Mint 13 MATE 32-bit installation just stops

[cbope]

I'm having no success installing Mint 13 on an old dual processor machine. It exceeds the minimum requirements:
HP Kayak XU800 workstation
dual-proc, Pentium III 1GHz coppermine
640MB RAM
Seagate Cheetah 147GB SCSI 15k rpm hard disk on Adaptec 39160 Ultra160 controller
DVD-RW ATA drive for installation media
NVIDIA Quadro4 750 XGL 128MB AGP video

I am booting from DVD-R disc with Mint 13 MATE 32-bit. I can launch the installer after booting the Live CD, and I can proceed through the partitioning, time zone, language, keyboard selection and account creation screens just fine while files are copied. Then, some minutes later, the installation window just disappears. The Live CD desktop is still running and still working, although the mouse pointer is the spinning busy icon. It has now been over an hour since the installer disappeared, I left the system running to see if something in the installation was just slow. Normally, this machine is pretty snappy running Linux even though it's pretty old hardware. Previously, I have had Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, various FreeBSD versions, and last was Debian (I just did not get along well with Debian), all worked fine. So I'm pretty sure it's not a hardware issue.

There were no crashes visible on-screen and no error messages, the installer window just disappeared. This has happened two times now, exactly the same each time. In the system monitor, every process is sleeping and I do not see an installer running (not sure what the installer process is called, but I don't see anything that looks like an installer in the list).

I have not tried the Cinnamon installer, as I'm not sure if it will be happy running on an old Quadro, but I could be persuaded to give it a try. I don't have any previous data on this box that needs saved, I was performing a clean install.

[malligt]

I'm pretty sure from reading a couple other websites that the kernel of Mint 13 (3.2.0) does not support your hardware. You might want to investigate that further....

Here's a link:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTA3ODQ

For hardware older than about a half-decade, Ubuntu 12.04 is becoming more sluggish to use, burning through greater power, and really not being worthwhile to pursue the upgrade. The Linux support for this older hardware has passed its prime.

In general I find the optimal Linux / open-source hardware support to be two to three years after the hardware's first availability, at least when it comes to open-source graphics drivers and some processor/compiler optimizations, etc. After that the support loses focus.

For anyone that still is running such vintage hardware in a production capacity, I would advise against upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or any other newer Linux distribution for that matter, aside from possibly those distributions catered towards running on crippled hardware. For Pentium M era hardware, I'm finding Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" to be the sweet spot, and for those with old hardware, you can always selectively upgrade your packages from there. Legacy hardware users would find a better Linux desktop experience if they went with this approach.

At least for Ubuntu 12.10 they will be dropping the non-PAE 32-bit kernel, which will knock out some users and make them think twice about trying to upgrade. Hopefully the Ubuntu developers will decide to do greater "spring cleaning" of older hardware support once Precise Pangolin is out the door.

Edited for addition of quotes.

[cbope]

Well, it seems to be a bug in the newer 3.2.0 kernel with CPU's that don't support PAE. I don't find anything that says my CPU is *not* supported.

[oobetimer]

One trick is to remove apt-xapian-index and ubiquity-slideshow-mint packages before an installation.

sudo apt-get remove apt-xapian-index ubiquity-slideshow-mint

Well, it seems to be a bug in the newer 3.2.0 kernel with CPU's that don't support PAE. I don't find anything that says my CPU is *not* supported.

That is a truth with Ubuntu, but Mint seems to work without PAE also.

[cbope]

I performed a Mint 9 Xfce 32-bit installation successfully, just doing the massive post-install updates now. Perhaps I will try to perform a distribution upgrade to 13, or maybe I'll just stick with 9 for now. I've read that in some cases, the distribution upgrade from an older release will work whereas a clean install won't on old hardware.

[breaker]

You know. I was happy at 7, with manual Firefox upgrades. I might switch to 9 now that I'm out of date. I might try Slackware, who knows?

If it works with your hardware, and package updates are still available, why upgrade? I'm not convinced newer is better, especially with Linux these days...

[josa]

I have experienced exactly the same as cbope described here at the start of the topic. The machine I am testing is an IBM ThinkPad T23, 30 GB HD, 512 MB RAM, must be from 2005, though designed in 2002.
I tried all kind of installations: dual boot, separate partition and also the complete reinstall (overwriting the Windows XP which was on it). I am left with nothing. I'll take the advice above to use Ubuntu 10.04 LTS instead. I'll let you know how it went.

[nunol]

You should try the alternative (text) installer, Mint doesn't have one but Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu have one and so does Debian 6/testing. If the problem is Ubiquity using the text installer may help.

[ddyment]

My own experience with installing Mint 13 is identical to that of cbope and josa.

On my Thinkpad T23, the installer never finishes in any identifiable fashion, just loses its installer window, and sits with the cursor spinning busy, forever.

