Laptops :: HP Pavilion problem - can't boot from Live CD



Hi, I'm an absolute newbie to Linux and thought that DSL would be a good introduction. Unfortunately I'm having difficulties getting it to boot in the first place.

I have a HP Pavilion ze4500 laptop with a 518MHz processor and 192MB of RAM. I've burnt a Live CD from the standard ISO (dsl-3.0.1.iso), and when I switch on the computer with that in the drive, it gets to the logo screen and the first prompt all right, but then whatever I do, I can't get DSL to load.

I've tried most of the more obvious boot options (like failsafe, lowram and so on) as well as less obvious ones like a couple of the fb options, but either everything instantly vanishes and I'm left with a black screen, or it gives me a few lines of text and then refuses to respond or do anything at all. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to hold down the power button becaue absolutely nothing else responds.

The weird thing is that DSL ran fine under QEMU from inside Windows XP on the same machine, just too slowly to be of any use, so I'd imagine it's not a deficit of RAM or anything. Any help would be very much appreciated!

ZsigE
Did you try vga=normal or try the power options? (i.e. noapm/noapic/noacpi)

Quote
The weird thing is that DSL ran fine under QEMU from inside Windows XP on the same machine

That's not weird at all, your host computer already is set up.
I hadn't tried those before, but I have now. vga=normal looked like it was getting me there; that means it crashed immediately after "Ok, booting the kernel" instead of immediately before.

The power options didn't make any appreciable difference - I tried using them all at the same time, and that didn't help either. I had another go with lowram, which gives me a whole heap more text; the last line before it stopped was "ACPI: IRQ9 SCI: Level Trigger", if that means anything to you. I did also try combining the power options with lowram, given that the above line begins with ACPI, but again no joy.

Thanks for the suggestions...any other ideas?
Check out:
http://richard.esplins.org/answers/laptop_answers.html

If the ze4500 is similar to the 4560, then some of
this info may help:
http://www.worldofjon.com/artze4560us.html

It sounds like the PCMCIA and ethernet have conflicts
with IRQ11.

Try adding the "nopcmcia" option when booting.  If you get it
installed ths way, you should be able to tweak things to allow
the pcmcia to work.

It also mentions "acpi=force", but I don't know if DSL
will pass that to the kernel.  Maybe a "noapm" will help.
The full list of knoppix boot options (many - dsl inherits these, since Knoppix3.4 is dsl's mama) can be found on a Knoppix3.4 cd, and probably online somewhere.  I have them but not with me now.

As gathered from the previous posts, try switching absolutely everything off.

However, it's possible there are laptops out there that just won't boot knoppix or dsl.
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