[NTLUG:Discuss] Problem running openSUSE Live

[Leroy Tennison]

Russ wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Though I didn't get any replies to this email I thought I would share
> my experience.
> 
> Because I have all the time in the world, I downloaded and verified
> MD5 sums on all the downloads.  Then I did 'media check' which is the
> internal MD5 sum to check on the writes to the CD or DVD.  All the
> downloads passed or download MD5, all the DVD writes passed the media
> checks, but none of the CDs passed the media checks.
> 
> Moreover, the Live CDs would only load on a Via box and an Intel box,
> but would not load to the AMD HP-pavilion desktop.  Even playing with
> the GRUB screen parameters which was suggested to me locally, did not
> help.  The DVD, though not a Live distro, did load to the  HP.
> 
> I wrote the CDs on another PC and those writes again failed with
> regard to the internal media checks.
> 
> So, despite the failure of the media checks, I have 'gutted up' and
> loaded a Gnome version to the Via machine as a single boot, a KDE 4
> version to a laptop dual-boot, and the DVD Gnome write to the HP as a
> dual-boot.  So far, with the exception of speed (different CPUs, bus
> speeds, and RAM), all are performing well.  In order to install in the
> laptop I had define the screen resolution to 1024x768 at the start
> page for the KDE 4 Live CD.  It failed on the default 1280x1024.
> 
> --
> Russ
> 
> "Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
> --Mark Twain
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 6:22 PM, Russ <russ.barrows at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I downloaded the live CD ISOs for both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions
>> for the x86 CPU.  So far the Gnome versions are the only ones I've
>> downloaded.  I was planning to load it to a laptop dual-boot with XP
>> but also wanted to see the distro's performance on other PCs I own.
>>
>> This is the situation.  I can run the 32 bit CD on both my laptop
>> (Pentium III) and a beige box with a Via CPU without problems.
>> However, I don't get beyond the last openSUSE splash screen before the
>> gnome or KDE screens are displayed with either the 32 bit or the 64
>> bit versions on an HP desktop (pavilion a810n with 2 gB RAM).  The
>> splash screen is displayed and the CD drive light flickers, more or
>> less continuously, without going any further.  I have left it for 30
>> minutes to see if I was just being impatient which is unlikely since
>> the CPU in the HP box is very much faster and the much more RAM than
>> either the laptop or the Via machine.
>>
>> Thinking that possibly the CD drive was malfunctioning, I ran live
>> versions of Ubuntu, Kanotix, Slax, and Knoppix without problems on the
>> HP.  As far as I know the CD drive is working well.  What should I do
>> next?
>>
>> --
>> Russ
>>
>> "Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
>> --Mark Twain
> 
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> 

I don't know if it still applies or not but I have heard of a case where
Windows' networking would work on clone machines but not an HP.  HP (at
least in the past) has clung to it's proprietary ways to the extent that
things which worked elsewhere didn't on their hardware.  Their Vectra's
seemed to have a "reputation" for this.

Concerning the VIA, pay attention if you have any quirky things happen.
 I bought a VIA-based motherboard (in fact, I still have it, anyone
interested, it was barely used...) and loaded Linux on it but things
were weird.  I haven't had problems on sis-based motherboards.