,TX 75081
    Posts
    278
    Quote Originally Posted by digi
    I've loaded..reloaded..and reloaded. Then talked to support ( very helpful) and still have no Os! It's the machine! It's an old Compaq 200 mhz Pent W a built in Grahpics card and that seems to be the problem at this point. Boots directly to Grub. Changed to Lilo went through boot and stoped after enter name and pass @ Linux # ~ or something.
    Basically I will make a better CPu and put it on that then. Right now it's just too much of a pain in ...... !

    Thanks for all the help......"I'll be back" Remember it's just an experiment!
    Okay so you have an Xserver problem now. I would do what the previous poster said with startx. If that fails then you can run the Suse tool to configure it and I think it is sax2. The only problem is you need to know what hardware you have as in the onboard video, most of the time you need to know down to the chipset.
    Also never log in as root, always use sudo or su when you need root access.
    If you did not create a user during the install the first thing you should do is create a user and a password.

  8. #8
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Posts
    43

    Smile Great Thank you

    Everyone has been very helpful ! I started all over again on a different machine all is "moving along fine" Thanks again..I'm sure i'll be back :0

Similar Threads

  1. Power Supply Recommendation
    By athlon in forum Tech-To-Tech
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: February 23rd, 2004, 10:09 AM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •