help setting up video card and monitor

[accguy9009]

I have been running PCLinuxOS2007 as a live CD on an older box, P3 800MHz, 512 MB ram, with an Nvidia 5200 PCI video card. I needed to run the live CD in Safe mode with FB (frame buffer?).
It ran surprisingly well. I even got my Netgear wireless USB Adapter, WG111v2, working using the windows driver and NDIS wrapper. So I decided to install on my slave ATA drive, an 80GB WD drive. I used Wipe Drive to wipe the drive and installed. I used the auto allocate option and the OS set up boot, home and swap partions. Grub installs fine. I can select Windows XP from the bootloader and that
OS runs fine from the master HD. When I select Linux in Grub the OS will not load.I get the black screen( not the one with the red root icon) and am asked to log on and then for my password. logon and password are correct.
I get some error message.I thought it was my video card so I tried the intel integrated graphics
(its an 810 chipset board) same thing. I installed a Radeon 9250 PCI video card and I get the same thing. I popped in a live CD for Suse 9.2 and I get a screen that says I need to configure my XORG (?) with settings for my monitor, video card(dual head) etc. I could not quite get it figured out. I think this is my problem. How do I get to this screen so I can correctly configure this set up?

I have reinstalled the OS about 5 times, always the same thing. For what it is worth I got PCLinuxOS 2007 working in Virtualbox on my XP HD. Its sluggish as expected. I really want to run this OS. Help, suggestions & feedback desperately needed.


Please do not suggest I try Ubuntu. I
have tried 6.06, 7.04, 7.10 and XUbuntu. The live CD will not even run. This machine does not like Ubuntu or Ubuntu does not like it


Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

 

[accguy9009]

Finally figured out my problem. It was the PCI graphics card. Even though I used two different working cards it appears Linux out of the box does not care for this. I tried(again) the 810 chipset integrated graphics using Mandriva 2008. Works like a charm. Wireless USB adapter support was incredible. Not even one command line entry was needed. I love Mandriva 2008!!

 

[Netopia]

Hmmm.... I only read this post after you had posted a solution, but just for kicks, I think I may take a look at Mandriva. This is the old Mandrake Linux, no? I'd played with Mandrake several years ago and liked it.

Joe

 

[accguy9009]

Yes, you are correct. After getting Mandriva 2008 up and running I was able to go into the control center and configue my ATI PCI graphics card and get that working. Mandriva 2008 is a very slick OS and I prefer it to Ubuntu. I reccomend playing around with the live cd and if it feels right for you go ahead and install it.