[Doubt.It]

Hello. I don't know if anyone else has come across this, but SuSE have released a demo distribution that boots from CD. More or less - it's supposed to create a directory (not a partition) in the PC's root and install configuration information there so that afterwards you can boot straight into Linux from the CD without going through the configuration process again.

I know very little about Linux and have never used it, so this was going to be an easy way to try it without having to repartition. The experience however wasn't encouraging!

The disk took a long time to go through a series of configuration steps, but hung on what looked like it could well have been one of the last. I believe it said 'Creating Panel' or something similar - certainly 'Panel'. After waiting half an hour or so with no sign of HD activity I stopped it by the only way apparently possibly - a hard reset.

It seems, as far as I can tell, that no folder was made in the root (of any partition), and nothing seems to have been left behind at all. Which seems suprising as the process was killed in the middle.

I can only guess that SuSe didn't like my hardware - which is pretty basic, and a laptop. Specifically an IBM Thinkpad (iSeries - about 3 years old) with 500MHz, 192MB and 20GB.

Does anyone have any idea about the cause of this?

[lynch]

SuSE is great but I never liked thier Live-CDs.Try Knoppix or PCLinuxOS .They have some nice Live-CDs.
http://www.knoppix.org/
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/download.html
lynch

[Doubt.It]

Thanks, and perhaps I will. But I'm wondering if this can be explained or if it's just "one of those things". I always like to know why!

[lynch]

Do a search for suselive.900 on your C:\ drive.When I tried the CD on my Mandrake box the file was in /tmp.
You may need to pass certain boot parameters at the beginning because it's a laptop.Could have been X didnt know what to do with the video setup, but it may be somthing else. Check here to see if your thinkpad is listed.Someone may have figured this out.
HTH
lynch