Trouble installing Mint? Me too. Here are some things to try

[roxter]

Boy, do I understand you!
For days or weeks now, I'm wasting my time trying to solve Mint problems. It's the installation, freezing, audio, etc.
I'm retired but it looks that I have a full time job.
Since there's nothing I could do with Mint on my computers, I decided to load an old version of Ubuntu on the old "B" PC. It went happily along the way and worked fine.
I downloaded the last Ubuntu version and tried to install it. But no cigar, it stopped with a black screen, only the mouse reigning supreme.
Decided then to try the "A" PC, a recently assembled Asus F1A55.
There was a small dose of hiccups but it went fine and all worked, just like Mint used to be. Wow!!! Wow!
Mint, thank you, it was good while it lasted, but I cannot take it anymore.

[neodammerung]

This may not be the right place for this post, nonetheless, this worked for me.

I have a multi-boot setup, i.e.: Mint 9 x64, and now Mint 13 KDE x64. After installing Mint 13, it would only boot to the busybox shell, stating that it could not find the / partition (listed by UUID). I have tried several different clean installs, with no avail. I even re-downloaded the dvd.iso again double checking the MD5SUM, everything seemed okay. Still, no boot. So, this is what I did.

I booted into Mint 9. Launched GParted, and looked at the flags for Mint 13's partition (it was empty). So, I changed it to add the boot flag, then closed the window. I then, opened my file manager and mounted that partition (Mint 13). Then, closed that window. (all of this was done from the gui).

Next open a terminal window, then enter

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sudo update-initramfs -u /media/#####-####-#####
(press TAB key here to "autofill" UUID)

enter password

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sudo update-grub2 /media/#####-####-#####
(press TAB key here to "autofill" UUID)

I honestly belive that the boot flag solved my issue, but I did the rest, just to be safe.

[TristanDee]

I hate to make my first post in a negative note. But then, I thought why not share this peculiar experience with all you nice people!

So, I downloaded the Mint KDE x64 .iso, burnt it on a DVD.That's for a new HP Pavilion laptop. But before 'installing', I just thought to have a live session on my PC where I burnt the DVD. So, I rebooted - preparing for the boot menu...but, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw my PC starting to boot into Mint itself! 'Okay, let's see the Mint after all!' I thought. It took some 10-12 minutes to get the first 'meaningful' impression of the Live Mint desktop. And almost 20 minutes to have the desktop fully ready. I liked it. And thought that Live sessions perhaps take time to load. I tried Firefox, the file manager, and Kaffeine for some time. Then I wanted to end the session and go back to Windows. So, I rebooted. Mint showed that it was ending the session for a few minutes and then the screen got somewhat blurred except for a hazy small checkered or striped rectangular box in the top-left corner. Small but big enough for the default size of the Terminal. And yes, it WAS the Terminal, 'mint@mint $' blinking! I suddenly got perplexed as to what to do. Tried the reboot command a few times, but that needs to be the root, which I had no scope to be because it was a live session. So, after a few more meaningless try I did the crudest thing. Reset button. And I was extremely cautious to also press the DVD drive's eject button to get the disc out before it starts booting into the live session again.

Well, here the real horror actually began. The DVD tray didn't open! I was so surprised that when I got back to my senses, I was halfway through to the Mint desktop again! I pressed the Reset again. This time I don't know why the PC booted into Windows. That was such a relief! Now I have to get the disc back - but the tray simply won't open! I pierced a needle through that tiny little 'emergency' hole, but the disc just gave some weird whirring sound and the tray kept refusing to open! Anyway, I finally got the disc out of the drive the next morning when I tried the 'power-on and eject' method after the PC was shut down for an hour. I was sure the crap DVD drive needs replacing.