If I manually stop the laptop, it won't boot from the hard drive. I have repeated the installation attempt several times, both from a DVD and a USB stick (both of which boot and run Mint fine, which seems to rule out a hardware compatibility problem).

With several of us now reporting this same behavior, there does seem to be an issue here that needs addressing.

[josa]

Quick report on my test in installing Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on the T23.
It runs a lot longer but, alas, after a while the installation stops with an error. The advice from the install-program is to burn the DVD (on which I had put Ubuntu) with a lower speed.
I still have to do this (must do this in my spare time).
This error could be caused by the DVD indeed.
Jo

[ddyment]

I was able to install Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS on my T23, and it runs fine. My installer also complained about the CD, so I did the install from a USB stick with no problems.

I am disappointed not to be able to try Linux Mint, though.

[josa]

Also I was now able to install Ubuntu on the T23. I followed the advice here fore to use a USB stick. For those that want to try this I add hereafter what I did.

Now it is double proven that there is a bug in the mint installation kit.

My next test should be to try installing mint from my original DVD. Who knows as an upgrade this will work. Or try to install mint from the USB as a fresh install. .... when I find the time.

On another computer.
Download [LinuxLive USB Creator] V2.8.14 from [http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/download]
Donate as you like
Start Menu -> All Programs -> LinuxLive USB Creator
Insert the USB key
Choose USB key in the list, I chose [E: - FAT - 8 GB]
Select an ISO file, I chose [ubuntu-10.04.4-desktop-i386.iso]
Choose size of persistent data (I chose 200 MB, but this is irrelevant here)
Check options, I checked all of them
Click the lightning button
After quite some time (20') the USB is ready.

On the T23
At startup enter F1 (to get into the IBM BIOS Setup Utility)
Select boot list
Make sure that USB is an option under Hard Drive (if it is not then select the default configuration - USB will reappear).
Ensure that Hard Drive is at the top of the list and within Hard Drive USB is at the top.
The boot list should now show (at least in my case it did):
- Hard Drive
USB-(USB)
<number>-(PM)
- CD-ROM Drive
! Removable Devices
! IBA 4.0.22 Slot 0240

Make sure the exclamation mark ('!') disappears before the boot device.

Now reboot the T23 (do not forget to reset the boot device to the harddisk).
After a very long time Ubuntu was running (it took the machine 30').
I think connection to the internet is mandatory.
But still from the USB.

Click the installation option on the desktop.
And now it goes quick. In no time Ubuntu was installed and running from the harddisk.

[velky_pivo]

Same problem with Maya install here.
Install seems to start ok but after doing custom partitioning, it is already taking about 9 hours with the busy icon spinning and wireless card transmitting at times.
I have chosen to format the 1TB boot drive with ext4 file format. The user guide says that install takes 15 minutes.
I am wondering if formatting might be the issue. From my experience, formatting 1TB drive for Windows NTSC file system used to take 20 hours or so.

Is it possible that formatting makes the install busy for hours to finish ?

What should I do now, wait or force quit or power to off ? Any chance this could be a bad DVD burn ?

System:
Multi Boot
AMD Athlon Dual CPU
2 GB RAM
Belkin USB wireless G adapter
1 TB SATA HD, 160 GB PATA, 80 GB PATA
installing from DVD Read

[velky_pivo]

ok, the icon still worked, so i restarted and would not boot at all
tried to reinstall both Mate and Cinnamon, and both will end up with busy icon
grub install menu would not set drive sdc to bootable, although I selected it to boot from
drive sda (with Windows) would remain the only bootable drive
I tried all three grub install options and none of them worked

This makes me believe that there is some legitimate compatibility issue for both Mate and Cinnamon Maya 32 bit.

went back to Mint 12 but had disappearing sw manager and nouveau drivers issue
so finally installed Mint 10 Gnome which worked nicely at first but then lost wireless after updating system and/or nvidia driver
found fix for that and now at least have nice Julia installation, unfortunately no more support for that

[itnoworky]

Hello,
Total newbie to linux and I was having the same problem of installalation window disappearing and being left with the spinning disc icon for eternity. Trying to install Lunix Mint 14 on a standard Dell Inspiron 4100 (dates back to 2002) using a DVD bought over the internet. On the verge of giving up, I tried the following and it worked :
1) I burnt my own Linux 13 DVD at 8x speed (the spec of the DVD drive)
2) I did not complete the owner / password screen until all files had been copied across (had to wait about 20 mins for this)
3) I did not try to move the slide show on as the installation was being completed
Installation completed without any problems and PC works perfectly. Not sure which change in all the above allowed it to work (perhaps going back to Linux 13 was the one) but for those having this problem, may be worth a try. In the BIOS I disabled everything but the CD and HDD (on one of the failed attempts I got the floppy drive time out error message).