notebook linux

[erabyss]

This post is only to answer Frestions questions. I am not looking for a solution, altho if you have one or would like to find one and post it here I will be more than happy (and eager) to give anything you suggest a try.

With GUI you mean the Graphical User Interface, right??

Because I'm a bit surprised to read that Kubuntu is giving you a hard time reaching the GUI. It may be it's having a problem of some sort. Maybe a driver issue? (I know I always have video driver issues, which luckily are reasonably easy to fix)

And/or you can post here what happens exactly when you boot into Kubuntu.

Does it hang? Does the screen turn black? Does it boot into a textual interface (DOS-like shell)? Error messages? Does it do this when run as LifeCD? Or have you installed it?

:

I would love to be able to post EXACTLY what happened when I booted kubuntu 7.10 from a disk I burned with an .iso file I downloaded from Kubuntu - The KDE Desktop

That would require me to reboot my system twice and have to write down the screen. If you have ever seen my handwriting you will understand why I am avoiding this option (and why I love computers) and opting to go by mememory (sorry I know)

CD is in the driver > system boots up normal > lil kubuntu (ku) box pops up with options like 1) run/install 2) run safe graphics mode 3) i dont remember 4) boot from hard disk > I choose 1 or 2 and meet the same results.

"DOS-like shell" yes it loaded that on a black screen. It had a few short messages talking about users ID (or something to that effect) and something else I did not take note of then my vista account name under that followed be the curser

I played around with some diff commands (I have learn 5, help, exit, reset, reboot, and shutdown but I am not sure what that does)

Evenutally (after 5 or 6 reboots to the disk) I gave up and went to sleep.

[erabyss]

wow, I just booted the disk on the other system. I got a list, the small error i was able to read mentioned a "media error"? It was only on screen for a moment.
then the gui loaded. OH JOY.

[Freston]

This post is only to answer Frestions questions.

More questions I'm afraid.

First. I'm wondering whether you have the full bash shell after boot, or are stuck in the grub shell. Seeing how you have your Vista user name as prompt (how did that happen?), I'm assuming bash shell.

What happens if you type

startx

Three things may happen after you've pressed [enter]. 1) You boot into GUI 2) The screen goes blank and does nothing (although the computer may still show signs of activity) or 3) you get a lot of error messages and fall back to textual mode.


You will probably get error messages. I'm thinking graphics driver issue here. Do you have an exotic graphics card? You can find out by entering:

sudo lspci

If you have trouble interpreting the output, oh... you can't post it here of course. Well, it's possible but I don't want to scare you off with manual mounting and I/O redirection.




One more thing here, and probably important... what happens when you type these two commands?

ls /etc/X11/ | grep vesa
cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep vesa

Be very precise in how you type them. If the first command yields output and the second doesn't than I think the problem is as good as fixed. Post the output here.
(What this does is scan configuration files for the presence of the vesa driver)




EDIT:

wow, I just booted the disk on the other system. I got a list, the small error i was able to read mentioned a "media error"? It was only on screen for a moment.
then the gui loaded. OH JOY.

Ah! Great!

[erabyss]

I do not mind more questions at all. Actually I love them. Thank you. But you have to accept these answers are A) from mememory, B) Coming from a guy that 2 days ago didnt know what linux was....

Sorry I have not taken the time to learn the forum codes yet.

---------------------------------
Grub/Bash shell? you lost me.

startX = I did try that and I got what Im guessing is typical for "bad" commands (are shell commands case sencitive? I used lower case letters)


You know your stuff. 3 and following para are right on the money.

I have 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS installed


Finally I am afraid I can not run a test on this system ATM. I have the disk running on a desktop pc. It actually booted the GUI. It took several minutes but with just under 500mg ram on a several year old system thats expected. But at least I know the error is not the disk.

P.s.
I noticed this is not the upgraded 7.10 I mentioned. I am using the 7.04 release. Only wanted to make that lil error known, I do not know if it is of any value.

[Freston]

I'm hoping I'm not making it to difficult. Under normal operating conditions you shouldn't have to use the textual interface if you don't want to. But! Sometimes to set up the system you can't avoid it.
The trouble with a LiveCD is of course that it doesn't store your changes between boots. Everything you change, is only changed in RAM. Not on the physical disk. That is why you will have to make the same changes every time.

