Linux on Laptop

[SpaceC0wb0y]

I am trying to install linux on my gateway 2300 solo laptop. It installs ok but then it will not boot. It gets to the point where it says it is mounting other filesystems and then starts spitting out all of these hex numbers to the screen. It actually looks kind of cool, like something that would happen in a movie. (Don't you hate all of that graphical stuff they show on movies, why can't they keep it real and just show a command line?) Sorry about that tangent. Back to the point, I can't boot linux! I have let it run like this for a while and it just keeps going for hours spitting out these hex numbers. I can't figure out what other filesystem it would try to be mounting. I have reformatted and reformatted a million times and still no luck. I have tried red hat 7.2 and mandrake 8.1 and still a no go.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

 

[TonyRic]

Seems like the hardware is all supported, so this points me to a kernel issue. Try booting off Mandrake 8.1 disc 2 and use one of the alternate kernels on it... There should be one there for laptops and see if that takes care of the problem... If not go to mandrake.com and I believe in the MandrakeUser section do a search on alternate kernel and see what you come up with... Sounds like the kernel is not properly recognizing your HDD controller or is not properly recognizing the HDD partition formats...

As for not booting to a command prompt: It can't... If it cannot mount the Filesystems (partitions) it cannot load the OS, even just a command line...

One other thing, Did you manually partition? If so then make sure you DID NOT put /etc on a different partition from /...