Until this evening when I tried the DVD on the laptop, which already has Ubuntu installed. Only this time, booting never started. The black screen just showed some text ending at a line saying 'Boot: _'. And this time also the DVD tray refused to open when I tried to end the session in the crude manner of pushing the eject button while the disc is perhaps still spinning inside. And I had to remove the laptop battery, place it back, and then go through that same way to get the disc out of the tray.

I don't now admit it had anything to do with the DVD drives. It's the .iso which is faulty.

I only hope this problem gets resolved soon, because by now this forum is likely to have tens of people having experienced weird kinds of problems trying to use Mint 13 images. Really looking forward to getting a clean Mint experience. After having been away from Linux for quite some time - after using Ubuntu and Debian - I really liked Mint.

All the best, everyone.

[TristanDee]

Well, good news! I finally got Mint 13 KDE installed! It's awesome, of course. The .iso was from LQ, but I'm sure the problem has nothing to do with where it's from. Somewhere I read someone asking if the disc was burnt at the lowest speed or something like this. So, I burnt it at 4x and installed! I don't know if that was really the trick, but I'm happy it worked.

[zykoda]

My problem, still unresolved, for mint 13 cinnamon and mate (32 bit), was with the installation of the grub2 bootloader to the root partition whereby the installer would announce it had crashed just before 1st boot. No way could the system be persuaded to boot using any other boot tactic, probably because the system was not fully ready. I note that the machine had 6GB RAM and the kernel non-PAE was 32 bit! The 64 bit version installed without problem. Also there was no problem with mint 11,12 PAE 32 bit kernels. (of course a normal 32 bit kernel only spans ~3GB RAM). When attempting to boot 13 32 but non-PAE the best I could manage is to get to the CUPS server with mint 13. No shell!! This is most unfortunate for mint 13 as it replaces 9 for LTS. This needs addressing urgently if mint is to stand the test of time. Maybe a revised live DVD!!

[iowabeakster]

Well I am not even a noobie... I am less than that when it comes to Mint.

But I have years of experience with Ubuntu, Xubuntu, red hat, fedora.

1. I tried to run a live mint.iso from USB created with Unetbootin. No dice... my computer just boots normally from HDD (it single boots Xubuntu 10.04 64bit). The md5s do match. And so I re-tried, reformatted, and re-installed the iso on the usb... several attempts. No go. computer just won't recognize the mint.iso (tried both mint 13 cinnamon 64 bit and mint 13 xfce 64 bit).

So just to verify that my hardware is working, I downloaded Ubuntu 12.10 (64bit). I stuck it on the usb with disk-startup-creator (or whatever that Ubuntu app is called). I had a live 12.10 running from usb with no problem.

2. I google searched and found this thread and so I tried Unetbootin the mint.iso(s) from HDD with grub. Grub came up as it should (it normally does not come up since I single boot). It didn't even start to boot. Both times there was an immediate error about the kernel (truthfully I forget exactly what the error was... in the time it took to register for the forums so I could make a post).

FWIW...

Hardware is a Dell optiplex gx620 tower (6-7 years old maybe?)
Pentium D (2.8ghz dual core)
4 gigs RAM

I hope to give mint a try sometime...

[frowland]

I was very happy to find this thread and discover I was not alone.

I am having issues with the Linux MInt 14 and 13 releases during and after install. I am not sure if this is a bug, my hardware, or my relative LMDE noobiness.
For information this is a vintage IBM laptop Thinkpad a21p with 512 MB of ram and a PIII 850 mhz proc. No known hardware issues except one bad block on the hard drive.

Here are the symptoms.

Boot from CD, press esc, run in compatibility mode (normal boot gives a messed up display)
Everything works great from the CD (except for refusal to load Piiix4 module (IBM system detected).
At installation time, the files copy, it accepts my locale, user name, etc.
When I reach the slide show screen, It displays for a while and then the install process disappears.
I wait patiently and eventually restart (no install completion is reported, BTW). This patient wait has been as long as overnight.

Don't know if the disappearing install screen is a bug or a feature, but it behaves that way every time. This doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling that the install was successful.

