On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 18:12, you wrote: > Hello everybody > As a new-comer to the list I feel very embarrassed about asking for > help but here goes. No need to feel embarassed.
> I have been trying to install Mandrake 9.1 onto my old HP system and it > loads ok but it will not boot up in the new system as it should - I was > running Windows 98 and reformatted the system to accept Mandrake. The > system in question is a 300mhz AMD K6-2 proc and 256M of ram Linux will run quite acceptably on a machine with those specs. > but all I > ever get after 5, yes 5, loading sessions is what appears to be a pale > blue desktop screen and nothing else. Therefore it looks as if the XFree86 server is running, and the bootup process stopping there. Or we could be dropping into twm? Is the pale blue actually a sort of rather greeny teal-like blue or turquoise in colour? If so this is the colour of the background to simplest windowing system, called twm. What happens if you click the left hand mouse button? > I am very keen to use this OS but > it is driving me crazy after all this. > If I can get it to work I am considering installing it on my new > system. > > Any advice that list members could give me about what I am doing > wrong would be much appreciated. It is probably a very simple thing so > HELP. It would help us tremendously to help you if you would be so kind as to tell us what sort of video card is installed. If you do not know there are a couple of programs which will help If you could log in as the root use to the machine from one of the virtual terminals, the black screen you get when you press ctrl-alt and F1 simultaneously. Now issue the following command:- SuperProbe and the black screen will tell you the details, if that does not work you could try:- XFree86 -probeonly Please post the results. Geographically whereabouts are you? If you are in the Christchurch area one of us could probably pop around to at least get you going. Othere posters have mentioned that you might have faulty disks. Do you know how to test them using the md5sum utility? -- C. S.
