danleff

Welcome! First, let me ask some questions. Did you do the online update, or system update when you used Yast2? I have never done the system update, but will try to help. Do you have a NVIDIA video card in your system? Maybe you could give some specs. on your system, which may help troubleshoot. Lilo, the bootloader is invoked by typing the following at a command line (terminal window); /sbin/lilo It sounds like the X (graphical environment) may have gotten toasted in the process. Let's try this. When you get the command prompt that asks for the username, type in the username that you picked during the install, hit the enter key. When prompted for the password, enter the user password that you picked during the install. If you get just a command prompt, with no errors, which you should, then type the following at the command line; startx Let us know if you get the GUI, or a bunch of errors. If the GUI does not come up, try the /sbin/lilo command as stated above. This should give you a list of the boot options that lilo added. Once this is done, then type the following; su (hit the enter key) If prompted for the password, enter the root password (not the user password), then hit the enter key. Type in reboot (hit the enter key). Allow the system to reboot, get into SuSE and see what happens.

Which Linux distro and version are you using?

Ahh..Dapper Dan refreshed my memory. Also, the Diamond Supra Express exernal 56K serial modem also works out of the box, if you can find one!

I looked up your modem at the following site; http://www.idir.net/~gromitkc/winmodem.html Unfortunately, it is listed as not currently supported in Linux. I also had one of these Ham (Intel/Abient) modems several years ago and did not get it to work. I would suggest doing a google search on the model number and adding "Linux" to the search. Sorry that I could not be more helpful. An alternative would be to look for a "hard modem" to buy, but again, there are few of them around. If you do decide to do this, make sure that it is listed as a full hardware modem, not a "Winmodem."

AOL is designed as software to run in a Windows environment. I do know that some have got it to work, with some effort, more designed for someone more expert in tinkering in Linux. In otherwords, it's not easy. The second issue is the modem that you are using. If your modem is a so called softmodem, or winmodem, not a hardware based modem (one that does not use the system's processor, but has it's own chip to run it's processes) then this is another hurdle to overcome, if at all. It all depends on the exact modem and distro (version of Linux). Perhaps you could post what "brand" of Linux that you are using (Redhat, Mandrake) and someone else could respond more competently. Also, note, if you can, what exact make and model modem that you have. Or, is this by ethernet?

Not a good sign. I would suggest that there are two issues, both hardware. First, this is a nVIDIA based chipset on the board, still new to linux and from what I have gathered, you would need to do a custom recompile of the kernel. Secondly, lots of people have reported issues with some of the ATI based cards with Linux. As DapperDan would say, you may want to burn a copy of the latest release of Knoppix and see if this works. This is a CD based distro (runs totally from the burned cd). If this works, then there is some hope. Perhaps, someone else here on the boards has a more definitive answer. P.S. Take a look at this link; http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5348 Mepis apparently works with your card!

Aumix can be invoked at the command line, or start (the ¨K¨ menu ) > multimedia > sound > aumix. Try moving the vol, spkr and CD settings to 100%. Sometimes, by default they are interestingly set to 0.

If you did not install an updated xfree86 version before this happened, yes, it should replace the old config file. This, as you may have guessed, this represents either a problem with the onboard video, or monitor resolution. Try redoing the XF86Config with the exact stats from the monitor, such as the horizontal and vertical refresh rates. You should be able to get these values from te users manual, or on the Compaq/HP website. Of course, if the video chip is not listed as supported on the Mandrake site, then this is most likely the problem. Of course, you could try another video chip choice in the same family, if you can determine what related chip it is the closest to. You may also want to be conservative on the resolution size, say picking 800X600 to see if you can get it to work, then go from there. I found that my LCD monitor was a little tricky and I had to fool with the settings to get it to work properly. I just found the following article that may be of interest; http://sylvestre.ledru.info/howto/presario_2500_vo.php

In my experience, this is, as you may have guessed, a problem with a piece of hardware attached to the system. Can you give some specs. on your system, especially any externally attached hardware, such as usb devices? My Mandrake system had trouble with an external zip drive attached to a pci secondary parallel port. I have also seen some sound cards hang the system. Please also incude specs. on RAM and processor type and speed.

A wild quess on this one. Are you root user when attempting to write to this file?

Actually, this is good. You don't have to worry about the rest, like the partitions and such. I would just go ahead and reinstall. If the CD defaults to a text install, then there may be issues with your hardware compatibility, such as the video card. Let us know what happens. If you still have problems, let us know what your system specs are, if possible. This is not a Compaq or HP system, is it?

Yast, I think, should have added needed packages, however, I found that this is not always the case. I do not have a DVD installed on my system, but here is a link you might try; http://packman.links2linux.org/?action=325 Quick and dirty? I would uninstall the Kaffeine package, if you just installed it, and try installing libxine first, xwine, if not already installed in the process, then Kaffeine. Refer to the link I gave you. If Kaffeine was installed during the SuSE installation from the start, I have no idea. But there is definitely something missing, such as a library file.

As a general rule, yes. However, things are a changing. What distro of Linux are you installing? Redhat 9, Mandrake 9.2...

