Hi, I've done a few searches on this and read at least 30 posts from this site and others, but it all goes a bit over my head. I've just completed my first linux install which didnt go too badly. (couldnt resize my ntfs partition as small as I would have liked and the mouse wouldnt configure correctly, next job) The problem is on boot eth0 failes and then starting pcmcia appears and it freezes. Which is likely to have caused the freeze ? In the long term I'd like to get both working but for now until I learn what I'm doing disabaling them would do if that would make it boot. I'd be very gratefull for step by step instructions, but even just some rough pointers would be a big help. ifcfg-eth0 ONBOOT =no ??? ifconfig eth0 ??? /etc/modules.conf alias eth0 off ??? Thanks Allan

Try booting and at te lilo/grub boot prompt (where ou would generally just press enter to start loading linux) type: linux nopcmcia and see if that helps....

Hi 3Dave, I wasnt aware of it giving a boot prompt, I thought it was just a menu selection. I'll give it a go tonight. If I remember correctly I did have to use knoppix nopcmcia noscsi on this laptop with DSL (alothough not with knoppix) Cheers Allan

I've just gave it a try, it still froze at the same place.

How long does it freeze for? Does your numlock button still work? Could it be trying to get a DHCP lease for an IP address and timing out after a minute or so? Are you able to boot into single use mode? At the boot prompt (hit ESC if you can't see it straight away) try typing: linux 1 nopcmcia noscsi If you can't boot your system like that, use a boot disk to edit your startup and disable pcmcia and network (remove the symbolic links /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S??pcmcia etc)

I left it for 15 min last night and it still didnt progress any further. I'm not sure about the mum lock but I'll give it a try (to see if its crashed or just waiting). I could bring it into work where it would be able to get a DHCP lease and see if that got it past it. I've never tried single user mode but I can get to the prompt from the failsafe option in whichever boot loader I chose (I've forgot which). I don't have a boot disk but I can probably do the editing from the failsafe boot? Whats my editor options ? Is it vi ? I hate vi but I'm familure with it. Thanks Allan

15 minutes is too long for waiting for DHCP, it is generally only 30-60 seconds. Failsafe is possibly the same as single user mode. If you can boot that and log in as root, do it. Once in you shouldn't have to edit any files (for a change!=o), either type mcc for the mandrake control centre and from there you can disable services automatically starting at boot time or delete the links to the startup scripts by hand from /etc/rc.d/rc5.d and /etc/rc.d/rc3.d vi is probably one of the best text editors to become familiar with as it is installed on just about every *nix system out there but can be daunting for a newbie. I personally prefer emacs....the other big editor but you'll find it just as confusing! The best thing to do is start off by using something simple like mcedit (a little like DOS edit and does not require your X GUI to run) until you feel comfortable opening, editing, saving and closing without saving (very useful sometimes!!) with vi/emacs. After a while you'll be glad you did. Quick emacs tutorial: to edit/create a file: emacs /path/to/file to save and quit: Ctrl&X Ctrl&C y to quit and NOT save: Ctrl&X Ctrl&C n yes to save and not quit: Ctrl&X Ctrl&S to save in different location: Ctrl&X Ctrl&W to search: Ctrl&S Don't worry about cutting and pasting....start off doing everything by hand until you get the swing of things. Note that all of the commands above (except search) begin with Ctrl&X telling emacs that the next keypress will be a command. You don't need to let go of Ctrl between keystrokes. Hope that helps....