installation poblems

[foxone]

I went trough a few scenarios:
1 I boot my pc with the kubuntu( or fedora or ubuntu live cd), and then i get the first menu, i chose the first option (start install or live environment, not sure anymore now i'm typing this...) en then it hanged with a white blinking cursor top left.
2 On my laptop this works fine.
3 Ubuntu 11.10 install from usb drive. Now it gets a bit further, to the graphical loading screen, but it hangs there after a while... this did work on a friends pc, where we made the bootable stick(he has an icore5 16GBRAM SSD nvidia viseocard)

My config is amd athlon64 x2 4600+, 4GB DDR2 667, Nvidia GT9500, Sata 150GB, Win7 on Primary partition, and a second one, empty for this...
I am new to linux, but have otherwise good pc skills(and sick of windows).

I read some things here and there of booting it in certain modes but am not sure how or which...

Some help would be greatly appreciated.
Grtz FoxOne

[Teunis]

There are different types of CD/DVD's available, it sounds like you have the Live version with the option to run the OS directly from the CD or USB image.
Indeed it offers you two choices at startup, to install or to run in Live mode.
When you are able to get to a full desktop you are again offered the option to install.

During all steps there are chances the system hangs or fails, the first things to check is the integrity of the iso file you downloaded using the supplied md5 hash and also check the integrity of the CD or USB drive you made.

When that's all 100% and the system still hangs while trying to boot you could start looking into some boot options to make reluctant hardware to cooperate.

The brand and type of the motherboard are important to know.

[SecretCode]

Your hardware shouldn't be preventing at least the live CD to load fully. Definitely a good idea to check the md5sum of the CD.

Have you managed *any* live CD to boot to a working desktop? Like systemrescuecd, clonezilla live cd? I'm not suggesting you rush off and download those but it would be worth knowing if your PC is having trouble with the Ubuntu core or with something more fundamental.

(Also, how long have you left the blinking cursor? Is there disk activity?)

[Detonate]

It is very likely, that if this occurs with a DVD,CD or USB made from a good file and verified as good, that you have a hardware issue. The most likely culprit could be your video device. I would suggest that when you get to the boot menu, you run it with the nomodeset option and see if it will boot then.

[foxone]

Ok guys,

thx for the replies, the images work on other pc's so theyre ok, both for running the live cd or installing.
no disk activity on any disks when hanging and left it blinking for a long while(hours), must be the hardware, I already made that conclusion...
Also, I am new tot linux so "running it in nomodeset" needs a tad bit more info to get me there...

[Detonate]

OK, when you first boot to the CD or DVD or USB a menu should appear that contains the entries to start Mint. Before it starts to boot press the -E- key on your keyboard so that you can edit the boot configuration. On the screen that appears find the line that looks like this.
linux /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper quiet splash --

Edit it to look like this.

linux /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper quiet splash nomodeset--

Then press the F10 key to boot.

The newest kernels have moved the video mode setting into the kernel. So all the programming of the hardware specific clock rates and registers on the video card happen in the kernel rather than in the X driver when the X server starts.. This makes it possible to have high resolution nice looking splash (boot) screens and flicker free transitions from boot splash to login screen. Unfortunately, on some cards this doesnt work properly and you end up with a black screen. Adding the nomodeset parameter instructs the kernel to not load video drivers and use BIOS modes instead until X is loaded.

This will result in your computer booting to low graphic mode. If you get to MInt in low graphics mode go ahead and install Mint. After installation when you first boot to the new install you may have to repeat this process. After you have booted to the new install you will still be in low graphics mode. Now find the correct driver for your video card and install it. Then reboot the system again, this time you should not have to modify the boot line and everything should work.

[foxone]

thx alot! gonna try it right now...

[foxone]

ok that didn't change anything. but i do have to say that i forgot something, the ubuntu 11.10 on the usb stick hangs in a text mode screen with this being the last you can see:
the first two paragraphs all have pci in them
then:
[3.572011] Info: rcu_sched_state detected stall on CPU0 (t=74069 Jiffies)
rregistered protocol family 2
[299.848517]TCP bind hash table entries: 65536(order 8,1048576 bytes)
TCP hash tables configured (established 524288 bind 65536)
TCP Reno registered
UDP hash table entries: 2048(order:4, 65536 bytes)
UDP-Lite hash table entries: 2048(order:4, 65536 bytes)
NET: Registered protocol family 1
Freeing initrd memory: 14220k freed
_

after this it hangs...
any idea?

Grtz FoxOne

[Detonate]

OK, let me get back to you on this. Are you trying to install Ubuntu 11.10 or Kubuntu 11.10? We can try some other options but I want to get the correct iso and burn it so I can be exactly sure of how to tell you to proceed.

[foxone]

I made a usb drive with kubuntu 10.04 on it and it works like a charm, i'm using it right now....

Thx for the help.
Grtz Fox

[Detonate]

That's a good solution. 10.04 uses an older kernel that does not try to load the video driver. Now if you want to move up, you can upgrade.

[foxone]

Now i have one issue that i already posted in the software section of 10.04 about no audio in flash...

And how do I perform the upgrade, and if I do, will it support the video card?

grtz thomas

[Detonate]

Press Alt+F2 and enter the command

update-manager -d

.

If you have already installed the driver for your video card it should work fine.

[foxone]

well, we can rule out the video driver as the culprit. I installed the driver in 10.10 (from 10.04 to 10.10 no problem) and the system wouldn't restart same end in a textmoide screen as i described earlier. I took out he videocard and used onchip vga after which the system booted fine. Thinking I had the solution I went ahead and upgraded to the next version gues what again hanging in same textmode screen(when i use repair boot option)...
But anyways it won't be the video drivers...

[foxone]

so now I started all over. i took out the videocard just in case, and did a clean install of 10.04. I updated the 10.04 an then upgraded it to 10.10. now I have 7 entries in grub:
ubuntu, with linux 2.6.35-32-generic-pae
ubuntu, with linux 2.6.35-32-generic-pae (recovery mode)
ubuntu, with linux 2.6.35-32-generic-pae
ubuntu, with linux 2.6.35-32-generic-pae (recovery mode)
memtest
memtest
win7

the first two entries lead to a hanging boot, and the second two boot into kubuntu 10.10 and can upgrade to 11.04 but I won't for now seeing how that went before. what do you suggest I do now?

grtz