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

[mpmascorro]

Many, many times. I tried the ISO disk in another computer and it works fine.

[Summersky]

Well, this is way beyond me, but maybe it would help to post what you have already tried so someone who can help you will have a starting point.

[johnb0647]

I downloaded LM12 and burned (?burnt?) a CD.

- Wouldn't boot at all on my old HP Pavilian ze2000.
- Booted once on an old Dell Dimension 8200 but failed when I clicked on INSTALL. After that it wouldn't boot any more.
- It DID boot my ASUS based box with a brand new Samsung optical drive which is what I burned it on in the first place.

Googled the issue and found LOT of folks with the same problem, Linux Mint Live CD won't boot on XYZ, some dating back to LM9. Noticed that XYZ was almost always old hardware so on a hunch I burned a new CD but turned off AUTO SPEED which had been working at 8X and forced it to burn at 1X.

This one works fine on the Dell now but still won't boot on the HP although the HP can read it once booted with a Ubuntu 10.04 LiveCD.

I've never had any problem booting LiveCD's on either of those boxes before including Clonezilla, SystemRescueCD and Ubuntu 10.04, or 11.04. Haven't tried Ubuntu after 11.04.

So is this a hardware problem - old optical drives having trouble reading CD's from new drives???
Or is it a software problem - something in LM's config of the Isolinux booter that has trouble with the older drives???

Logically the former seems more likely but then why do all those other LiveCD's using Isolinux work ok on the same hardware?

Hope this helps someone.

Edit. Topic moved here by moderator.

[earthshaker]

I wish I would have read this thread before I used up my last dvd, with a burn of mint 12. I was reading earlier today that mint had overtaken Ubuntu as the linux distro of choice. Well this has not been a good first impression. I read the first post in this thread a few times, I have a vague understanding of what was done. How about a detailed tut on the procedure?
If someone has already posted a real tut I would appreciate a link to it.
Meanwhile... still using Ubuntu 11.10.

[ejfrolich]

I tryed to install mint 12 on a couple of systems. My Lenovo laptop core 2 duo works fine without problem in 64bit version. I tryed 2 PC's with 2 versions of Asus M2N motherboard also with 64bit. It did not work. Then I tryed a fujitsu 410 laptop wih a centrino processor. This machine exepted te 32 bit LXDE version without any problem.

All of these machines accepted Ubuntu 11.10 in 64 or 32 bit versions.

What is the problem with mint? I read muchos problemos on installing or Live CD bootup. Mint is a Ubuntu derivate. This platform workes and if the should be a problem you can run an altrnate cd/dvd.
I realy do not understand why this problems could not be avoided. This is especialy sad because Mint looks great and if you get it it installed workes fine...

Ernst-Jan

[oldwierdal]

Hey, thanks a lot for this tip. I used the UNetbootin approach, and it worked flawlessly. The live DVD would consistently pass right by the welcome screen to the login screen, asking for username and password; this before I had even installed anything. After many failed attempts, I came to this forum and found this thread, and your various tips. As I said, I downloaded UNetbootin, and tried that... Voila! Success! I am currently using Ubuntu 11.04, as I can still use Gnome 2.32, and forgo the dubious pleasure of Unity. Gnome 3, in its present state is an abomination, and, try as I might, I just can't make myself like Unity enough to get past regurgitating, and screaming at the monitor when I can't find programs I use all the time.... What a waste!
Eureka!! Enter Linux Mint Debian Edition!! Although "not ready for prime-time," it has great promise. I have a couple of issues which I'll post on a separate thread. Although minor, I really would like to resolve them before I switch to Mint as my primary OS. The reason being that my wife knows next to nothing about computers, and just wants to surf the web, order stuff on line, use her E-mail, and write letters. She learned her way around "Natty" well enough that I don't have to hold her hand, but when she saw Ubuntu 11.10, and, more recently, 12.04, she freaked!
Fortunately, I NEVER make the switch to another distro, nor even an upgrade cold. I ALWAYS test drive it on a separate partition till I have all the quirks worked out.
Ahh!, but I'm rambling, again. My apologies! I just wanted to thank you for this very informative and "chatty" tip. It is much appreciated!

owa

[sdibaja]

Mint13 Mate ....Not a Fail, but an annoying glitch:



Got the same with the RC. I simply ignored it this time and the install worked anyway.

General Comment: Disk Utility not included? Why?

[skidaddy45]

I am having a different problem but with same results. I triple boot mint 11,12 and was going to use 13. Install to dvd and boot system works fine.. Hit install starts. install program asks usual questions time zone user name where to install. Everything is peachy. gets to slide show part of install and copying files only see first slide then just goes away leaves cursor spinning hard disk is still working for about 2 minutes then it stops wait 15 minutes cursor still spinning can open other programs on menu but cursor doesn't quit spinning. restart system get menu on 12 fixed to boot to 13 reboot. get cursor localhost.local domain
login
nothing works here so that's it.
tried different disk and usb version exactly the same

[josielkuk]

Good afternoon,

I have problem to install Mint 13 MATE via USB (Pendrive). When I boot from USB, appears only wallpaper and nothing else. Someone tell me what can be?

