Live CD Won't Boot

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: Live CD Won't Boot
started by: jimbo62

Posted by jimbo62 on April 23 2005,14:41

I booted two systems with the Live CD, version 1.0.1, with no problems. But on my third system, the boot fails. I have tried several boot options with no luck. When I boot with the option, "dsl xsetup", the boot proceeds through Xvesa configuration, usb mouse, 800x600 resolution, 16 bit color, skip dpi and us keyboard with no problems. But immediately after the last Xvesa configuration step, us keyboard, there are a couple of messages that display and blank so fast that I can't read them, except they say something about a file and something about Xauthority. Then the screen goes dark and all activity ends. I have to power down to recover control.

Any ideas what is going on? I would really like to get DSL working on this computer.

Thanks, jimbo

Posted by cbagger01 on April 23 2005,18:44

Try booting with this command:

fb800x600

and see if it helps.

Posted by jimbo62 on April 23 2005,22:26

That worked! And when DSL was up and running, I was able to change to Xvesa and set resolution to 1024x768 with 16 bit color.

My system is far from being "an older laptop", so why do I have to use slower, less flexible frame buffer to boot?

Thanks for the help, jimbo

Posted by Rapidweather on April 23 2005,22:37

For an example, here is what I have to enter on the boot: line for Knoppix:
boot: fb800x600 knoppix acpi=off myconfig=scan
That is for a Toshiba 4015CDS laptop, a pentium II, with 160 MB ram.
I would consider myself lucky if all you have to enter is:
boot: fb800x600
I have found that many of the livecd distros have complicated (moreso than DSL) boot lines, or requirements. Some provide sample boot lines in a tab list, and I found one that you only have one second to tab to the only one that will work. DSL usually boots without much fuss, and the offering of the syslinux versions as well as the isolinux versions insures that everyone will be able to get DSL to boot on their machines.
As a side note, the SuSE Live Eval CD version often will not boot on the first, or even the second try. PCLinuxOS will boot everytime, but only offers a persistant home directory restoration option, and on USB pen drives, that can sometimes fail to boot.
Point is, if you have broadband, and sample all of the distros, you can then appreciate the quality of DSL. These folks sure work hard to get everything right.