Do you want to bother getting the CD running on the system that doesn't work? It's possible, but remember that unless you install the distro on the hard drive you will have to make the same changes every time.

Grub/Bash shell? you lost me.

Grub is the boot loader. It has a very simple command line to add extra boot options before the OS loads. Bash is the default Gnu/Linux shell. The textual interface. It's something like high octane DOS, if you wish to remember DOS

startX = I did try that and I got what Im guessing is typical for "bad" commands (are shell commands case sencitive? I used lower case letters)

Yep. Bash is case sensitive. I see now that I forgot to mention that. In the last two commands of my previous post this was important. It had a combination of upper and lower case letters.

I have 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS installed

Nvidia cards are well supported. But they may not always work 'out of the box'.

Finally I am afraid I can not run a test on this system ATM. I have the disk running on a desktop pc. It actually booted the GUI. It took several minutes but with just under 500mg ram on a several year old system thats expected. But at least I know the error is not the disk.

Yeah. A CD-ROM never is as fast as a hard drive is. Also, because it's not an installed system, every configuration has to be checked on every boot. That is why it is so slow. 500MB RAM is not much for Kubuntu running from LifeCD, but it's possible. For an installed system it's enough. I have 500MB myself.

Well, have fun running Kubuntu from the desktop. Have a look at the desktop effects somewhere in your system menu. If you activate them you can press ctrl + alt + left_mouse_button to drag the cube around.

[erabyss]

Nope, not at all. You are making it every easy to understand what you are asking. Even as a novice I at least feel like I am able to get what your saying. Hopefully feeling like I get it and actually getting it will be one in the same.

No, I know I would diff get sick of it. Think "Bah linux takes to much work to just to use." and give up. I wouldnt mind playing with this disk a lil, but I am looking to get a good simple to use linux. One that would hold my hand and breast feed me directions would be a wet dream right now. LOL

With a live disk, would it be possible to burn a new disk with my changes?
"I love this option, Ill save this boot (I am not sure what to call it) to another disk, so I can have it every time I start up.

My notebook is pretty much out of the box. I made a few minor changes to the options. Installed some software, of course. But I have not gone in and really change anything in a big way. This system has met my needs to date (about a month) so I havent needed to.

The desttop I was using last night was marked at 512 ram but last time I check the system props it only showed 400somthing. So just under 500ram. The live disk did boot on it. It was slow, taking several minutes to launch. Many of the apps crashed or would not respond. But I am sure that was due to low memory.

My notebook and 2048ram. Just enough for vista. But more than enough for liveCD linux.

You are asking your questions very clearly and your explainations are simple enough that I can understand easily. Thank you. I am willing to work on this as much as you are.

[erabyss]

Ive been having trouble with every linux liveCD I have tryed to boot on my notebook.

I am using a HP pavilion dv6500 notebook. With good specs. 2048ram, intel duel 2.4ghz, nvidia 8400,
I have tryed gentoo I686 liveCD and kubuntu 7.4. I was able to book kubuntu on an old desktop. I also tryed slax.

What do yall think the problem might be?

I took piks of the error msgs for both boots (kubuntu and gentoo). But my memory card died somewere in the 1min between taking the piks and putting the card in my computer. LOL. Second card this camera kooked. Or might have been my notebook. I cant say atm, but thats not important. (2g *crying*)

[devils casper]

It looks like Graphics Card problem. Installers are not configuring your Graphics Card properly.
Try Kubuntu Alternate Installation CD. It has Text Based installer. Its easy to fix Graphics Problem after installation.

[erabyss]

great thank you. 2 more questions.

1) Where can I learn how to fix the problem?

2) What can I do to resolve the problem so I dont see it next time I try a new distro?

[devils casper]

1) Where can I learn how to fix the problem?

Graphics is controlled by /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
There are two ways.
* Edit xorg.conf file manually and set supported Graphics Driver, Resolutions and Refresh Rates in it.
* Execute pre-defined command to configure display settings. Command depends on distro to distro. sax in SuSe, dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg in all flavors of Ubuntu and Debian, and system-config-display in RedHat based distros.

2) What can I do to resolve the problem so I dont see it next time I try a new distro?

Because installers are not configuring your Graphics Card, you are left with only one choice. Use text based installer only. All Linux Distros support text based installation too.