Mint Debian Live CD & USB hangs at Login on Samsung Q210

[hamamelis]

I have linuxmint-debian-201009-gnome-dvd-i386.iso on DVD and USB flash.
This CD boots perfectly on a PC and USB boots perfectly on PC & a Samsung NC10 Netbook.

They will not boot on a Samsung Q210. The using the compatability mode, boot proceeds normally untill "Preconfiuring networking ..." There is a delay of a few minutes then the install continues. It gets to the Login Screen with "sunshine, Reset, Shut Down & LogIn." There is a bar at the bottom of the screen showing the correct date. There is a time-clock symbol showing that the machine is busy. However long I wait the hang continues and the entire keyboard and touchpad is inactive. It is not possible to get access to any virtual terminals with Ctl+Alt+Function keys. I have to reboot the machine.
I have checked the MD5Sum.
I have also found that checking the integrity of the USB & DVD fails on Q210 but is successful on NC10 & PC.

I suspect that I need to add some kernel options. I have tried all the usual ones like edd=off, vga=791, xvesa, acpi=off. These do not help. I have tried changing various bios options.

Where can I find a list of further kernel options which might help?
How do I find where the error is, when the machine freezes and I cannot look at any log files because they are on ramdisk?

If I copy a working Mint Debian root directory directory from another machine on the the Q210 hard disk it will run fine just as if it had been installed.

Thanks for help.

[mads]

Where can I find a list of further kernel options which might help?

I would also try to add "nomodeset noapic" to kernel line.

A list of the usual kernel parameters: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions#Kernel%20Options
A more detailed list: http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt

[hamamelis]

Thanks for help. "nomodeset" did not help and " noapic" was already in xforcevisa conservative login. So I cannot boot from a DVD.

What did work was to put linuxmint-debian-201009-gnome-dvd-i386.iso on the usb Flash Voyager using MultiSystem (http://liveusb.info/dotclear/). This is a package I have just discovered and it allows booting from a number of operating system isos on a usb stick. It also allows testing them in VirtualBox or Qemu. NB Instructions are in French and the automatic English translation is a bit strange.
The isolinux.cfg on MultiBoot is just
label live
menu label Start Linux Mint
kernel /casper/vmlinuz
append boot=live initrd=/casper/initrd.lz live-media-path=/casper quiet splash --

I can't explain why this works but it does and MultiBoot seems very userful to save a lot of effort using live isos.

Originally I used UNetbootin and this was the version which hung at the login screen.

Anyway when MintDebian live was booted using MultiSystem there were not problems on the Samsung Q210. However, on my PC I was able to install LMDE all on / and it automatically created a /home directory on that partition and asked for a user. On the Samsung Q210 this would not install. The system hung when it started doing somthing like "caluculating indexes". I have read, I think, that /home has to be on a separate partition. Is that the case?

[mads]

...I have read, I think, that /home has to be on a separate partition. Is that the case?

First, I am very happy that you managed somehow to fix this issue.
It is only a suggestion, but writing a how to in Tutorials / Howtos section, wouldn't be a bad idea. I am sure, many people will find it useful.

Back to your question, no, not as far as I know. /home doesn't need to be on a separate partition. I am running LMDE now, and I don't have any separate /home partition. Before LMDE, I installed and used Mint 10 for a couple of days, and then, like now, I had only / and swap partitions.

[hamamelis]

There is still a problem. The Samsung Q210 will now boot from linuxmint-debian-201009-gnome-dvd-i386.iso using MultiBoot as I described. Everything works fine.

However, it refuses to install on the hard disk. When installation starts it hangs at the message "Calculating file indexes" and gets no further. I have tried putting root and home on separate partitions, it makes no difference. I can quit the intall and cary on using Mint Debian. Gparted behaves as I would expect and the partition I am trying to install to has c20Gb and is well below partition no 16. I have tried formatting it to both ext3 & ext4.
I have established that linuxmint-debian-201009-gnome-dvd-i386.iso will not install on any machine I have tried using MultiBoot; they all hang as above. This appears to be to do with linuxmint because I have successfully installed linuxmint-10-gnome-dvd-i386.iso on the same computer using the same USB stick setup with MultiBoot. I think we may have to wait for the new linuxmint iso due out shortly which I hope will solve this problem.

I have tried various kernel boot options from the web site Mads suggested - still no difference.

Can I find an install log somewhere to see what is happening?


I'll think about a HOW TO when I get the installation working. However, I am impressed by MultiBoot.

[hamamelis]

The problems described above with the Samsung Q210 and Linux Mint Debian persist with the latest iso. (linuxmint-debian-201012-gnome-dvd-i386.iso)
To recap
1. On the Q210 the live DVD or Unetbootin USB hangs as described above. I have tried various bios options and there is no progress.
2. If I put the iso onto USB with MultiSystem then the live Linux Debian will run.
3. From the MultiSystem USB, Mint Debian will not install on the Q210 or on any other machine that I have tried. Other versions of Mint, like v 10 install OK from a MultiSystem USB.

