MEPIS boots to GRUB prompt only

Welcome to Mepis and Happy Holidays!

Read here for troubleshooting

www.mepislovers-wiki.org/index.php?title=Installation_Troubleshooting_and_Tips

This answer (which I posted first) probably won't help, as I thought you were getting a linux command prompt rather than a GRUB> prompt

These problems can often be solved with a GRUB boot parameter, though finding the right one is often guesswork.

Add the GRUB boot parameter(s) to the end of the line that appears at the bottom of your screen during boot, and probably ends in vga=791, like this
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12 root=/dev/hda3 nomce quiet splash=verbose vga=791

Add a parameter at the end of this line -- first try acpi=off or irqpoll or pci=biosirq or acpi=noirq ... more parameters here

http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/BootPrompt-HOWTO.html

There are also video boot parameters such as xdrvr=vesa or xdrvr=fbdev (these are added in the same way, on the boot screen)

post to http://www.mepislovers.org -- very helpful forum

Mike

Something is definitely wrong here...

There can be 2 directions to troubleshoot:
1) the CD can be corrupted,
2) something wrong with Acer TravelMate 290 laptop.

To check 1) you can just try to boot your CD in some other computer. If successful, then look for some problem in your laptop.

If, however, the CD will not boot on another machine, do your best to check the integrity of download.

About MD5sum. This is a 128-bit hash of the whole content of CD, and if there was a transmission error during download, the hash will be different. If you can get access to a computer with running Linux and operational CD-ROM drive, start Linux, put your CD in the drive, open console and issue the command:

md5sum /dev/cdrom

The execution will take several minutes - to read and compute the hash of a 700 MB disk - and then compare the computed hash with the one that you downloaded from the Mepis site. The 2 numbers must match, if not, redownload and reburn the CD.

Best wishes
BNK (Dr.Cobalt-60)

Thanks Mike and BNK for your feedback. I really do appreciate you taking the time.

Mike: lots of typing in at the prompt, eh? I was hoping to avoid that. Which is why I was giving MEPIS a run instead of Gentoo.

BNK: I could use the same logic you have applied to say that if Knoppix, Mandriva Move, Ubuntu Live and PCLinuxOS boot fine on my Acer Laptop then the ditro is faulty, not my laptop. Also, I downloaded MEPIS twice and again for the recent RC version. Each time I got exactly the same problem. If admiting there is a problem is the first step toward a solution I think the powers that be might want to take a look at why the boot gets stuck at the GRUB prompt on certain computers.

Anyway, I finally got MEPIS running as a live install almost by accident. I booted PCLinuxOS by mistake. At the boot prompt I realised I had put the wrong disk in and swapped it for the MEPIS disk. It then continued to boot the MEPIS disk. Strange but true.

I have to say that I am a little disappointed. As best I understand it, MEPIS is positioned as a great newbie distro in that it is easy to use and comes configed pretty much ready to go. Well, I can tell you that this is the only distro I have ever booted up (live or other) that did not automatically start my ethernet port. More importantly, wifi seems downright tricky to configure. I mean what the hell does 'Frequency enter as 2.xxx' mean? And does it support WPA out of the box? can't tell, but I assume the answer is no.

Last, but least important, the display design seems under done. The toolbar is messy and the overall look and feel is not up to, say, Mandriva (siting a KDE example).

I can't say that I am ready to jump on board with MEPIS. I believe PCLinuxOS to be a better beginner's linux, even thought it is still in beta and heavily borrows from Mandriva. But if I need to be resigned to plugging away at a prompt, I will take my chances with the likes of Mandriva, SUSE OSS or, most likely, Ubuntu.

Moreover, I am disappoined that no distribution I have used yet has correctly configured the my wifi card. My laptop is getting onto 2 years old now, so it is not exactly obscure by youth. And being a Centrino it is as close to a standardised platform as exists in the PC world. I am a power Windows user, so I believe my expectations to be reasonable. So why do none of the distro I have tried hit the mark?

Again, thanks for your time.

