FC16 or 17 Live USB not working on laptop

[Bill Davidsen]

I'm ready to update a laptop from fc11 to something current (kernel and some 
apps are upgraded by hand). I want to boot from Live-CD just to be sure the 
hardware like me, and sure enough it doesn't.

I started with the fc16 version, 64bit, and it came up to the GNOME3 wallpaper, 
moved the cursor to the upper left corner, and stopped. I never got the rest of 
the shell, although the cursor moves in response to the touchpad. I checked, 
terminal access was up, nothing I saw in logs told me anything.

Since I had an fc17 32bit USB also in my pocket I tried that. Same response, the 
"throbbing meatball" graphic boot, wallpaper, active cursor, no apps. Terminal 
is active and looks fine. FC17 has a basic graphics boot option, so I tried 
that, which uses the vesa driver for X. This time I got the "marching squares" 
boot display, followed by the same problem.

I booted again, using the radeon driver (radeon 1250 hardware) and not change at 
all, other than the boot was now the graphic one again. Played with nomodeset 
boot option, didn't help. Did a power cycle cold boot each time to be sure the 
graphics card is clean.

So, I know that useful radeon support is provided by the vendor driver from 
rpmfusion, and I have no issue with that other than how do I install so I can 
use the driver? Anyone have a trick I missed? I did all previous installs using 
the vesa driver and had no issue, so what now? I can run FC17 in a VM using KVM, 
but that's hardly a solution, just a data point.

Thoughts?
-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot