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[SOLVED] Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

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    [SOLVED] Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

    (Revised because I discovered some mistakes in the original draft.)

    Hello.

    I downloaded the Kubuntu-10.10-Desktop-AMD64 iso-file, and burned the file over to a 700MB CD-R. At first I tried booting this CD on my stationary computer, and allthough it took some time to boot, it worked just fine. I chose to "try Kubuntu", and it started up in a normal KDE environment. But when I installed a display-driver (which Kubuntu automatically notified me that I should), I got a message afterwords that told me to reboot, for the changes to take effect.

    As we all should know by now, rebooting from a CD resets all changes, because all changes made are saved in the system memory (RAM). But I don't want to install Kubuntu to the system yet. I have certain files in my system, that I don't want to loose. And I need to see that Kubuntu actually works with my system first.

    I bought a USB-memory-stick (SanDisk 8GB). The Idea was that I can save changes to the USB-stick, so that system changes will remain even after reboot. Then I tried to run the USB boot-making program (.exe-file) that came with the CD I burned (from Microsoft Windows 7). It failed (!!) Said something about "unable to install GRUB" or something. So I rebooted the system once again from the Kubuntu-CD, and tried using a linux-tool that I found in Kubuntu by searching the word "USB" in the K-menu. This time it worked fine (apparently).

    Now I tried to reboot from the USB-stick. The contents on the USB-stick should be exactly the same as on the CD (as the CD was the source that I created the bootable USB-stick from), but it failed (!!). Or so I think. GRUB loaded, I chose to start Kubuntu, and I got the splash screen with the glowing dots. They continued glowing over and over, nothing happened. After 50 minutes, and still nothing happened, I gave up. Tried using the "ESC"-key to abort the splash-screen, and I got the following error:

    "(Process :471): GLib-WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to unknown user id (0)"

    After some troubleshooting, I discovered that the same error-message appears at the same point while booting from the CD, but the system ignores it and continues loading, apparently.

    I thought maybe this could be a hardware-problem on my computer, and I tried booting on a netbook instead. It booted fine with the CD, event though I used an external USB-CD-ROM. So I tried the USB-stick as well.

    I got to the point where I can choose to "install" or "try Kubuntu", so I guess the error on my stationary computer does not occur here. From this point on it took several minutes to complete the startup-procedure, but now everything looked completely f@$&¤ up!

    The K-menu is missing, the task-bar is placed at the top of the screen (instead of at the bottom), the desktop is twisted all about, the shortcuts which should have been on the K-menu is placed in some sort of strange window, which fills all available space on the desktop (only the "Install Kubuntu 10.10" icon left outside), which makes me believe that the real problem is that the K-button is missing, and the "K-menu" is allways open. But many of the icons that should have been on the K-menu are missing.

    - Now what?
    - Why won't this thing work?
    - What should I do to troubleshoot the problem?
    - Will the same problem occur if I install Kubuntu completely on my hard drive?

    #2
    Re: Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

    Hi and welcome to the forum

    I'm sorry you are having trouble - let's try to sort it for you I note you are struggling with the live USB but the source CD works fine.

    You make an interesting observation that you make the USB with the .exe file "that came with the CD" - to the best of my knowledge, there isn't one, and I wonder whether you mean "wubi.exe" which is the program that enables you to perform an installation from within windows, hence the reference to installation of grub, as a USB stick on a trial basis should not install anything.

    Your desktop problem certainly seems to me either graphics related or possibly because of an improper USB creation routine.

    Take a look here

    http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/download

    This will enable you to create a live USB and make it "persistent" i.e you will be able to make changes that will stick, so you should be able to take it for a proper test drive. Only then can you get off the ground with this, I think.

    HTH

    Ian

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

      The name of the .exe-file that came with the CD is "usb-creator.exe". The program looks exactly the same as the one that I used in linux afterwords. And it did actually come with the CD. Just checked!

      This is what my desktop looks like on my netbook:
      [img width=400 height=234]http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/3848/snapshot1rw.png[/img]

      This is what Openoffice looks like on my netbook:
      [img width=400 height=234]http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3245/snapshot2v.png[/img]

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

        To post your images here, go to ImageShack and upload your photos for free. Then come back here and put them in your post using the image icon under BBC tags.

