Which distro? I have tried a few.

[james2k2]

Hello everybody,

Firstly i want to thank everybody on this forum whos guides i have tried to follow already, they are all very informative and given me much insight into the boot and installation stages but it seems i'm one of the unlucky few to have problems still. :(

Basically, my question is which distribution should i be using for the best experience and compatability?

The test system in question is as follows:
Pentium 4, 1.7Ghz (MMX, SSE, SSE2)
Intel Motherboard (not sure which but it has an onboard Intel Extreme Graphics 2)
512MB DDR266
19.1GB HDD
Radeon 9600Pro 256MB AGP 8x/4x

Now i have already tried a few distros but to no avail - At first i believed my issue was that the first distro i was using was SSE3 only, this seems to have been true as even the installer wouldn't boot. So i next tried an AMD/Intel/SSE2/SSE3 Leo4Allv3 with the JaS Patch 10.5.3 and the installer runs through great, but then i get the dreaded problem of the HFS+ files loading and then simply restarting back to Darwin. I have tried 3 installations now all with different options/drivers etc selected in the customiser but again, the same problem. The BIOS on this test system only has 1 ACPI option and that is the sleep mode - S1 and S3; which if these should i be using? All other power options relate to Wake-On-LAN. I really do not mind if i have QE available to me as all i am looking to do is 'play' and get a feel for the OS - just a bit of self-learning i guess.

Kind regards,
James

PS - Sorry for the babble!

[erick2red]

i think maybe u need more RAM

[james2k2]

:( That sucks. I read a guide stating that 512MB was the minimum... Any ideas?

Kind regards,
James

[Taisto]

Hmm, maybe - but it should work fine with 512mb memory.
I remember from insanelymac that Pentium 4 is quite problematic with leo. Make sure u use SSE2 kernel and have support for your chipset - which is what exactly anyway ?
Have you tried iPC release ?

[erick2red]

:( That sucks. I read a guide stating that 512MB was the minimum... Any ideas?

Kind regards,
James
Then post your situation. What u tried already?. What results u got with every distro? so we can help u

[james2k2]

Hopefully this will help...
The motherboard in the test system is an Intel Desktop Board D845GRG, so without CPU-Z i presume its an 845G chipset. Info here: http://pixel01.cps.intel.com/design/motherbd/rg/

Looking back at my iso's, i've tried:
(1) Leopard 10.5.2 Leo4All Vers. 3 (Intel & AMD) (Boot problem, panic @ EFI)
(2) Leo4All 10.5.2 Universal AMD/Intel (SSE2/SSE3) (Boot problem, panic @ EFI)
(3) Leo4AllV3, Patched with Leo4All v3 pacth 10.5.3 by JaS (Install OK, reboot on startup)

Iv'e read somewhere that it could be the graphics card? If this is the case i have an AGP ATI X1650 512MB i could try... Although it would have to be pulled out of my media server so ideally i'd like to leave it alone. I do also have a 2.4Ghz P4 system that presumably supports SSE3 with a Gig of RAM and an NVidia 5200 256MB, but again this is a media client so ideally would like to leave alone if i can.

I am next going to try iPC 10.5.6 Universal PPF5 Final.

Kind regards,
James