Regardless, the system will not boot from the hard drive after "install".
I was surprised because most people say Linux Mint just works and is great.
Re.booting from CD and nosing around on the hard drive partitions shows what looks to be a normal installation.
An install with Puppy precise works fine.

Here are some of the many other things I have tried,

1) Install of puppy linux to hard drive works OK
2) Use of boot repair on Linux mint install from Live CD session, works somewhat but only boots the Mint version with the bad screen display (login screen inaccessible), I can't convince grub to load the Mint in compatibility mode even when using the same switches
3) Dual boot using grub4dos with puppy, loader finds mint and adds entry but any attempt to boot that entry gives Error 15: File not found,
4) I have copied the kernel and initrd files manually into the boot partition but it still doesn't boot (same error).
5) Hashes and integrity checks are OK for the ISO distributions (MINT 13 final and MINT Cinnamon and MATE 14 RC)
6) Use of grub4dos from Puppy to find other linux partition is successful, it creates a grub entry but any attempt to boot that entry gives error 15: file not found

I am feeling a bit lost here and though I would bring it to this forum. If you think the issue is better posted somewhere else, have any ideas or need more info let me know.

Frank

[rh92562]

Frank's post above very well describes the problem I have had. Insert CD, boot/find my way into compatibility mode, enter b43.blacklist=yes, etc. The install "seems" to go fine but it is very strange that the slide show just disappears and the computer restarts. The CD is ejected and I'm prompted to hit enter (after removing disk) before restarting. The thanks I get for doing that is a blinking cursor upon reboot.

I do have a b43** wireless adapter in the notebook so I'm sure that's the issue. I would prefer to get 13 working as it is a LTS edition but if worse comes to worse I may have to try Mint 14.

Can someone please dumb down the instructions needed to make this LTS version work? Seriously, DUMB DOWN. The release notes give the four or five things in a way that expects one to know how to do these things. By no means do I know what I'm doing in Mint but I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty.

I have tried adding the blacklist line to grub and then installing, but where I am now is it appears I have a clean install with no way to get back to the command line to do the purge/reinstall of the firmware. I'm sure I'm wrong but that's how I see it so I'm looking to be pointed in the right direction.

For me, the only way I can get into Mint is to launch the live DVD which does not show my username, etc in the terminal and any changes I've made to the grub file locally don't seem to save. Any help would be greatly appreciated...I've been using Mint 9 since it came out and just replaced a dead HDD so going with a clean install on the most recent LTS version.

Thanks in advance!

[CurtisCoburn]

I got to agree with you. I am having trouble with Linux Mint too. I know I am successfully downloading the .iso, and I am trying to use it in virtualbox. I made a thread earlier to try to get help, and but the help someone gave me still did not work. I have other operating systems that work very well in virtualbox, and none of the other ones gave me trouble. So far I tried, Fedora GNOME, Fedora KDE, OpenSUSE, Lubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu and they all work fine. I am looking for a new operating system other than my current Ubuntu computer, and I was considering Linux Mint, and with the trouble I am having right now, I might not be considering this operating system. So far my top choices are Ubuntu, and OpenSUSE.

I am still going to try to get it to work. I might try different versions of Linux Mint, like 13, and 12 to see if that will change anything, but I do have to agree with you, something must be different with the iso that Linux Mint is providing us, because if you are experienced, and had trouble, that is not a good sign, because it may sway people like me away from this operating system. Not good for them.

[rh92562]

I have to say that my experience recently with Mint has been VERY disappointing. I understand you get what you pay for and the site and OS I assume is donation driven, but I looked all over the web for help, and turned to the Mint site/forum with that post left about 2 weeks ago and nothing since your post.

I had Mint 9 running and it pains me to say that version is so much better than what is getting put out now. For me, 13 was a disaster, and I have since installed 14 but I am having intermittent problems with the cpu overheating and system shutting down.

