Help!! Mandrake won't start!

[Kaiser]

I intalled mandrake linux 8.1 on my old computer, everything installed right, and I rebooted.

I am taken to the startup screen, then I am taken to the login screen, with a dos-like picture of a penguin. within 4 secs. the screen goes black and all I see is a mouse cursor. and nothing happends.

anyone can help me on this?

[ 19 March 2002: Message edited by: Kaiser ]

[jetblackz]

You might have choosen a wrong video card or monitor.

Easy way: reinstall and choose the right video & mon or lesser ones.

Hard way: reboot to failsafe, log in as root, type "XF86Config" or "XF86Setup". Set everything up. Test. That's it.

[2damncommon]

Ummm,
How old of a computer...
With how much RAM?
Sounds like it may be failing to start in graphics (GUI) mode.
If you are able to quickly type your user and pass it may let you enter text mode, if that will do you any good.

[Dark Ninja]

You don't even need to start up in FailSafe or anything - when you get to that black screen, hit ALT+CTRL+F1 all at the same time - that will take you to a "Text Mode Console" Fix your problem from there.

Dark Ninja

[Kaiser]

I'll try to reinstall and mess with the moniter and graphics card..


the computer its installed on is

AMD K6 400
Compaq-made mobo
ATI Radeon 32mb pci
220mb of ram


btw, I have no knowlege whatsoever on Linux, so what can I do when I hit ctrl+alt+f1?

[jetblackz]

I have a similar problem with an ATI box. No matter what, steer away from X 4.2. 3.3.6. will be fine.

[mdwatts]

Check with www.xfree86.org (http://www.xfree86.org) as I think you need at least X4.1 for the ATI Radeon. X4.2 would be better though.