Frustration - unable to install any Linux

Tuvoc

Tuvoc

Tuvoc

Soldato
Joined
19 Dec 2002
Posts
3,745
Well, I've tried 4 Linux distros on this machine and in all cases the LiveCD doesn't run. Unbuntu and Mint, I never get to the screen that invites you to run it, it just reads the CD up to a certain point then stops (CD works on another box). OpenSuse gives me a screen full of coloured blocks. Fedora invites me to run it then I just get a blank screen with a cursor. Of course the machine runs Windows 7 and Vista perfectly. I thought the hardware was pretty standard:
ASUS P5Q Deluxe
ATI 3870 video card
8GB RAM
2 x hard drives
DVD
LG 22" flat panel
Netgear USB wireless adaptor

Another machine is perfect - Gigabyte board with onboard video, and the same Netgear wireless adaptor - so it isn't as if I have not had success elsewhere.

Any clues ? Another distro to try perhaps ? Sigh...
 
I'll run memtest. If it shows anything I'll eat my hat, but you never know. Having had Crucial memory fail in the past more than once, I run it every 3 months anyway. Although this machine has Corsair. Best to eliminate that possibility though.

It mustn't like something in the hardware, god knows what.
 
One approach after doing the above may be to try and install Ubuntu server, which is text based, no GUI. OpenSuSe giving me a screen full of coloured blocks makes me think it may not like the graphics card.
 
It is 64-bit I'm trying to install. I know the Ubuntu CD is OK, because I used it to install on another machine. On this one, it doesn't get as far as the splash screen where I am offered a choice of languages. I get a coloured screen, with 2 pictures at the bottom, 1 which looks like it might be a keyboard, and another is a stick-figure. Then it just goes to a blank screen and that is it. None of the distributions get as far as an install screen.
 
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Memtest is fine. This is a case of some hardware incompatibility or driver problem rather than a fault

I downloaded Ubuntu ona another machine and created the USb Boot disk. As a live CD it fails to run, and it won't install. In both cases it stops during the text screen full of messages. The last one reads
[1.939784] NET: Registered Protocol family 1

So I guess what come after that is failing

Presumably AHCI mode on the ICH10 Intel controller is OK ? I googled that and support was added to the Linux kernel long ago

I think the acpi=off tip is right on the money, googling the installation stoppoing at that point brings back a few responses

I really wanted to dual boot this machine with Windows and Linux, but looks like it may have to be Windows only.
 
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Well, I found an old Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit install DVD, and the machine boots straight into the LiveCD mode with no problems at all :eek:. I'm typing this from Firefox under an 8.10 Live session.

It is only the NEWER distributions which won't run. Totally, totally bizarre. Newer distributions have broken compatibility somehow
 
Yes, still no joy. Of course there is an effect, you can see the text messages scrolling down. But at the end of the day it just stops. Suse is different, the LiveCD appears to run, but then stops with a screen of coloured blocks.

But.... I downloaded Debian and that installed perfectly. Some success at last !! Trouble is Debian didn't pick up the wireless USB network adaptor, which Ubuntu 8.10 does pick up. So, no internet which is not helpful.... If I could get that working I'd be happy, time to search the internet again to get clues on that !

Ubuntu is based on Debian isn't it, but looks like a different kernel and no doubt lots of other things.

Or I guess I could install Ubuntu 8.10 and just run that, or upgrade to 10.04 after installation
 
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fluff said:
It shouldn't be too difficult to get the WiFi adapter running under Debian.

Boot to Debian and run lsusb. Paste the output here.
Click to expand...