I'm looking for something more stable too...if you know something or find it, please share. I just need a stable desktop environment and up until now had no need to look elsewhere.

Thanks

[Winterfell]

Hi, i'm trying to install Linux Mint 14.1 Mate x64. I downloaded the iso, checked the MD5, and then used Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.2.0 on my Windows 7, to make a bootable USB-drive.
I restart my computer and then boot from my USB, starts Linux Mint, but then i see a message telling me that the user "mint" will login in 10 seconds. 2 seconds from the timer completion, the screen goes black and the process repeats itself.
I triend making a bootable USB using unetbootin-windows-581, but ended up with the same result. Does anyone know how i might fix this problem?
I have no version of Linux installed on any of my drives.

EDIT: Solved it!
Pressed CTRL + ALT + F7, and was able to login and install Mint. After reboot i couldn't login. Then i pressed CTRL + ALT + F1, enter username and password, type: sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates (i have an Nvidia GTX670), type "y" to install, after install is complete type "sudo reboot", When restarted i was able to login as normal

[takhsss]

not UPDATE

[baloc1]

Well it seems that there is no solution to the installation problems . Many of us have tried all of the suggestions with the same results NO INSTALL . if you remove ubiquity slide show from a Live USB drive , it will not even boot . I even ran into the same problem when trying to reinstall Ubuntu 12.4. I had to use the windows installer and reistall Ubuntu on a friggin Windows HDD (something I did not want to do . I use DINWOS for one thing and one thing only and NO ITS NOT GAMING .
I have burned over 5 copies each of LM 12 13 and 14 USB drive and DVD . They all stop after the files are copied .
Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3200 2.0 GHz CPU
2 GB DDR2 SDRAM (supports up to 4 GB)
Toshiba 500gig HDD
DVD±RW (±R DL) drive with Labelflash
No floppy drive
Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
Integrated audio with built-in speakers
56k modem
Integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet
Atheros 802.11b/g Wireless L
check sums are all correct .
tried burning to DVD +and DVD -
This problem has been reported by many many people ,using a wide rage of desk tops and lap tops .
from live mode cmd /var/log/syslog =acess denied
there has to be a reason why this istall problem is happening to so many . I remember reading somewhere a while back about the Mint installer being broken . if thats true , you would think it would have been fixed by now and a new download would be availible .
DOES ANYONE HAVE A SOLID SOLUTION

[papadave26]

I just wanted to thank you for the info. I am new to Linux. I have had a heck of a time tring to get Mint to load. All of the info thus far has not helped. I will try your method soon.

[lugligino]

Frank's post above very well describes the problem I have had. Insert CD, boot/find my way into compatibility mode, enter b43.blacklist=yes, etc. The install "seems" to go fine but it is very strange that the slide show just disappears and the computer restarts. The CD is ejected and I'm prompted to hit enter (after removing disk) before restarting. The thanks I get for doing that is a blinking cursor upon reboot.

I do have a b43** wireless adapter in the notebook so I'm sure that's the issue. I would prefer to get 13 working as it is a LTS edition but if worse comes to worse I may have to try Mint 14.

Can someone please dumb down the instructions needed to make this LTS version work? Seriously, DUMB DOWN. The release notes give the four or five things in a way that expects one to know how to do these things. By no means do I know what I'm doing in Mint but I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty.

I have tried adding the blacklist line to grub and then installing, but where I am now is it appears I have a clean install with no way to get back to the command line to do the purge/reinstall of the firmware. I'm sure I'm wrong but that's how I see it so I'm looking to be pointed in the right direction.

For me, the only way I can get into Mint is to launch the live DVD which does not show my username, etc in the terminal and any changes I've made to the grub file locally don't seem to save. Any help would be greatly appreciated...I've been using Mint 9 since it came out and just replaced a dead HDD so going with a clean install on the most recent LTS version.

Thanks in advance!

