OpenSuse won't boot on HP Omnibook vt6200

[Jhangles]

Hello everyone,

First off, I will start by saying I am a complete novice when it comes to Linux.

Recently, a friend of mine gave me a used HP Omnibook vt6200. He wanted to keep the copy he had of Windows XP for another computer, so I was tasked with installing a new OS on the laptop.

I've always wanted to learn about Linux, so I figured that this was the perfect opportunity for that.

My friend recommended Fedora 10, so I tried installing that. It installed fine, but during the set-up/welcome after the install it hung up, displaying only multi-colored "clouds".

So then I tried installing Ubuntu. That distro installed just fine, and booted up to the desktop, but unfortunately I was unable to click anything, or do anything at all from the desktop.

Then I came here and read the "All new users read first" sticky. I did the test linked from that thread, to determine the best distro for me to use. The top recommendation I got was openSUSE.

So I installed openSUSE 11.1, using the KDE4 liveCD. It worked perfectly running from the CD in "Failsafe" mode, and then installed easily. It gave me the message to reboot the computer without the CD in the drive. I restarted from the desktop, then removed the CD before it booted.

After taking a really long time to boot up, I end up getting a black screen with light-colored verticle lines.

I tried googling this issue, but unfortunately I was sure exactly what search terms to use, and didn't find anything specifically for this issue.

Anyone any suggestions on where I should even start? I'm not sure where to go from here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

-Beau

[D-cat]

That's interesting. I would personally (actually, I DO personally ) get the install DVD, then install with a Gnome or KDE 3.5 interface... KDE 4 off the disc is kind of buggy.

Enough of my preferences though. Okay, for you, have you tried booting in failsafe mode off the hard drive? This mode disables a bunch of power management and optimization stuff that can lock some computers up cold. If it works, we can go through the options one by one and then permanently set up the working option(s) in the default config. It might be having issues with the graphics driver too, but we can work with that after the fact.

In failsafe mode, you are sometimes presented with just a text screen with "login:". If that happens, just log in with your user name and password, then type startx at the prompt to bring up the desktop.

[Jhangles]

I originally ran it on failsafe mode off of the LiveCD. The only reason I installed it from CD's and not the DVD, is because the computer I was downloading it with didn't have a DVD drive.

Unfortunately I don't know how to boot in failsafe mode off of the hard drive. How do I do that? I've been looking around on opensuse .org, but I can't find any basic tutorials on how to get into failsafe mode. I apologize for being such a novice.

-Beau

[gogalthorp]

It should be an option on the boot screen.