Suse8.2 Install crashing

[pete.morgan 0]

Guys I am new to the linux O/S (years of working with, and becoming an expert at Windows), so after a bit of investigation I choose Suse8.2 as my starting point.

Unfortuanatley I dont seem to be getting very far, as the install process freezes up on me everytime (have tried all options off the install list).

 

Basic system specs are the following:

 

Abit NF7-S V2.0

AMD Athlon 2600+

1GB Corsair XMS3500 (2x512mb Dual Channel)

2 x SATA Western Digital Raptors Raid0

ATI 9700 Pro

SB Audigy 2

Belkin USB2 card

 

I boot from CD, and get a menu to select from (three install options), no matter which option I choose after a few seconds the screen goes black and thats how it stays. I take it it doesn't like something in my system, but I'm not sure what, or what I can do about it?

 

 

Is there anything here that you would say "Yep theres your problem"? Im thinking its probabley the USB2 card, SATA or the Audigy2, can anyone help?

 

I also have WinXP installed (wanted to dual boot), and could do with keeping my extra USB2 ports as I use them all)

 

Cheers Pete.

[pete.morgan 0]

Just to update, I have resolved the first problem, it doesn't like 1GB of ram. Took one of the 512mb sticks out and it went straight into the install process. Linux doesn't support 1GB of ram? eh?

 

Anyway, guess what, it goes into the install process, askes for a country selection, then says "analysing your system" and just sits there, locked up. I have tried all the various instal options including APIC disabled and safest settings.

 

Have to say I'm not have the best of times here, I'll keep working at it but frankly i think it just doesn't support the modern hardware in my machine.

[Admiral LSD 0]

The Linux kernel should handle 1Gb of RAM without any hassle, it could be SuSE have done somehting with their installation kernel that's causing your problem or it could be the lack of real support for the nForce2 memory controller. Try putting the RAM in single channel mode and seeing what happens.

 

That brings up another important point: nForce2 is currently quite poorly supported under Linux, particularly with regard to ATi graphics cards. If you want this combination to work reasonably well I'd suggest you avoid the larger distros and instead go for something that uses a relatively clean set of kernel sources like Debian or Gentoo, despite the fact that neither are all that easy to install or use. You'll need to patch the kernel to get 3D working on your 9700 under Linux and it's going to be a lot easier if you have a kernel source tree that isn't bogged down with extraneous fluff that'll prevent the patch from taking properly.