I got my new notebook in last week and ever since then, I've been trying to get Linux installed on it. I've tried Fedora Core 3, Ubuntu 5.04, SUSE Linux 9.3, & Mandriva Linux 10.1.

After booting into the CD/DVD and I get the boot prompt screen, I can type "linux" and normally a graphical installation will start... but the only thing that happens is the screen goes black, completely black. I thought it might be my video card (ATI Radeon Xpress 200m), so I tried to do a text based installation and the same thing happens, blank screen. Anyone got any suggestions?

How about typing in "linux noprobe" or "linux text noprobe" and seeing what happens?
This way, it will not automatically detect the hardware.
Yay, another golden star

That didn't work either

Strange... Try plugging in a CRT to see if the video is going out your VGA port for some reason?

This is a little repetative - as I seem to say it a lot - but what happens with Knoppix?

GJ

I tried Knoppix and it pretty much does the same thing. I'll select to boot the CD and it starts to load and then everything goes black.

@markjensen | I'll try hooking it up and I'll let you know what happens

Ok, I hooked it up to external monitor and it allows me to see everything, however, the keyboard doesn't work

If it isn't one thing, it's another!

I'm going to try and hook up an external keyboard & mouse now and see if that does the trick.

[EDIT] Nevermind about the keyboard, I don't have any USB Keyboards around here... I'll have to wait 'til tomorrow to borrow one from work

[EDIT] Could this be caused by Linux not having the drivers for my system? Windows installs just fine on this system, but Linux won't even go with a text based installation

Thought I'd give an update to this problem. I had wanted to install FC3, but completely forgot the keyboard coming home this afternoon ... but, I did try SUSE Linux 9.3 and some how it installed just fine. Now I did have a video feed problem because it is using Framebuffer drivers, so I've got to figure out how to install the RPM and get the drivers working. But regardless, it is working

Thanks for the help everyone

[EDIT] By the way, the video feed problem was caused by it trying to use 24bit color instead of 16bit color and to high a screen resolution.