[Niels82]

Hey,
I recently got a laptop with ATI mobility radeon 9700, and want to install fedora core 3.
When I try to start the installation process nothing happens - black screen. I suppose it is not suppored ?

Any tips as to what I should do, or am I out of luck and must wait ?

[danleff]

From what I have read, it should work. What make and model laptop is this?

Try popping the install disk into a desktop and see if the install starts or if you have a bad cd.

[Niels82]

I used the same CDs to install it on my desktop so they are fine.
It's an Aopen 1557

[OldSpiceAP]

I don't know if this is the same issue or not, but I had that happen with my SuSE 8.2 CD. I'd put in the 1st cd and boot up and it would just go to a black screen. I read the documentation (something I hate doing ) and found that the first disk is made in such a way as to be bootable on most all systems, but some have problems, so there is a different type of boot cd on disk 2. It worked then asked for disk one and the install went on through. The problem apparantly was that my drive was a cheapo laptop drive. It didn't work with the newer type bootable cd's. Try booting up with disk 2 - maybe it is like SuSE in that regard.

Good luck -

if its a video problem - you might try searching for a way to startup without vesa... especially since its an lcd screen.

[danleff]

You sparked my memory on this. It happens in Mandrake, as well.

Laptop cdrom drives are funky about accepting boot cd's at times.

I had a 24X in my old lappy that by rights should have worked, but would not boot a boot cd.

Switched it out for a 20X cdrom drve and no problems.

Same thing with my Thinkpad. Switched the original 24X cdrom drive for the cdrw and it boots an install or bootable cd disk every time.

Yes, try the second cdrom first. If you get a Fedora screen that mentions the cd not being an install cd, then swap in cd #1 and hit enter to continue.

[Niels82]

I remember having to use disc 2 installing mandrake on my desktop long time ago.

It appears however, that disc 2 of FE3 does not boot on my laptop or desktop.
Disc 1 boots on both, works fine on desktop, but on laptop I get to
# running /sbin/loader
..then it all goes black and nothing ever happens.
I tried installing under "linux text" but that one also goes black

[danleff]

From what I have read, this is the same issue. older cdrom drive in a desktop, or an incompatible cdrom drive in the laptop that can't lock down the burned cd properly.

I also found an interesting read on dma issues here. Although it's an older article, it still is an interesting read, especially for laptops.

[Niels82]

the article you linked to didn't help neither
gotta be a way to fix this right ? anything I can do ?

[OldSpiceAP]

Another idea that might work... maybe...I'm just going off my head here with no real certainty at all, but does your laptop have a floppy disk drive and a cdrom drive or do you have to switch them out so that you can only have one in at a time? If you can do both, then try finding a good linux boot disk or a small linux distro that fits on 2 or 3 floppies. Boot into the floppy disk and then mount the cdrom with the following:

first - find an empty directory to mount the cdrom drive to.

then

mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

where /dev/cdrom is the device name of your cdrom, and /mnt/cdrom is the path to the directory you want the cd mounted in.

then cd into the cdrom directory and look for a setup file like
setup.sh

or something like that and run it with

./setup.sh

good luck!

[OldSpiceAP]

This just occured to me, I don't know if it will help or not, but I have also had a problem with lcd screens like on laptops. When I tried to install yoper linux on my armada 7800 it would bring up the bootloader and i'd type boot
and then
install
and the screen would go black - but the drive continued accessing like it was doing something.
After yanking out most of my hair I tried plugging in a crt screen to the laptops rear port before starting the install and it all went fine on that screen - I have no idea why - maybe the lcd didn't support the video mode it was passed (Maybe cause it was XGA?). Anyways - once installed the lcd worked fine but I couldn't use a bootsplash - I had to watch all the fun scrolling linux loading text. Not a big deal though..

[Niels82]

I don't have a CRT but I tried with theLCD on my desktop and it worked!
I did the install process with that one (I think it found radeon 9600 instead of 9700 but frankly I don't care right now), then when I was done I started up normal again and it all seems to work without me even saying anything which screen it is.
Kinda weird but I guess it went automaticly, just didn't work during the install for some reason

Thanks for the help anyway, for others with the same problem it is definately worth trying - worked for me!