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Boot problems with Linux Mandrake 8.1

S

Salvador

Diamond Member
I'm relatively new to Linux and need some help. I had Linux Mandrake 8.1 up and running and then when I went to boot into Linux this afternoon, it got to the part of the bootup where the Penguin is displayed and shows you the version of your Linux. What happens then is the screen just flashes and it doesn't continue to boot.

Any ideas? I have a Linux boot disc, but I don't know how that would work considering that I am triple booting on this machine. I basically need help diagnosing this problem.


TIA,

Sal
 
Yes.. Just flashes and finally says respawning too fast. Disabled for 5 minutes. You know, i just realized that I swapped video cards between the time that I installed Linux and the attempts to get into Linux this afternoon. Could the hardware be causing the boot problem? How would I go about setting up the new hardware?

If something is really messed up with the MBR, can I just reinstall Linux over the existing install like you can in Windows? I'm not sure how this works.

Anyway.. Thanks again!

Sal

 
Well, you have found the source of your own problem. X Windows doesn't react well to abruptly swapping the video hardware. Either the X server is the wrong one for your new video card or you are attempting to display X at resolutions/refresh rates that the card can't handle.

You'll need to reconfigure X Windows to choose a different X server. Please tell us the name/chipset of the old video card and the new one you put in.
 
I don't know what chipset. The old card was a ATI Expert 128 16 mb PCI card and the new one is the ATI Radeon 32 mb PCI card. I would think that the Radeon would be able to handle anything that the 128 Expert card could and more.

Sal
 
It can, but the drivers for it are quite different than the Expert 128 drivers. NM about the MBR, I misread your question it's booting fine just not getting into X. Apparently you have it setup so that upon boot it tries to get into X, NOT a good idea most of the time. There should be a button you can press at the LILO graphical boot menu to bring up to the text version of LILO which is what you'll need in this situation. Once you bring up the text LILO type in 'linux 3' this will startup Linux at the multiuser level but it won't startup the X server. You should see a prompt for your login and password. Login as root and run 'XConfigurator' set it up for your new video card and you should be good to go.
 
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