Hi Gene, got into the same problem a long time ago. In my case I got in trouble with one of the kernel modules, it was the graphics driver module.
This one got in trouble with the vesa driver (somehow), and so it hanged at boot with a black screen. The solution was at that time, to dienstall all the Nvidia packages, which of course let a new initram-file created, which of course got no nvidia kernel module installed. If there is in your case also a kernel module the problem, you might be able, to blacklist the problematic module. If you have access to the hardddrive with the kernel modules (i.e. by using a livefile dvd), you can either edit the blacklist-modules file, or , if this does not work, by removing the modules physically out of the way from the modules directory (sorry for my bad English). The others got right: amd64 means, that the kernel is running on Intel compatible 64-bit processors. And you are also right: There was a time, when there were also special 64-bit Intel-cpus in the repo (when I remember correchtly, these were aimed for Itanium cpu's). Another hint: If you are able, to start a debian live cd (the actual one), you can take a look, which kernel modules are loaded, and also, which graphical driver is loaded. However, I believe, you are quite happy, when you are able, to ge a shell! So just try a small live system. If the debian live system failes, you may try Knoppix (the version with the same kernel version) or maybe another Debian based livesystem (I have kali- linux or aptosid in my mind). Long words, little sense - I hope this helps a little bit. Good luck and all the best! Hans