        Those
        Home: Kubuntu 12.04-amd64; Intel i7-860 on Intel DH55PJ; Nvidia 9500GT; 6GB RAM
        Network Slave: Xubuntu 11.10-x86; Intel P4-Prescott on MSI; 2GB RAM; Nvidia FX5200
        Portable: Xubuntu 11.10-amd64; Asus EeePC 1015PEM

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

          Thank you! Your suggestion is done!

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

            that is the netbook UI and looks correct.......you can get the desktop UI by going to system settings>workspace and switch from netbook to desktop!

            what are the specks for the desktop that dosent want to load the USB? ....specifically how much RAM and what speed CPU

            VINNY

            i7 4core HT 8MB L3 2.9GHz
            16GB RAM
            Nvidia GTX 860M 4GB RAM 1152 cuda cores

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

              Originally posted by The Liquidator
              Take a look here

              http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/download

              This will enable you to create a live USB and make it "persistent" i.e you will be able to make changes that will stick, so you should be able to take it for a proper test drive. Only then can you get off the ground with this, I think.
              Ok. I formatted the USB-stick, and reinstalled a bootable version of Kubuntu-10.10-Desktop-AMD64 with the program you suggested. The program didn't recognize my installation CD (nor the ISO-file) as a compatible version of Kubuntu, so I had to "force it" to get it to understand that it is Kubuntu Linux I am using. Aparently no other problems this far. This is what happened next:

              Trying to boot linux through MS-Windows, as described on the site mentioned, failed. Got error-message telling me that my processor is not compatible with 64-bit version of Kubuntu. I can't believe this is true.

              This is what my stationary computer have:
              Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition http://www.anandtech.com/show/2819
              Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3, Socket-AM3 http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3272#ov
              Graphic Card: XFX GeForce 9500GT 550M 1GB PhysX CUDA http://xfxforce.com/en-gb/products/g...es/9500GT.aspx
              Memory: Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600MHz 4GB CL9 http://www.corsair.com/tw3x4g1600c9d.html
              My computer should be 64-bit, otherwise I have been fooled by the sellers.

              Furthermore:
              Once again I rebooted my stationary computer with my USB-stick, choosing the default option, so I should be able to make possible changes "stick". The same problem occurs this time as well, only now I get (hopefully) more useful output after pressing the "ESC"-button. It looks something like this:

              (process:471): GLib_WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to unknown user id (0)
              stdin: error 0
              stdin: error 0
              stdin: I/O error
              stdin: error 0
              stdin: error 0
              [916.109036] end request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
              [916.109036] Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
              (repeating the two previous lines about 10-15 times with new numbers between "[]")
              stdin: I/O error
              stdin: error 0
              stdin: error 0
              /init: line 7: can't open /dev/sr0: no medium found
              Warning: Unable to find the persistent home medium
              [916.109036] end request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0
              [916.109036] Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
              (repeating the two previous lines infinitely with new numbers between "[]")


              I didn't even bother to try my netbook on this one.
              - Does anyone here understand anything of this?

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

                At last, I managed to solve this myself, by looking into these two sites:
                https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/500822
                http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1345125

                This is a bug in Casper. The problem occured because a floppy drive was enabled in my BIOS, allthough I have no floppy drive. Disabling the floppy drive in BIOS solved the problem in my case.

                I would point out that this problem was extra difficult to figure out on my own. It is a prize example of why linux is so far behind Microsoft Windows in terms of usability. How was I supposed to know that a floppy drive was the real problem in my case? There should have been an error-message telling me that "initializing floppy drive failed" or "error: no floppy drive installed" or something like that.

                After all, my system now boots as expected. This issue is solved! Thank you for all your replies!

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: [SOLVED] Kubuntu fails to boot with USB-stick, but successfully boots with CD.

                  I am very pleased that you have resolved this issue - bugs like this are indeed extremely annoying, and some are a reflection of the fact that in many respects Linux developers are working without any help at all from manufacturers - in fact some manufacturers are downright hostile.

                  With that in mind, what you achieved when you inserted your live CD could quite justifiably be described as a massive achievement, and as you play around with that USB drive, I hope you find it a good experience too.

                  Comment

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