Dark screen

[mimosa]

No, you press TAB before that, at the Lilo screen; you only have a second or two to do so, but once you have pressed a key, you can compose the text you want to input at your leisure.

[fizzy-logic]

No, you press TAB before that, at the Lilo screen; you only have a second or two to do so, but once you have pressed a key, you can compose the text you want to input at your leisure.

I pressed TAB before the texts roll, still zilch.
On my boot set-up LILO is installed in / of the slave drive. Grub boots from the primary in opensuse and salix is an entry there. I'm not sure if this makes a difference, but thought you should know. I don't see a lilo screen, just bios text,

[mimosa]

So are you booting from Lilo or Grub? If grub, I'm sure there's a similar way to boot into runlevel 3, but I'm afraid I don't know grub at all. Google knows, though

[fizzy-logic]

So are you booting from Lilo or Grub? If grub, I'm sure there's a similar way to boot into runlevel 3, but I'm afraid I don't know grub at all. Google knows, though

My desktop boots from grub2; however when booting salix, it is then using LILO.
So LILO is installed in / ; not MBR of the salix drive. But everythig starts from GRUB2.

[mimosa]

Unless you set the delay to 0 seconds, you should definitely be seeing the lilo screen immediately after BIOS, with a message to "Press TAB for boot options" or words to that effect. The standard delay is 5 seconds, so you do have to be reasonably quick. I always change mine to 30 seconds.

[fizzy-logic]

Unless you set the delay to 0 seconds, you should definitely be seeing the lilo screen immediately after BIOS, with a message to "Press TAB for boot options" or words to that effect. The standard delay is 5 seconds, so you do have to be reasonably quick. I always change mine to 30 seconds.

Good News now that you mentioned it, I do believe I set the delay to 0 on the installation of salix. Sooo
I guess a reinstall with the standard delay is in order.
Thanks again.

[mimosa]

A reinstall might have other beneficial effects too

However, I recommend checking the md5sum first.

[gaucho]

Hi, fizzy-logic,

In case it might help you, I'll paste a couple of configuration files which you can use for comparison. It sounds like your boot setup is somewhat similar to mine ... My MBR is controlled by GRUB2 (it's from Fedora 19 Xfce Spin), and I have LILO installed on Salix's root partition (/dev/sda12 in my case; the Salix /home partition is on /dev/sda13).

Here is the GRUB2 stanza for my Salix Xfce 14.0 installation (32-bit) generated by GRUB's os-prober:

Code: Select all

menuentry 'Slackware Linux (Slackware 14.0) (on /dev/sda12)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-simple-e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd' {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='hd0,msdos12'
	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos12 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos12 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos12 --hint='hd0,msdos12'  e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd
	fi
	linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda12 ro quiet  vt.default_utf8=1 vga = normal
}

submenu 'Advanced options for Slackware Linux (Slackware 14.0) (on /dev/sda12)' $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-advanced-e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd' {
	menuentry 'Linux (on /dev/sda12)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-/boot/vmlinuz--e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd' {
		insmod part_msdos
		insmod ext2
		set root='hd0,msdos12'
		if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
		  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos12 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos12 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos12 --hint='hd0,msdos12'  e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd
		else
		  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd
		fi
		linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda12 ro quiet  vt.default_utf8=1 vga = normal
	}
} 

Below is the custom GRUB2 stanza I manually added in /etc/grub.d/40_custom :

Code: Select all

menuentry 'Salix Xfce 14.0 (on /dev/sda12)' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-gnulinux-simple-e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd' {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='hd0,msdos12'
	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,msdos12 --hint-efi=hd0,msdos12 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,msdos12 --hint='hd0,msdos12'  e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root e3103027-de1e-48f7-8a06-96c5ada400cd
	fi
	linux /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda12 ro quiet  vt.default_utf8=1 vga = normal
}

And, finally, this is how Salix's /etc/lilo.conf file looks:

Code: Select all

# LILO configuration file
# generated by 'liloconfig'
#
# Start LILO global section
# Append any additional kernel parameters:
append="quiet  vt.default_utf8=1"
boot = /dev/sda12

# Boot BMP Image.
# Bitmap in BMP format: 640x480x8
  bitmap = /boot/salix.bmp
# Menu colors (foreground, background, shadow, highlighted
# foreground, highlighted background, highlighted shadow):
  bmp-colors = 255,20,255,20,255,20
# Location of the option table: location x, location y, number of
# columns, lines per column (max 15), "spill" (this is how many
# entries must be in the first column before the next begins to
# be used.  We don't specify it here, as there's just one column.
  bmp-table = 60,6,1,16
# Timer location x, timer location y, foreground color,
# background color, shadow color.
  bmp-timer = 65,29,0,255

# Standard menu.
# Or, you can comment out the bitmap menu above and 
# use a boot message with the standard menu:
#message = /boot/boot_message.txt

# Wait until the timeout to boot (if commented out, boot the
# first entry immediately):
prompt
# Timeout before the first entry boots.
# This is given in tenths of a second, so 600 for every minute:
timeout = 50
# Override dangerous defaults that rewrite the partition table:
change-rules
  reset
# Normal VGA console
vga = normal
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x64k
# vga=791
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k
# vga=790
# VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x256
# vga=773
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x64k
# vga=788
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x32k
# vga=787
# VESA framebuffer console @ 800x600x256
# vga=771
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x64k
# vga=785
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x32k
# vga=784
# VESA framebuffer console @ 640x480x256
# vga=769
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
  root = /dev/sda12
  label = Linux
  read-only
# Linux bootable partition config ends 

Hopefully these will give you a frame of reference, if you need to do additional troubleshooting.

[fizzy-logic]

thanks gaucho,
the problem isn't in booting the system. I reinstalled salix and changed the boot delay from 0 to 5 seconds. then when booting in (no salix screen) just text, i pressed TAB but still a dark screen. So I'm still at square one.
trying to get to a console or desktop enviroment, so i can download the nvidia driver and install it.

[mimosa]

Do you mean you still don't see the lilo screen (inviting you to press TAB for boot options, which won't do anything after the boot process starts)?

What exactly do you see? How do you select Salix rather than one of the other OSs on that machine? Then what happens? WHen does everything turn black?

I appreciate it's probably hard to describe, but at the moment, it's difficult to undertand what may be going on at your end