i have "tried" to switch to suse Linux a couple 2days ago for the first time ever i do switch from microssoft ... it's bad ... way too bad
i have a dell dimension 4100 with 730Mhz CPU , 128 RAM.
i downloaded it by the book and reached the final "page" ...(congratulation ... install done .. brr) it ejected the cd and pressd finished the os start to load but in the middle of the prosess the screen went black i thought it was ....what so ever it was doing ...but i waited for 35mins and nothing.

what wrong have i done ??/ or might i have downloaded the wrong CD (i mean X86-32bit or X86-64bit .. i downloaded X86-32) ???

thanks in advance for any help .

It could have been a graphics issue. Sounds like your laptop is pretty old from the specs so the video might be some old obscure onboard card. Do you know what kind it is? Might be worth checking suse forums for if there are known computability issues.

I imagine downloading a 64 bit version could pose a problem but if you are sure you have the 32 bit that would be the version you would need, again old system so not a 64 bit.

Maybe check suse forums for posts from people with a similar laptop model and see if they had any issues? If not, you could always try another linux distro and try one with a live cd release so you can test if they'll run prior to installing the OS itself. This would save alot of time if there is another issue besides a single suse related issue.

I think it's just the fact that you need more RAM because the X server needs at least 128MB if you have GNOME or KDE installed, so you need more RAM. Bare minimum of 256MB or 192MB if you buy 128MB/64MB combo (not recommended).

So be sure that you have enough RAM. Also, Jeigh may be correct with the video card thing. It may simply be a graphics chipset problem.

Also, remember, Linux wasn't designed for a replacement for Windows, it's an alternative for Windows.

xboxrulz

I never even thought of the ram issue for X, that would seem really likely. I just guessed the video option as it seemed possible with the age of the lappy, not sure if they hand standard video solutions for them at that time or not. But yea, ram seems more likely

I think KDE 3 needs at least 16 or 32 megs of VRAM to work, so that might be your problem.

But that's quite an old computer, so I think putting KDE on it is not a good idea.

Try Damn Small Linux. That should work just fine, even on an old 486.

If you don't like DSL, then try getting a distro that has XFCE by default. XFCE should run on older computers just fine.