What I have done:
- I tried with another USB device;
- I downloaded more than once and checked md5sum;
- I tried compatible mode, but after he completes the installation indicates that X is not installed (only terminal);

Any tips?

Thank you!

[kenetics]

I think some of these install problems are also present on Ubuntu. I tried installing Xubuntu 12.04 and got an error message part way through the install (sorry, don't remember the message) and was left with a spinning curser on the live desktop. Researching the problem brought up a lot of similar experiences. The solution was to download the alternate install version. I tried it and it worked.

Mint 12 had installed properly, but when I went to install Mint 13 Mate, I got the same problem as I did with the live Xubuntu install. Unfortunatly, Mint does not have an alternate install version. Btw, I also got the "Folder contents could not be displayed" message that sdibaja got 3 posts up. Mint 13 did install properly on another computer, so it must be the hardware.

Computer it wouldn't install on:
MB: Abit KV7
Proc: Athlon 2900+
Memory: 1 GB
ATI graphics


Computer install went ok:
MB: Biostar P4M900-M4
Proc: Pentium 4 - 2.4 GB
Memory: 2 GB (shared)
VIA graphics (on mb)

[RonC]

Two-year-old solution, elsewhere on the Forum, is still working. This especially applies to the "seeing the wallpaper" type of problem, especially when the "wallpaper" won't disappear without a hard system reset.
Actually, it's more of a grub2 problem, rather than a real LinuxMint problem ... why it's persisted through so many versions is the question ...

[gungholady]

Thank you so much for this post. It helped me get my Linux Mint Cinnamon installed. I love it.

[celticguitar666]

I haven't had any problems with booting from live CD I originally started down the LINUX road after I picked up an old Dell latitude cpia only Puppy would work on it and then only as a frugal install running from a usb stick but I could not do a complete install or get online with it I put win98se and while that works I still can't get online with it but it does everything else fine Now laptop number 2 Compaq presario 700u much better I tried puppy but no internet so I found that mint works right out of the box with wireless reportedly. I installed helena which works awsome but is obsolete and while I have no problem booting a live cd I can't get internet with newer versions, So I agree it's a hardware computer etc driven issue not so much a software but there is a point where the both inersect so then it would be both. Hey it's free sort of
Good Luck
Dwight

[georgeparker20]

I too have had trouble installing Mint 13 on an oldish desktop with AMD Athlone and 2 Gb of RAM. Most annoyingly it would get well into the installation and then crash with a message about being unable to copy to disk, or get past the copy phase and crash during installation. I also had the same sorts of trouble installing on an old IBM Thinkpad T42 laptop. In that case with the 32 bit Cinnamon version, 64 bit Cinnamon and LMDE on the desktop. Booting from disk has also consistantly given an invisible bottom panel. Hovering the mouse pointer and guessing shows that there is a panel there which comes and goes.

Over a period of about 25 install attempts I have also had problems with the recognition of the monitor, giving an unreadable display.
Moving on, with the desktop I found bad blocks on the disk drive so installed a brand new drive, with the same results. I then installed another DVD drive and managed an install but on reboot the desktop did not boot, reverting to the command line.

I eventually achieved a successful install of 13 Cinnamon by booting from disk and doing an upgrade of all the Mint elements in Synaptic. The install went through and successfully rebooted from the hard drive but with very strange effects on the bottom panel. Having struggled with Cinnamon settings and suffered crashes on a very unstable Firefox I gave in and installed Mate.

This was yesterday and seems to be working very well but time will tell. The Firefox instability went away after installing Mate. I have another desktop running Mint 12 and Cinnamon which gives no trouble, very stable for the last year or so and I like Cinnamon, hence my stubborness on keeping going with the install. I've been using Linux in anger for about 10 years now and I agree that if I was a newbee I wouldn't now be using Mint. Do I really have a bad hard drive and DVD drive? HDD probably yes, DVD probably no but I'll investigate further.

[viking777]

Of course the original post here relates to MInt 12, not 13, but I thought I would try it with 13 as I still have the laptop in question. The situation hasn't changed one jot, from the internal dvd drive the live cd wont even start, it just prints the first line (something about Peter Anvin et al) then stops. From my external dvd drive the live cd boots normally but trying to install from it results in a kernel panic then needs hard reboot with the power button. This is all on the Mate version btw. You see, it is as I said on my original post this laptop hates MInt

This is just for interest, I don't use this laptop any more, so don't send me solutions, I am not looking for them, and anyway I am sure the solution mentioned in the opening post would still work if I needed it to.

[sanshiros]

Is it not perfect the fact that you cannot even install linux ? Imagine that problems starts from , THE START !

It reminds me of windows 3.11.

Come on guys. I don't have dvd or cd. I want to install it directly from my windows 7.