I agree. Good questions about the system, as it may be important to know where Mandrake was installed originally, so that he can choose the correct partition for the new install. Looking at the information that I got so far, my guess is that a text install does a minimal install w/o X, unless you know what you are doing. The graphical install will guide him through the process more fully. This way he can choose workstation as the option, then choose the packages, or default to a full install, as you suggested. Newtothis, when the graphical install goes to the part where there are packages to select, either make sure that all the choices on the left have an "x" (they are chosen); as well as choosing the boxes on the right side of the screen for a graphical environemnt, such as "KDE" as you graphical environment. If you choose all the options, the install will take more time, but as DapperDan stated, you can remove them later. This assumes that you have enough disk space alloted for the install available on your hard drive. So, if you have plenty of disk space, say 10 gigs that you can use for Mandrake (this will give you enough space for a good work environment and allow you to download things that you may need later), go for it. At the least, you should have 5 gigs for a good working system.

Looks like x-windows and the graphical environment did not get installed. I can't remember the options that you get at a text install, but my guess is that you did a minimal install, without the graphical environment. I will have to look at the Mandrake install process and post back, unless, DapperDan has it tucked away on rote memory. Thanks for posting all the details, this really helps.

Hope you don mind me answering with some questions. First, what type of system are you using, a laptop or desktop? What type of install did you choose during the install, workstation, desktop...? Did you accept the default installation of a graphical interface with the x windows system? Finally, try logging in at the prompt with ¨root¨ as the user name (without the quotes) and then your root password, as the password. Remember, that you should make sure that you login case sensitive, make sure that any caps that you may have used as a password are included, if any. If you get a successful login (just a prompt with no error messages), then we will go from there. I assume that you are getting a message with your past attempts, such as a login failure message?

I hate to give the same pat answer, but let me ask, what speed did you burn the images at and with what CD burning software? I have seen bad burns halt like this. You generally want to burn the images on a CD-R, as I also have seen CD-RW´s fail on installs, especially if the image is not installed using the same drive that the burn was completed on. So, assure that you burn the image at 8X or less speed on a CD-R and check the MDSUM first to make sure that the download was solid. Boot from the same CDRW drive, not a secondary CDROM drive, which may have issues with the format of the image.

If you mean that you have a CF single card reader, probably, depending on the Linux distro that you are using. If it is a newer version, such as Mandrake 9, my system will read a jump drive with no problem. From what I have gathered from the Pupply Linux site, the multicard readers will not, since Linux will only recognize the first slot. So, if you have a single card reader, with a 128 mb card, try it out. Linux will usually see it as sda1 or sda. Look at dmesg and see if the card is recognized as either sda1 or sda.

Unfortunately, USB externel adapters are not quite yet well supported in Linux. This is improving. Which Linux distro and version are you using? I use a D-Link wireless router on my system, which works well. I found that the simple solution is to get a router, hook the cable modem to the router's primary connector and use the router's other ethernet connectors to connect to the other systems. Most common routers are supported quite well with the newer distros.

Unfortunately, when you install, or re-install Windows after Linux, the bootloader gets overwritten by Windows. Depending on what distro of Linux that you installed, you may be able to use the first CD (install disk) to boot to Linux and fix the problem. Which distro do you have? RedHat, Mandrake...? You will also need to know what partition that your distro installed onto, such as hda1. hda2...etc. P.S. I see that your question has already been answered well by the sysop.

You did not mention what make and model of modem that you are using. If it is a winmodem or ¨softmodem" you may still have difficulty getting it to run with Linux. Did you look and see if it is supported in Mandrake, by checking the Mandrake supported hardware site?

USB seems to be an issue. Look at this thread; http://www.linuxcompatible.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=911

Quote: Red Hat which was included with a book I got. Hmmm...what version of RedHat came with the book?

I'm probably out of my league here, but support for the emu10k1 should be built in already. I voice is telling me that there may have been an issue with audigy sound cards and that module, but I am not sure. Hopefully someone will respond who has experience with one of these. Do you have alsa installed on this system? What happens if you just type in, at a command line. modprobe emu10k1 ? Does it give you an error or just return a command pronpt. I have a SB Live card that I have yet to install, so this will be helpful to me also.

I'm sure that you will get a lot of opinions on this, but here is my two cents; I use athlon boards exclusively. Currently I have a Soyo K7VTA-pro that runs like a champ. I also have a Soyo Dragon Plus, which is also nice, since it is raid, but you are able to use six ide ports without raid fine. I have used Thunderbird 1.3 and Athlon XP processors which all run fine with varous distros, Mandrake, SuSE, Lindows, Debian.... I agree, The Nforce chips are new, but support in the new kernels is there. This generally takes a recompile of the kernel. I would have to look to see if Mandrake 9.2 does it out of the box. Memory. Again, this is really the core of how well and fast the system wiill run. At least 128 mb, with 256 working very well. Since memory is so cheap, I would go with 256, if you can. Get a board with onboard sound and video, then you can add a cheap Realtek ethernet card that will work out of the box. All older video cards should work fine. You can also check out the distros web site to see if the card is supported. Look at Tigerdirect and Computergeeks, who have good deals on motherboard/processor bundles. Even if you get an older board and want to use a Barton processor, many web sites have bios updates for this processor on their web sites. I don't have any expereince with these processors yet, but any processor at or above 1.0 should work well.