Hi rh92562, I had the same need as you. I also wanted the LTS Maya in my old Latitude D600 notebook, and now I've got it.
It's not possible as it seems to have a totally clean install of Maya just because of b43 issue as it's showed in Maya release notes.
The good news is that it's possible to have a good installation of Maya (Mate desktop) on my Dell, you need only an internet connection.
My experience follows.
1) Download the Maya Mate iso
2)Check the MD5 sum of the iso
3) Burn a DVD with close option and let the dvd burner check the DVD at the end.
4) In bios settings let the DVD reader boot first than hard disk
5) Boot the DVD
6) It should arise the 10 seconds advice to the standard boot. Don't follow this. Installation fails if you have a b43 issue.
7) Before the 10 seconds go by, press F6.
Choose the compatibility mode and press tab
9) It should appear a screen with the boot option sufficient to have a not so disastrous installation
10) You can add options if you know what are you doing. In another post I knew about the vga=785 option (thanks http://superuser.com/questions/488210/having-display-issues-when-trying-to-install-linux-mint-13-maya-cinnamon-on-de). I inserted it just after the xforcevesa one. Probably it's not so essential but it helped to make me see text more clearly during the installation.
11) The compatibility mode boot works well and, if it behaves the same with you, the installation will be clean. I was also able to connect to the Internet with network manager and a mobile connection.
12) Unfortunely the b43 problem arises at the first boot from hard disk because X will leave you without a operative desktop. X cannot find a correct configuration (no screen found) soonly the text interface works but it was sufficient (thanks to http://hecate.darkglass.net/?p=645).
13) Delete the xorg.conf file with the command

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sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf

(sudo needs the superuser password that you defined during the Maya installation).
14) Restart the X service with the command

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sudo service mdm restart

(the desktop restores to life)
15) Connect to the Internet and give the command

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sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer

and, hoping that no dependencies problems occur, it's all, from now the system will boot up correctly, it worked for me.

Edit. A personal note about step 15:
The Network Manager service run and can get successfully the pin (if any) from keyboard but it doesn't appear on system tray (surely for my Dell D600 hardware configuration) so I can't connect to the internet with my internet key E173 and do step 15, but it wasn't a great trouble because it's possible to install E173 (back-upped) linux driver (available in http://www.tre.it/assistenza/prodotti-e-servizi/configurazione-prodotti-3/chiavetta see notes), use a (back-upped) stand-alone script like sakis3g (available in http://www.sakis3g.org/), it starts with terminal command from the same sakis3g directory

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./sakis3g)

Sakis3g works even in a text session, beware, some attempts are often needed because the key not always triggers at first one. It's good extract and re-insert the key and wait until it lamps. Once sakis3g connects me, I do step 15 and install wvdial, my favourite application to connect, that has only to be configured with the correct (back-upped) /etc/wvdial.conf file.

After some days I can say that the Mint Maya installation on my D600 works quite perfectly. Remember to start the update manager icon on system tray. Until now, the only issue is that after awhile the screensaver loses its configuration and works only with a black screen. Not a tragic issue

[rben]

Solution for my installation problems of Linux Mint 13 Maya 64-bit was quite low-tech, compared to the others on this thread. I opened the side panels of my computer case (a mid-size tower). Then I directed the air-flow, from two floor fans, at the front of the case and each set at low-speed, to push air around the case. Linux Mint 13 then installed without any issues. Until I used the floor fans, I was unable to get any version of Linux Mint to install on my newly purchased PATA hard drive, even after countless attempts and several weeks of trying. Note that this computer, an older model with an AMD Athlon 64 Processor, had been successfully running Linux Mint 10 64-bit for some time, which Mint 10 I was attempting to update to Mint 13.

