Live USB freezes at various points

[sigshane]

I had LMDE running fine, dual-booting with Windows 8 (on a Windows 7 laptop). I decided to remove LMDE and install Rebecca Cinnamon in its place. So I downloaded the 64-bit image, and used the image writer from pendrivelinux to create the liveUSB.

I went through the partition wiping and reformatting process, and had the install going, when I had to leave the house for a while, so I left it installing.

Later, I noticed that the screen was locked, and the laptop wouldn't respond at all. So I pulled the USB out and hard reset the laptop, only to arrive at the Grub 'no OS' error (can't remember the exact message). ??

So I rebooted with the USB again, and, since then, I have had nothing but problems with it. Freezes at the login screen, freezes right after getting WIFI connected, freezes even before the GUI starts! And this is not just a case of a bad image, as I also downloaded the Mate version, same result, downloaded the Cinnamon image from another site, verified mD5sum on all images, and repeated the image creation on two additional USB sticks, using dd, which I could do because I wound up installing - successfully! - Ubuntu 10.14.

If the images are not the issue, and the USB stick is not the issue - I mean, Ubuntu worked fine, except I DO NOT WANT Ubuntu, what is the problem here?

Help!

Shane

[sigshane]

Lotsa views, no replies, sigh*

No worries, I made another USB installer last night, and until I get a firm answer on this weird Rebecca image problem, I'll be using openSUSE.

Strange though, I used the same USB drive, and the same method (dd) to make the openSUSE drive I installed with, so still stumped.

[gold_finger]

Lotsa views, no replies, sigh*

Sorry sigshane, but probably just that nobody has any good idea what might be wrong. I really don't, but am just going to ask a few questions that might trigger an idea -- hopefully at least.

If understand correctly, right now you still have Windows on the computer and it's booting with either Ubuntu or openSuse -- is that right?

Ubuntu and openSuse both booted and worked okay in the live environment and you were able to install them when you tried?

After install of those two, did you need to install any proprietary graphics drivers, or are they running just fine off the Linux drivers?

When you booted Mint the first time, did you test the system at all before starting the installation? If so, how did it run? Notice anything not quite right, or was it fairly normal in operation?

On subsequent tries to boot Mint, it does boot into the USB but it has stability problems and won't install -- correct? (Or, can you not even boot the USB at all?)

Did you try running Mint USB in compatibility mode?


Report back with following info please:
* exact model of computer?
* what is the CPU?
* graphics card in use?
* how much RAM does system have?

Or (better yet) you can install and run the inxi program to either Ubuntu or openSuse and that will give us the specs on your computer. You can install it to Ubuntu as follows:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install inxi

This command will show specs of computer:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxz

Not really familiar with openSuse, so don't know if inxi is in their repos. You can try installing it from there first. If not in the repos, check this page for possible install instructions: http://smxi.org/site/install.htm#inxi.

In addition to above, can you post back the output of this command so we know what your partitions look like? Thanks.

Code: Select all

sudo parted -l

(Lowercase letter "L" at the end of command, not the number 1.)

[sigshane]

Thanks for the response, gold_finger, and I will try to work my problem using your suggestions when I get home (at work right now).