If your wifi card was detected and the driver loaded than it should be trivial to configure it, WPA should work out of the box (I think there are more details in the manual) and that frequency doesn't need to be set up unless there's something strange about your network or card.

Other than that if you like PCLinuxOS, use that, it is pretty good and it looks good and Linux is Linux -- it should do whatever Mepis does. It has smaller repo than Debian but for basic functions it works the same.
--
Post questions on www.mepislovers.org too.
Check out our wiki: www.mepislovers-wiki.org

You should try a stable release like 3.3.1-1 the rc in that moniker stands for release candidate and is a test iso, ergo bugs are to be expected .

jim

Thanks for the feedback, Jim

All errors listed occured using 3.3.1-1, as mentioned in the original post. I downloaded the RC just to see if it would boot up properly. It too did not.

Didn't want you thinking my expectations were unreasonable.

ps

Thanks Adam

I will read the doc again to make sure I have not missed something. The news about the frequency in particular is heartening.

I suppose my point is if it freaked me out, then someone with less geneal PC knowledge would definitely baulk at it.

Thanks again

ps

wpa_supplicant is included in Mepis 3.4 -- you need to configure (I haven't tried it -- it gets WPA working)

The frequency is the channel (in MHz I think) 2.462 = 11 for example -- you may not need to enter this

Get your card working without encryption first, then add encryption.

If you do enter the frequency, be sure to click "Apply" to save it in the OS Center

Hope that helps -- I'm glad you got a little farther along

Mike

Ive been nosing around and found a possible lead Http://www.mepis.org/view/6891 . It seems there has been problems like this before with laptops . Mike's acpi=off is the thing that worked most of the time , if memory serves . Funny thing is i dont remember any one with that problem lately . 3.3.1-1 has been rock solid and working like a charm on all my stuff . They mention using smart boot manager with success , be interesting if that worked with psmail's laptop. You might try that for what ever info it might yield . But im thinkin an acpi=off is the ticket with a laptop , however after boot they rely on acpi quite a bit .

Be interesting too to see the diffrence in Mepis boot menu and the one you booted with .

Note: there may be an easier way, but I have found this method for booting the CD.

burn a copy of the ultimate boot cd (currently v3.3): http://ultimatebootcd.com

1. boot using the ubcd (if you can't boot ubcd, obviously this tip won't work for you)
2. select "Filesystem Tools" [F3]
3. select "Smart BootManager" [3]
4. when it comes up (should be just a few seconds), pop out the ubcd and put in your mepis cd
5. scroll down until the appropriate CD-ROM drive is highlighted
6. wait for the cd to stop spinning
7. hit [TAB] to bring up the main menu
8. select "Boot it"
9. when prompted, save the change (not sure if this does anything)
10. enjoy!

Hi,

Have been unsuccessfully trying to install various Mepis releases for about the past two years on my 2003, Centrino based Benq Joybook 5000 laptop, with exactly the same result as psmail's - a boot only prompt to the Mepis boot CD. That is, until I discovered and read psmail's post from way back in December 2005, a fortnight ago. And voila, I found I could also boot and install the Mepis CD, by first using the PCLinuxOS 2007 boot disk! Before this I had tried all the suggestions re this post and others on mepis.org concerning this problem, including the use of the Ultimate Boot CD, all without success.

It makes me wonder just how many potential Mepis users have simply walked away from Mepis, after experiencing the same problem, with their specific machine, without writing a post or whatever. I also wonder how long this problem has been around.

Have been installing and running various dual boot MS Win/Linux configurations, for several years, on my various machines and other peoples machines, without any similar problem. After my recent success with Mepis, I am currently running the following OS's on the Benq: XP, Mepis 7 Beta 5, openSUSE, Fedora, and Xandros.

I realise Warren, you must be extremely busy with much on your plate, as discussed in Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols article on the 1 Nov at desktoplinux.com. Am very pleased to know you are well. And for what its worth I concur fully in my praise for your Mepis continuous handiwork. It's arguably the best serious distribution out there, for features (out of the box), extensibility, ease of use, and performance.

With Kind Regards
David Hopkins