R30 - finally got it going

[Dos3.1]

I have been running different Linux distros on this machine off the live disk, but was having trouble getting any of them to install to the hard drive.

I ran DBAN in Quick Mode to prepare the drive, then I booted from a Linux disk, but the mouse pointer disappeared! This happened for several different Linux disks I tried.

Anyone know how to get the mouse pointer back?

---edit: I managed to install win98 and the pointer came back, now installing Linux Mint with it, and the pointer seems OK.

2nd update: Windows 98 was not cutting it, as I had no wireless card detection. I tried Linux Mint 13, but it was too much for this system. After reading how someone else had success with an earlier version of Mint on another PIII, I got version 9 installed on this system and it's working well, with one issue: the screen resolution is not using all of the monitor size.

I looked up this issue on forums, edited the config file, but nothing is working, so i'll have to live with it for now.

The other strange thing was that this system was not booting before, and the hard drive was making noises, so I took the hard drive out, and was going to replace it, but thought I'd just put it back in. It seemed to fix the booting issue. Usually, the system boots fine now.

Not that impressed with the build quality of this R30, and the fan is very noisey. The R was a budget line, and I can see why.But, I got it for free, so it's fine for what it is, and I can get online with it well enough for light use, like reading sites, email, and music - all wirelessly with a Netgear card.