[mdlug] Laptop woes - Knoppix boots but Ubuntu doesn't?

[Ingles, Raymond]

 I'd thought my laptop was dead - it stopped booting one night and
nothing I tried managed a successful boot. I was looking into netbooks.
Post-xmas, we have the money assembled for one, but I took one last look
at the laptop we have. 

 I tried Ubuntu desktop live CDs (both 9.04 and 9.10), and it came up
with the basic splash screen... but attempting to boot the full kernel
failed - just a blinking cursor in the corner of the screen. On a whim,
I tried a Knoppix live DVD... and to my surprise I was able to boot to X
and everything. A bit of tweaking and I was even able to mount the hard
drive.

 So, something in the hardware has apparently failed in such a way that
Ubuntu won't boot but Knoppix will. Very strange. Anyone seen anything
like that? I'm going to try the Ubuntu "alternate install", which might
let me actually see the kernel messages on boot. I'm also going to try
some other distros, like OpenSUSE or Fedora. It'd be nice to resurrect
this thing.

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles                                           (313) 227-2317

 "The computing industry is given 12 months to deploy a technology
 that does not exist and whose sole purpose is to protect profits.
 The car industry was allowed decades to deploy safety features such
    as seat belts and air bags that were designed to save lives."
   - Zeinfeld, on the SSSCA, a proposed law that would mandate all
 computers to prevent any file copying whatsoever unless explicitly
          approved by the entertainment conglomerates

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