I want to like eLive ... I really do
But I've had nothing but trouble with it so far
It seems that the version of isolinux used for GEM just doesn't like certain optical devices and won't boot into the liveCD ... And that's it - Change your CD/VD ROM device or don't use eLive
Well, I found a workaround and installed it to the HDD via Qemu over SLAX KillBill liveCD
It took forever, but ... after a couple of failed attempts ... I got it done eventually - If anyone's interested, I'll post up how I did it ... but, to be honest, I'm thinking of giving it a go by using a USB key instead and see if that works any better ... or just borrowing a compatible CD drive
In any event, I got it installed
I saw the GRUB boot screen with lovely graphics, listing eLive and XP
I tested XP - Was it stil there!?
Yes, it was <*Phew!*>
So, I rebooted and selected eLive instead
I got all
as I saw the splash-screen and then ...
... and then ...
... and then ...
Eventually I opted to take a look at tty2
And, lo and behold, it was waiting for me to log in
Where was the graphical login screen?
"Well, never mind," I thought, "Let's just start X and see what happens"
What happened was I got a Fatal IO error and "No Screens found"
I'm no linux expert ... although I do have some experience form about ten years back ... and I am a computer expert/professional, so I know how to ask the right questions
After a LOT of research, I discovered that, because I'd installed it through Qemu ... which emulates Cirrus hardware ... eLive was looking to use hardware I don't have!
I went away and looked at the xorg.conf file and found that to be the problem
The next step was to try and fix it
Logged in as root ... and after a lot of faffing ... I finally managed to do a 'dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg'
I restarted X
What happened was I got a resolution of 640x480 and 2bit colour!
WHAT the ... !?
So, I tried again and checked the xorg.conf file
Everything seemd to be technically correct - It had even selected the right driver for my ancient RADEON 9250!
I started X again
This time it was 1280x1024, but still 2bit
Accidentally ... (I was just about able to make out the menus, if I squinted)... I selected the desktop/backgrounds/icon and it suddenly swam into colour
"Great," I thought, "It's fixed!"
So, I logged out and back in as myself
I started X
Everything was as it should be - Or so it seemed at first
I rebooted
And was back at square one
Had to go through the whole rigmarole again
It's just not saving the settings
Also, I never get to boot into the graphical login, but have to switch to tty2, log in at the prompt and start X manually
OK, so maybe that can be fixed somehow ... but another issue is that, when I try and change the resolution or bit depth from the desktop, if I restart E to implement the settings, it just reverts back to how it was - And I have to log out ... back in as root ... run dpkg-reconfigure ... etc. ... etc ... <*sigh*>
Also, I'm really not convinced that what I'm seeing is 24bit colour - The live desktop is much slicker and crisper, even when run from Qemu under the installed version of eLive!
Equally, I can't tell whether I'm looking at E16 or E17 - Changing things in the Elpanel seems to make no difference
The iBar (I think) at the bottom of the screen doesn't look like it does on the live desktop, but more like the Mac OS/X launcher (ugly!)
And I've got no stars on my desktop
The FX are just terrible - limited to the edges of the screen and just a load of blurry lines that make things underneath them unviewable
I would, as I said, put it down to the way I installed it and give it a go from a USB key or alternative CD drive, but then I saw this post by Jamie:
> **jamie Wrote:**
>
> Hey everyone
>
> I'm having some problems installing.
> I get through the initial boot into the live cd
> environment, get through to the login with
> username 'eliveuser' and passwd 'elive' but i have
> no graphical interface, i just have a console and
> shell prompt.
>
> i selected all the default values, except for the
> screen resolution. I'm really not sure what to do
> next, or even if i've done something incorrectly.
>
>
> I use a Dell xps m1330 laptop with an intel
> chipset, core2duo, etc.
>
> I'd be really grateful if anyone can help me
> further, i really want to install this os.
>
> Jamie
He gets further than I do with the liveCD - I don't even get a login prompt, but drop out way before that
But he's got exactly the same problem as I first described - No GUI
I don't know what'll happen, if he tries to start X manually, but I wouldn't be
d if he saw similar ... if not the same ... issues as I have
So ... My questions are:
1) How do I get to boot to a GUI login?
2) How do I save my settings?
3) Why doesn't it look as good as the liveCD, when the liveCD looks great under Qemu on the same machine under the very installation of eLive that looks worse?
4) How do I know if I'm running E16 or E17?
5) Where are my stars!?
Oh!
And ...
6) Why am I not on the sudoers list?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2008 11:03AM by LoL.