I am stumped using the regular install. What I did was to install Linux Debian onto a regular 686 PC and copy the entire root partition to the Q210. That seems to work fine, then I can install the PAE and NVIDIA drivers.

[ilovemy_e34]

lol -- I have had the exact same problem and I have gone through very similar troubleshooting steps. I am trying to install to a Asus M50sv laptop from a flash drive using multiboot app. I wish my dvd drive worked... Good luck, I am going to check the MD5 hash on the iso and then give up for now.

The hash was good... I suppose it was worth ruling out. Well I guess the good thing about the live installer is that I can watch a movie from another partition in the meantime.

[ilovemy_e34]

If anyone is having this problem I found it to be cause by the 16GB FAT32 partition on my usb drive. In windows I download the HP usb tool and that reduced my partition to 3GB (windows will not allow you to do it) and then I reformatted it to FAT(16). Then I used Unetbootin and everything worked out.

The problem could perhaps have been due to a corrupt FAT32 file system, though I doubt it because I had just made the partition...

[hamamelis]

All the above problems have been solved with linuxmint-debian-201101-gnome-dvd-i386.iso.
The Samsung Q210 will run from the above put on a USB flash drive with Unetbootin. It also install perfectly.
LMDE appears fine and the prospect of not having to reload a new version ever will save may many hours of work.

One word of warning: Do not try to use MintUpdate (the little shield icon on the panel). Use only Synaptic or the apt-get on command line. I tried to use MintUpdate and kept getting errors "Fix broken packages." It took me a long time to find out that MintUpdate does not work with LMDE. It is not designed to work with a rolling update. Apparently if you use it you may break your Linux.
The release notes http://linuxmint.com/rel_debian.php say it has not be updated for LMDE but does not warn of the dangers of using it.
Ian

[terdon]

Unfortunately, all the above problems are present in linuxmint-debian-201012-gnome-dvd-amd64.iso.part. I am stuck at "calculating file indexes". Any suggestions?

[dirjax]

I'm using Multisystem myself, and had the same problem (hp elitebook 8530p)

image: linux mint debian Xfce
install type: usb install, usb prepared with multisystem

problem: calculating indexes
Multisystem puts the files in the folder /lmde1 by default, however it seems that mint can't handle that properly when installing.

solution:
1) I changed the name of the folder to /casper
2) edit the /boot/grub/grub.cfg to reflect the change (and removed the rootfstype option)

menuentry "Linux Mint Debian (LMDE) 64-bit" {
#linux /casper/vmlinuz rootfstype=vfat boot=live live-media-path=/casper quiet splash --
linux /casper/vmlinuz boot=live live-media-path=/casper quiet splash --
initrd /casper/initrd.lz
}

3) boot, install & win!

so it seems that the installer looks for the /casper (cfr regular cd options) but since he fails to find the files needed > hang

did another test with multisystem to confirm this:
added linux mint debian gnome to multisystem as first (created /casper) and afterwards the linux mint debian xfce (created /lmde1)
boot xfce, start install, all seems to go well.
However when you reboot it has installed the gnome version

hope this helps someone

[terdon]

That sounds great. I was using Multisystem as well. I will give this a try.

[sdrubble]

Well, I just followed a pointer from Dr. Hu at another topic, stating that this is the "official" topic for the "calculating file indexes" hanging issue.

I just happened to solve this and would like to present my solution.

The issue appeared on a LMDE-XFCE Live session, running from a USB pendrive "burned" with unetbootin. to which I added the parm "toram=filesystem.squashfs".

After I decided to investigate the possibility that the 'toram' thing was stealing precious RAM space needed by the Mint installer (squashfs is 980 Mb, and my total RAM is 2 Gb), I rebooted the LiveCD pendrive, this time WITHOUT specifying toram.

My suspicion about 'toram' interfering with the installer was correct. It's right now running full blast (at another box).

Cheers

EDIT: fixed the error msg string which is actually 'calculating file indexes', and not 'calculating index files' as I had written before.

[maniqui]

I can confirm that the solution suggested by user dirjax worked for me (on a Multisystem USB stick).

[terdon]

Right, I tried this solution but ran into another problem.

Now, when I boot into the live session from the multisystem pen drive, gnome loads fine but the keyboard and mouse are unresponsive.

I have tried adding nomodeset and noacpi options, I have tried unplugging either the keyboard or the mouse and then plugging them in once the system has booted (in all combinations possible). I am using a usb mouse/keyboard so I also tried with a PS2 keyboard, no dice. Keyboard works fine in grub so it is not a hardware problem. I have installed a LOT of distros on this box, including various MINTs, one of which is working perfectly including a working keyboard and mouse.

I had this problem before when trying to boot using unetbootin and it was the reason I switched to multisystem.

Any ideas?

[terdon]

Nobody? Getting kinda desperate here...

[sandough]

hi
I did all stage installing but in end stage when I click botton "install"
I take the message "calculating file indexes"
what is problem?
thanks