Trying to install on a Thinkpad T430U?

[ledoktre]

Good evening guys,

Am running LMDE UP6 with Cinnamon and loving it. I bought a Thinkpad T430U thinking I could drop in a nice SSD drive and load LMDE on it. What I am running into is that it is just running horribly slow. Install seemed slower than I expected, but booting up for the first time, I think I could have gone and made coffee. This shouldn't be the case on this laptop, its got 16GB ram and running a i5-3427U processor and a 256 GB Sata3 SSD drive. I mean, it literally took 10 minutes to boot up. Right now, I've clicked onto the update manager and its been sitting here for about 5 minutes until it finally came up and told me what updates were available.

I am not sure where to go with this -- the laptop is running an UM77 chipset, was originally configured with an mSata 24GB SSD / 500GB spinning drive and Express Cache technology. It was also configured with UEFI Secure Boot (it would not allow anything to boot by default except for secure (approved?) EFI devices. I have that disabled now to be able to boot the thumb drive needed to install LMDE. Oh, and the laptop shipped with Windows 8 on it.

Looking for some advice, I need to get my OS up and running and I sure as **** am not going to make it Windows.

Thanks,

[caf4926]

Perhaps if you can post this:

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inxi -F

that will give us some detail on the hardware

Have you tried watching the boot in verbose or examined the boot log?

[ledoktre]

Thanks for your reply.

Here are my specs (as per your request) :

System: Host ledoktre-laptop Kernel 3.2.0-2-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit) Distro Linux Mint Debian Edition
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i5-3427U (-HT-MCP-) cache 3072 KB flags (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips 9178.94
Clock Speeds: (1) 2301.00 MHz (2) 2301.00 MHz (3) 759.00 MHz (4) 2301.00 MHz
Graphics: Card Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller X.Org 1.11.4 Res: 1366x768@60.1hz
GLX Renderer Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile GLX Version 2.1 Mesa 8.0.4 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio: Card Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller driver snd_hda_intel BusID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.24
Network: Card-1 Broadcom BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n BusID: 03:00.0
Card-2 Realtek RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller driver r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI at port 3000 BusID: 09:00.0
Disks: HDD Total Size: 256.1GB (-) 1: /dev/sda Samsung_SSD_840 256.1GB 0C
Partition: ID:/ size: 223G used: 8.2G (4%) fs: rootfs ID:/ size: 223G used: 8.2G (4%) fs: ext4
ID:swap-1 size: 16.89GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 60.0C mobo: 0.0C
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 3007
Info: Processes 147 Uptime 44 min Memory 300.9/15810.3MB Runlevel 2 Client Shell inxi 1.4.23

I will try to look at the boot log files. At the moment I am waiting for it to finish doing updates (its been up 44 minutes according to the line above and all I have done is boot it, open the update manager, and click the button to begin the update - no actual update has happened yet).

Thanks,

EDIT : I wanted to also mention, I booted once with the flags removed for fast boot and quiet, and I saw all the services scrolling by. Normally like on my PC (2nd gen i5-2500k, 8gb ram) they would scroll by almost too fast to read. On this laptop in its present configuration, however, it scrolled each one by, maybe 4-5 seconds each, or more.

EDIT 2 : I am trying to attach my dmesg output and also my /var/log/messages log file. Looks like I need to tar them first, can't upload txt files.

logs.tar.gz

dmesg and messages log files in tar/gzip format

(40 KiB) Downloaded 11 times

[caf4926]

Look at this point in dmesg

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11.624816] Btrfs loaded
[   11.880119] EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[   22.063040] udevd[334]: starting version 175
[   30.491281] Monitor-Mwait will be used to enter C-1 state

and

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[   48.023137] input: HDA Intel PCH Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input15
[   91.990534] Adding 16490684k swap on /dev/sda5.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:16490684k SS
[   93.083450] EXT4-fs (sda1): re-mounted. Opts: (null)
[   94.895394] EXT4-fs (sda1): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro
[  106.201909] device-mapper: uevent: version 1.0.3
[  106.202493] device-mapper: ioctl: 4.22.0-ioctl (2011-10-19) initialised: dm-devel@redhat.com
[  110.982555] loop: module loaded
[  161.642617] fuse init (API version 7.17)
[  293.303916] Bluetooth: Core ver 2.16
[  293.304227] NET: Registered protocol family 31

There are some big gaps there. But I can't see what the issue is

In messages:

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Dec 31 00:23:55 ledoktre-laptop kernel: [ 2704.957273]  sdc: sdc1
Dec 31 00:23:59 ledoktre-laptop kernel: [ 2708.982859] FAT-fs (sdc1): utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
Dec 31 00:26:30 ledoktre-laptop kernel: [ 2859.647109] sdc: detected capacity change from 16236150272 to 0
Dec 31 00:26:35 ledoktre-laptop kernel: [ 2864.910827] usb 2-1.1: USB disconnect, device number 5
Dec 31 00:37:35 ledoktre-laptop kernel: [ 3524.226511] usb 2-1.1: new high-speed USB device number 6 using ehci_hcd

LMDE takes forever to update

Have you tried Mint 13 or 14 Mate version?

