Live CD doesn't work - not particularly looking for help.

[The Chief]

Had an odd experience.   I have a Toshiba L355 laptop with Vista that I keep around for those inevitable times I need Windows for something.  It has always worked perfectly, but is seldom used. 

Anyway, I decided to see how it would run under PCLOS, so I threw in my trusty PCLOS 2011.6 KDE CD (which I know is good - I have installed with it 2 or 3 times) and everything seemed fine.

It booted as usual, I brought up PCC and set up the wireless connection just fine, and exited PCC.  That's where things went bad - after I exited PCC, nothing would run, no response to any icons or menu entries.  No Firefox, no Konquerer, no terminal, no Dolphin, nothing.  Simply did not respond.  No wobbly icon in the panel as it tried to start, nothing.  Not even PCC, which I had just run...

I could get it to shutdown though, and restarted it in Windows to make sure nothing had broken.  As far as I can tell, nothing has.

This is simple curiosity more than anything else - anyone have an idea what could make it act like that?

[wedgetail]

The Chief

I don't have any answers, of course I can make wild guesses but I won't.  In case you venture into trying again, you say you could get it to shut down, this gives me the impression that it was an orderly shut down.

This may indicate that you could have tried to bring up a text terminal (ctl-alt-F2) and poke around (to return I use ctl-altF7). Perhaps X needed time out?  Not sure what would be appropriate line if you get to text terminal.  I would head for FXdrake, but that is only because I can remember that this week without looking up my notes.   

[djohnston]

This is simple curiosity more than anything else - anyone have an idea what could make it act like that?

Once in a blue moon, PCC will hang for me either during the run or after exiting. As far as I can recall, it's always been with a live CD session. If I could tell you why, I would.

If you feel up to it, you might repeat the same procedure later to see if the results are any different.

[Just18]

Did you have the same experience on several boots?
In other words is the problem repeatable?

What is the spec of that 'old' machine.
Is it capable of running a modern live KDE session without problems?
For instance did it run out of memory and having no Swap partition get hung up trying to sort things out?

Is the optical drive in good condition and clean?

As previously mentioned it is all conjecture .....  you would need to do some tests and record the results to try to throw some light on the cause or at least the area to investigate.

[The Chief]

This is simple curiosity more than anything else - anyone have an idea what could make it act like that?

Once in a blue moon, PCC will hang for me either during the run or after exiting. As far as I can recall, it's always been with a live CD session. If I could tell you why, I would.

If you feel up to it, you might repeat the same procedure later to see if the results are any different.

That's interesting.  I'll try again next time I get it out.

[The Chief]

Did you have the same experience on several boots?
In other words is the problem repeatable?

Don't know, just did it the one time.

What is the spec of that 'old' machine.

It's not that old...
Technical Details
17.0-inch (diagonal) WXGA plus TruBright TFT Widescreen LCD Display, 1440 x 900 resolution
1.86 GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T2390 with 1MB L2 Cache
3072MB PC5300 DDR2 SDRAM memory,
160GB (5400RPM) Hard Drive (SATA),
Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
DVD SuperMulti with Labelflash drive supporting 11 formats,
Atheros 802.11 b/g wireless LAN
Windows Vista Home Premium

Is it capable of running a modern live KDE session without problems?
For instance did it run out of memory and having no Swap partition get hung up trying to sort things out?

Well, since this was the first (and only, so far) attempt, I can't say for sure.
Is swap usually a problem in a Live Session?  Only thing I ran was PCC - and only once, since it wouldn't start again.  With 3gb ram, I wouldn't think swap would have been needed for that simple use.

Is the optical drive in good condition and clean?

Only been used a few times - to install a couple of programs.  Biggest use was to create the restore CDs when it was just out of the box.

As previously mentioned it is all conjecture .....  you would need to do some tests and record the results to try to throw some light on the cause or at least the area to investigate.

May not be worth the trouble, but I'll take real notes next time I try.

Thanks for your time....