Q: I am relatively new to Linux and need some help. I have Linux Mandrake 8.1 up and running and then I went to boot into Linux this afternoon, got to the part of the shoe where the Penguin is displayed and shows you the version of Linux. What happens is the screen just flashes and does not remain boot.
Any ideas? I have a Linux boot disk, but I do not know how that would work given that Im triple booting on this machine. I need help in diagnosing the principle problem.
TIA,
Sal
Re:I don't agree that booting into X is "NOT a good idea most of the time", but the rest of your advice is spot-on.
Re:It can, but the drivers for it are quite different than the Expert 128 drivers. NM about the MBR, I misread your question it's booting fine just not getting into X. Apparently you have it setup so that upon boot it tries to get into X, NOT a good idea most of the time. There should be a button you can press at the LILO graphical boot menu to bring up to the text version of LILO which is what you'll need in this situation. Once you bring up the text LILO type in 'linux 3' this will startup Linux at the multiuser level but it won't startup the X server. You should see a prompt for your login and password. Login as root and run 'XConfigurator' set it up for your new video card and you should be good to go.
Re:I don't know what chipset. The old card was a ATI Expert 128 16 mb PCI card and the new one is the ATI Radeon 32 mb PCI card. I would think that the Radeon would be able to handle anything that the 128 Expert card could and more.
Sal
Re:Well, you have found the source of your own problem. X Windows doesn't react well to abruptly swapping the video hardware. Either the X server is the wrong one for your new video card or you are attempting to display X at resolutions/refresh rates that the card can't handle.
You'll need to reconfigure X Windows to choose a different X server. Please tell us the name/chipset of the old video card and the new one you put in.
Re:Yes.. Just flashes and finally says respawning too fast. Disabled for 5 minutes. You know, i just realized that I swapped video cards between the time that I installed Linux and the attempts to get into Linux this afternoon. Could the hardware be causing the boot problem? How would I go about setting up the new hardware?
If something is really messed up with the MBR, can I just reinstall Linux over the existing install like you can in Windows? I'm not sure how this works.
Anyway.. Thanks again!
Sal
Re:Just flashes huh? Could be something wrong with the MBR, not quite sure though. It would be easier if some sort of text message flashed up. The boot disk should get you into linux, albeit slowly. Pay a visit to this page and see if the instructions found within help you at all http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/LILO-crash-rescue-HOWTO-1.html#ss1.3
0 Comments.