[caf4926]

I uploaded them to a paste site to make it easier for others

dmesg: http://paste.opensuse.org/10796434

messages: http://paste.opensuse.org/98262477

[ledoktre]

Greets.

I should clarify a couple points. When I said I was running LMDE UP6 and loving it, that was on my desktop. This laptop is new. With the original mSata/spinning drive win8 ran fine (as good as to be expected being windows . Pulled both drives and installed mint 14 cinnamon. Speed issues.

Downloaded latest lmde and tried it. Speed issues. General overall slowness. Not just on updates.

What does the gaps mean? I've copied the files straight over to the post...


Thanks,

[caf4926]

I don't know that those gaps are that important
They just stand out

You could install bootchart
And see if that makes things look clearer

But I take it the speed issue is not just at boot but in use too?

[caf4926]

I noticed the messages file had dates back to March?
Is this from a new install?

[ledoktre]

Sure, I can try boot chart, but yes, it is still slow even after booting (general usage).

Brand new install this afternoon. I will double check the file that I copied, I'm sure I grabbed the right one though. Make any sense?

I am doing the updates now in hopes a recent update might make this all better

[ledoktre]

I looked at my messages file. It must be somehow a stock file. You are quite correct, it has dates back in march. I read some of it and it mentioned a 52x CDROM, which I have an ultra book, no optical. Also mentioned a dell USB keyboard, which I don't even own one.

Not sure where all that is coming from.

System is about half done in all this time applying updates. Is it worth trying boot chart as slowness is also on general usage?

Please advise. My thoughts at the moment are to see how system does after updates complete and reboot. Also on the off chance this is an SSD issue, try putting my spinning drive back in and try a fresh load.

Thoughts? (Heading to bed... Thanks, good night)

[caf4926]

See how it is after updating.

During use... what do you mean slow?

You seem to have a plan with the HD idea, it's probably what I would try.
But what about the live session, is that slow to boot and in use too?

[ledoktre]

During use has been pretty much just going into the main menu, Firefox, terminal and update manager. I know it lists a video driver as being recognized, but the screen redraws act like there is no driver.

The live cd (thumb drive) seemed better, and the install went pretty decent I thought.

Still installing updates...

[caf4926]

I know it lists a video driver as being recognized, but the screen redraws act like there is no driver.

I was wondering about this

Please let me see

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lspci -nnk

I only need the Graphics part

[ledoktre]

Happy New Year 2013!

The updates didnt seem to help.

Actually, in trying to boot up and get that last bit of info you are seeking, I am presented with this message :

"Failed to start the X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly. ould you like to view the X server output to diagnose the problem?"

Here was the screenshot of its output (too much to type) :

Next screen says "Would you like to view the detailed X server output as well?"

I will try to find the logfile to attach, it was too long to do screenshots.

I did get dumped to a terminal screen after that. It took 30 seconds to login, but was able to issue `lspci -nnk`. Here was the graphics section :

screenshot.jpg (444 KiB) Viewed 1120 times

00:02:0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09)
Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:500c]
Kernel driver in use: i915

I am going to go ahead and run some ram tests (even though they are new) and also try throwing the old spinning drive back in and see if the load changes. Try to narrow down the ram and ssd.

Ideas / thoughts?

Thanks,

[caf4926]

Have you tried other Mint versions?

[ledoktre]

Tried Mint 14 Cinnamon

[DrHu]

The graphics support you have from your screen dump is pixman..
http://blog.mecheye.net/2012/06/the-lin ... ics-stack/

Haven't checked, but that type of driver probably isn't the best, unless there is no native driver (vendor supplied binary) available..
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/l ... linux.aspx
http://linux.spiney.org/debian_gnu_linu ... _ati_fglrx
--if it is an AMD/ATI driver, you may want to check their site or internally with the package manager on your system

Additionally the file format of BTRS may not be the best choice for a small drive

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=256068
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive

[caf4926]

My Intel

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00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a42] (rev 09)
        Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3a02]
        Kernel driver in use: i915


Works like a charm

[ledoktre]

Dr. Hu:

I'm not sure what pixman is. I just loaded LMDE directly via USB drive. I checked against my desktop (i5-2500k, Intel HD 3000 graphics), and it looks the same , same driver. I don;t mind to try loading a driver from Intel if needed. Just in case you haven't followed the rest of the post, I'm just trying to get my laptop running with LMDE. I'd originally tried Mint 14, but had issues. Seriously long boot times. With the specs this system is, it should be nice and fast. i5-3427u, Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics, 16GB Gskill DDR3 1600, Samsung 256GB SATA3 SSD. The last that caf4926 and I were trying was to figure out if the right drivers for video were loaded, and I was also going to be trying the stock ram and stock drive to try and narrow down if this was my system or a general ivy bridge issue. Would love some further input

caf4926:

You're running Intel integrated graphics as well? In your signature its looking like Mint 13? Had some trouble running memtest86 on the laptop. Downloaded the newest beta, running through the paces on that now.

Thanks,

[caf4926]

I'm sure the driver is correct

I have read of issues depending on the version of : xf86-video-intel