My suspicion is that newer versions of Linux Mint are more demanding of installation resources, than are older versions. The hard-drive and/or CPU were simply not able to work that hard, to go through the long and arduous installation process, without producing some unrecoverable error along the way. In fact, after successfully installing Linux Mint from the DVD, I made the mistake of launching, immediately, the Linux Mint Update Manager, to update the original installation to newer versions of each installed package. After downloading and processing the updated files, the original installation became corrupted, and I had to start the installation over from the beginning (after shutting the computer down and letting it cool down for several hours). After re-installation, this time I shut down the computer again for several hours. Then, I ran Update Manager over several sessions, updating about 100MB at a time, and shutting down the computer between sessions. I don't think all this was necessary, perhaps an abundance of caution. But, Linux Mint 13 has run without issues ever since.

I also considered installing from an external drive or USB (which reduces the heat being generated by the computer internally). Also, reducing the size of the installation might help, such as installing from a CD (or from a DVD closer in size to a CD). I've seen how-to discussion of this on the forum. And, to lighten the installation, it might be beneficial to eliminate monster-sized packages, such as Libre Office, from the official installation DVD. Or, offer alternative installations on the same installation DVD, for example "Install Linux Mint Basic" and "Install Linux Mint Full". Packages omitted from the basic installation can always be installed later.

[StevePMo]

I was having big time problems installing Mint 14, reinstalled 3 times, but could not get it to boot. Then, today, I decided to download the newest version of EasyBCD, selected Grub2, pointed it to my Linux partition, and BAM !!! it worked !! So, if you are not using the newest version of EasyBCD, try it, and see if it helps you.

[NewsAndHistory]

I just started having this problem. I had been using Mint 11 and had loaded it many times with no problem. Now, I can only load 8. On my last attempt, I got this message after stopping the stalled install: "iso linux disk error 8 0, AX-425A drive 9F"

Also, my hard drive light flashes constantly and has been even before my install issues. Could something with the hard drive be part of the problem? (Note: I'm a newbie. Any help and easy-to-follow steps appreciated.)

UPDATE: I kept reloading and finally got further in the installation process -- all the way to the desktop. One thing I did differently: I tried to get more air to my computer -- that may have helped. Now, I'm trying to do a full installation and I'm back in slow-install land. I don't know what's going on. I'll add that I think these problems started after I clicked on a link at the forum. I don't know if that involved a virus that's stopping install attempts. I know from other posts that Mint's very secure, but not invincible. Any guesses? Thank you!

[seavagabond]

I had a lot of trouble installing Linux Mint on a 2003/2004 Sony Vaio laptop and had almost given up.
I finally managed to install Linux Mint 13 Mate (Mint 14 wouldn't run since it needs PAE).
I installed Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS with Xfce4 desktop downloading the mini.iso image from:
Index of /ubuntu/dists/precise/main/installer-i386/current/images/netboot/non-pae
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/%20...%20t/non-pae/
I used Plop Linux booting manager to get the laptop to boot from the CD downloading ploplinux-4.2.2.iso athttp://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux/livecd.html

I followed the excellent tutorial [How to] Convert Ubuntu 12.04 to Linux Mint 13
http://blog.shaffner.net/how-to-convert-ubuntu-12-04-to-linux-mint-13/

and now Linux Mint 13 Mate is installed and working on my laptop (the tutorial gives instructions how to install Cinnamon too).
The following is my post “Mint 14 on old laptop?“:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=123885

[Iamwithin]

I really like Mint and have Mint 13 Maya Cinamon on my Desktop.
So I thought I would try on my laptop to install Mint 14 cinamon.
But no matter what I tried I could NOT get my wireless card to
work. I tried b43-install this and that, I tried the bmc4311.sta
blah blah until I was tired and gave up.

Then I tried to install PCLinuxOS KDE and it too did not recognize
my bcm4401 wireless card, BUT when I downloaded the b43 item
above INSTANTLY my wireless card worked and I am typing this from there.

Why oh why can't MINT do what PCLinuxOS can?

I really wanted Mint,

Bill