[PongGod]

Is the Mint 13 Mate 32-bit DVD *not* supposed to be bootable? I'm wanting to install it on a PC which I wiped of XP, but I'm not getting anywhere. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to Linux, but I didn't have any such troubles with Mint 8. And after perusing several forums, I'm getting the sense that this version has many more installation-related issues than versions past.

[disappointed]

OK I give up, I have spent more than 8 hours trying to get Mint installed on my HD, this has been the most annoying fresh OS install I've been through since the last milenium and frankly I have other things to do.

Just for posterity I will waste 30 more minutes here so as to share the pain and hopefully spare someone from going through it.

Machine : Dell Latitude D630

Had win7 installed on C: & D: was data partition.

Downloaded the ISO then put it on my 16gb USB stick made bootable using Win32 Disk Imager under win7.
Booting from USB without problems I get to Mint desktop & click on Install.

Getting to the "select partition" part of the installer and wanting to keep my D: partition I delete the C: one & create in that free space a /, /boot/, /home and /swap following this handy guide : http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/04/25/ma ... nt-debian/

Install goes on without problem until a pop up says Grub fatal error, bootloader cannot be installed. I only have two storage devices : SDA, the internal hard drive on which I want to install Mint and SDB, the USB stick from which the install/LiveOS is running.

It just wont write the bootloader on SDA. Checking the partition table in terminal I see the /boot is attributed to SDB instead of SDA.

I back up my D: and wipe the hell out of the hard drive, reboot then follow the partitioning guide once more to get my clean 4 partitions setup. /boot, /, /home and /swap.

Redo the install, specify " / " for install then wait, all files copied no problem but once again Grub fails writing the bootloader on the MBR (i'm guessing). So i select install mint without bootloader, go to term, check the disks and SDA doesnt have the * under the boot column, only the stick has it.

I install and use Boot Repair sucessfully, reboot without USB I get to grub OS selection ; select Mint and then black screen, I wait 5 or 6 whole minutes then reboot on USB to get on the web & do yet another troubleshooting search in google. Video driver issue? Do some "modeset" editing on the grub commandline to specify intelGMA, then Ctrl X and finally get to a low-res Mint screen with 4 points moving left to right, eternally.

Say to myself "*** it!", i'm getting Ubuntu.

Thanks for listening, the user experience / interface in Mint is very nice but this felt like linux in 1998, not 2012. Maybe there's an issue with booting from USB, maybe another with video drivers, whatever the case people cannot be expected to have to use command lines & partitioning software right from the start of their Linux switchover. The installer should be optimized to let people keep their Windows Data partitions in an easy to use manner. "Keep X:, crush the Windows install partition". The video drivers should be universal, like win7's installation wizard.

I will wait a bit and keep an eye on Mint, disappointed to have wasted so much time. If I wasnt a techie I wouldn't have wasted so much time, at the second bootloader failure I would have simply switched to an other distro. Stupid techie me!

[Farcules]

Just a passing thought here disappointed
Debian docs have a way of making things seem more complicated than they need to be. You don't need to create four partitions. One and one swap will do. You set it as / and when you are asked where you want the bootloader put you select the /dev/sda? number of the / partition but if this is the first partition on the disk you put the bootloader at /dev/sda.
I have used this system on every single distro I ever installed and had no problems.
To keep windows and put linux after it you shrink the windows partition from administrative tools > computer mngt > disk mngt because only windows can determine a minimum safe size. On the cd installation options screen choose the 'something else' option, create a partition in the unused space ( and another of 10GB for swap ) set it as /, format as ext4, and get the bootloader installed on whatever /dev/sda? number ( probably /dev/sda3 ) the partition screen assigns to / and make them primary partitions. When installation finishes you will be rebooted into windows where you will need to install a boot loader ( EasyBCD, Plop, Acronis disk director operating system manager google windows freeware bootloaders for more ) that will detect linux and ask which os you want to boot immediately after you switch on.

[mephisto]

I ran into a very interesting problem with a dual boot Win XP / Linux Mint 13 XCFE install.
It simply did not want to dual boot. Win XP refused to boot, gave a black screen, no errors or anything.

Asked yann (boot-repair) for help, we tried everything, nothing worked.
Turns out somehow something had changed the XP boot.ini file and added control characters at the end of the first two lines.
To be specific ^M.
Windows XP's bootloader choked on those obviously.
I don't know how those got in there I tried so many different things and programs trying to fix the dual boot,
I might even have done it opening the file in a Linux text editor, and possibly even saving it from Linux, I'm not sure.
Anyway, as soon as I removed those ^M instances I rebooted and everything worked as intended.

Also yann has a great thread for dual boot issues
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Resto ... Bootloader

What saved my butt, and might be handy to keep in your dual boot toolbox is
Bootable XP Recovery Console CD if there is no XP media available,
it's only a 8 Mb ISO so...
http://www.mediafire.com/?ueyyzfymmig
more info is here
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic270018.html

Thought this might be helpful for somebody someday.