Yes hopefully not too difficult. I'll report back here later

Debian may not have installed sound either, that isn't important straight away
 
Here we go - obviously it is the first one...
It should be able to be made to work, it works under the Ubuntu 8.10 and I have the same adaptor on my other box which runs 10.04
During the Debian install, I had to tell it not to configure the network

Bus 008 Device 002: ID 0846:6a00 NetGear, Inc. WG111v2 54 Mbps Wireless [RealTek RTL8187L]
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 046d:c016 Logitech, Inc. Optical Wheel Mouse
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 
Thanks deano, about to take a look. Debian is not what I would have really wanted, but given that it is the only one that actually installs and runs, I have little choice. No-where near as user friendly as Ubuntu. Could run Ubuntu 8.10 I guess, but I'm not sure it is a good idea to run such an old distro. I've googled this, and the P5Q motherboard series has given a lot of people a lot of problems with Linux

EDIT: The Debian route looks difficult, looks like I need to install another kernel as the first step. I think I will use Ubuntu 8.10 plus just essential updates.
 
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One last shot before I revert to Ubuntu 8.10 - Mandriva seems to be fine, I got through to the partitioning step on the dual-iso download. Now downloading the full DVD x64 iso. The only other new distro that gets as far as this is Debian, which of course then goes on to install and run perfectly. It is however a really spartan install.
 
deano said:
latest bios ?
Click to expand...

Yes

I understand what is happening in a way - Ubuntu 8.10 uses kernel 2.6.27-7, and Debian 5.0, despite being the latest version, uses an old kernel, 2.6.26. Later kernels on all current distributions (the ones I've tried, but I would say it is all of them) break compatibility with my system. What it is I just don't know. It is a pretty serious thing in my view, they have broken something in later kernels. And my system is not unusual, pretty standard hardware.
I'm just going to run 8.10 now, I've wasted way too many hours on this already. Thanks to everyone who has helped me, much appreciated.
 
deano said:
it does seem to be a kernel issue, but you did mention mandriva working which is a new kernel.
as long as you update 8.10 then there should not be any issues.
Click to expand...

I narrowed it down a little further

kernel 2.6.26 = OK (latest Debian)
Kernel 2.6.27 = OK (Ubuntu 8.10)

Kernel 2.6.28 = not OK (Ubuntu 9.04) installs and boots but then freezes

Kernels in latest Ubuntu, OpenSuse, Mint,Fedora Mandriva, are not OK for me. Mandriva is almost there, it installs but then freezes. None of the others even start to install.

Anyway - I'm happily using Ubuntu 8.10 right now, it is rock solid and it will do fine for what I need.
 
I've no doubt there are lots of things I could do like that, but I don't see why I should. It should just work, end of story. I've been using Ubuntu 8.10 all day today and it has been running perfectly. So I have a solution that I am happy with.

I'll keep an eye on the ubuntu and other forums for any sign of a fix to this, and additionally I'll look at Debian further. Although that is quite spartan, I'm keen to get my hands dirty with it and experiment, but at my own pace and while I have a working solution in the meantime. Debian is a conservative distro, but I do find it interesting that they still use the old 2.6.26 kernel and haven't jumped up to the newer ones. Maybe they know something everyone else doesn't. I certainly do - the newer kernels are not compatible with my hardware ! :eek:
 
I have now tried Mepis Linux, and again the older 8.0 with kernel 2.6.27 works, and 8.5 with kernel 2.6.32 does not. But Mepis gives more information as to why it fails:

It says:
pci 0000:05:02.0: BAR 6 address space collision on of device [0xfebc0000-0xfebdffff]

Now, google that and you find:
It's a bug with the way the kernel 2.6.31 handles PCI resources. Linus Torvalds describes the problem here
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/39988/
There appears to be a fix in the works, but not for kernel 2.6.31

and
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/424142

So it is at least a known bug, but I'm astonished it isn't fixed as these posts are months old.

And note that 5:02 appears to be the ethernet controller, if I am interpreting things correctly:

demo@mepis1:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset DRAM Controller (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) HD Audio Controller
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 1
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 5
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Port 6
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SATA AHCI Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 3870
01:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon HD 3870 Audio device
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 12)
03:00.0 IDE interface: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE6121 SATA II Controller (rev b1)
05:02.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8001 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 14)
05:03.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Agere Systems FW322/323 (rev 70)
 
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