My friend, who I am trying to convert to Linux, has a Toshiba Satellite laptop (Pentium M processor & 495 MB Ram). He installed Mepis 8.5 on it but didn't know how to get wireless to work. I got the wireless to work and suggested that since it was a little sluggish that a lighter weight distro would perform better. I loaded an antiX-M11-base-686 CD on it and the live Cd ran great, so I installed it. But when booting, I get a few lines then the screen goes blank and it just hangs. So I thought it was a video problem. I did another install with the vesa option. Same thing. The live CD looked great, no problems, did the install and the reboot just hangs. I took out the quiet in the boot line and a lot of lines fly by so fast I can't see them well and then the screen goes black and the process hangs. What more information can I give you to help me get this thing ruinning?

All I can think of is posting my /grub/boot/menu.lst in my AntiX 11 full iso install on my IBM A22m to see if that helps.

OK - some details. It has got to be a video graphics problem. From the live CD I can boot the drive into run level 3. Running inxi -G gives me the following: Intel 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device X.org 1.9.5 Res: 128 x 48 Gfx Data: N/A for root out of X.
What can I do to get the graphics to work? Or what should I set on an install to have the install work. The live CD works fine, just when installed the graphics appear to de-rail the boot process.

Try booting with nouveau.modeset=0 removed from boot grub screen.

I am not certain how much this will help, but I would try looking into the boot log. Perhaps starting the computer, booting the installed version. Then when it hangs, turn it off and boot the live cd. Once the live cd boots log in to the terminal as root user and mount the drive you installed to. From here then cd to the /var/log directory of the drive EX: /mnt/sda1/var/log/. CAT the boot log and post the output, this will possibly give an idea of where it is hanging. ( not sure as I have not tried it on a system hangup )

anticapitalista - removing the nouveau.modeset=0 from boot grub screen didn't help. It still hung.
Dave - I did not see any boot log in /var/log. There were several logs, but I am not sure what I am looking for.

Topher wrote:Dave - I did not see any boot log in /var/log. There were several logs, but I am not sure what I am looking for.

There should be a log named boot in /var/log, it may or may not be there. I was not sure if it would log in the event of a system hang up, but I thought it may be worth a shot.

Also, try adding a 3 to the end of the grub boot line to boot into init level 3. If this does work then log in as root and run through sgfxi, it should upgrade your graphics drivers for you.

I can log in at run level 3. i was wondering if sgfi would help. I'll try it. Do I have to down load anything? I think I noticed sgfxi somewhere when looking around before installation.

OK, I ran sgfxi and at the end it brought up a desk top. Upon re-booting, it still hangs up somewhere. But if I boot up at run level 3, log in and then run startx, I get the desktop. There must be some way to see where it is hanging. But right now I am going to bed, maybe inspiration will come to me in the wee hours of the morning.

Topher,

Try appending the boot code with

nomodeset agp=off

cheers,
ohh

Also try running slim manually.
Boot up to init three and type slim instead of startx to see if that will work

oldhoghead - Booting with nomodeset agp=off appended, just gets me to run level 3. The same as booting directly to run level 3.
Dave - Booting to run level 3 and trying to run slim - says only root can do that. If I do it as root, then I get the window manager. But booting to run level 3 and running startx does the same thing without having to be root.
This has got to be a kernel problem as Mepis 8.5 works, but sluggishly. So maybe I need to use antiX 8.5. I am assuming there is an 8.5. If not then 8.0.

It can't be a kernel issue as you can get to desktop via init 3 and startx.
It is likely to be a graphics card issue as you stated in your early posts.

You said booting live works ok. Which options? All? This might help us narrow down the issue.

I just choose antiX-base-desktop and it goes off and takes about 10-12 seconds before it comes back to"Welcome to antiX Lean and mean" and starts doing it loading and setup. When done, there is the desktop. And I like tux on it.

Try these boot cheats (all together) when booting from installed.

nomodeset nouveau.modeset=0 noxorg