Can't log-in after install

[AlbertP]

Please try burning with another program (K3B for example, it's in the repository). Brasero isn't very reliable.

[plevans]

Please try burning with another program (K3B for example, it's in the repository). Brasero isn't very reliable.

Since I can't login on the computer I installed Xfce on I will have to use my hubby's WinXP pc. Any suggestions for a good burning program for XP?

[AlbertP]

In my Windows-only days I used a free program called ImgBurn. I have never had problems burning an ISO file to CD or DVD. You can also try cleaning the lens of the drive with a special cleaning disc, which can be bought at many computer shops.

[plevans]

Thanks AlbertP, I'll give ImgBurn a try.

[plevans]

Please try burning with another program.....Brasero isn't very reliable......In my Windows-only days I used a free program called ImgBurn. I have never had problems burning an ISO file to CD or DVD.

Ok, I'm back. I downloaded ImgBurn, but couldn't get it to run, even after reinstalling. So instead I burned the ISO with CDBurnerXP, which finished with no errors. Incidentally, this time I burned LMD 201108 RC Xfce 32-bit. Checksum matched, installation went fine, got to the login screen, entered my password....same result as with 201104 Xfce 32-bit....screen went black, then it brought me back to the login screen asking for my password. Unlike davidgagne80, I am also unable to login in Recovery Mode.

You can also try cleaning the lens of the drive with a special cleaning disc, which can be bought at many computer shops.

Would this be the lens of the drive I'm burning with or installing with?

Any other suggestions?

[wayne128]

Not ready sure if you have some issue on DVD's reader that cause some issue on reading.
Or may be some bug? But my LMDE-xfce respin did not have trouble on login.

Can your computer boot from USB? if yes, may be it is better to try installing via USB stick.
You can use unetbootin to prepare bootable USB stick.
Then boot from it, and run installation, at least this path should eliminate the suspected issue with DVD reading..

Another possibility is , since your computer already has the LMDE-xfce install but cannot login, assuming you input your name with lower case ( well no capital !!) , and assuming the installation is reasonable good and allow you to have internet, then it is possible to try update+upgrade with chroot, perhaps update+upgrade might resolve possible bug? just an idea.

To do this
Boot computer from LMDE-xfce DVD
open terminal, type sudo su to get into root, you will see # prompt
use os-prober to check what is the device on installed LMDE-xfce, assuming it is /dev/sda7
mount /dev/sda7 /mnt
chroot /mnt
you should be in chroot environment now
apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
this would update the installation, and at the end, reboot and hope for the best.. good luck

[plevans]

Well, I FINALLY got LMD 201108 RC Xfce 32-bit installed and I can login, but only because I installed everything on one partition. I have downloaded and installed all updates and am now attempting to move /home to another partition using these instructions.

However I am now stuck on this command: $find . -depth -print0 | cpio –null –sparse -pvd /mnt/newhome/ which returns this error message: cpio: invalid option -- 'e' Try `cpio --help' or `cpio --usage' for more information.

I have read both cpio --help and cpio --usage and can't see where I'm making a mistake. Any ideas?
*********************************************************************************************
Oops! Just saw that I missed an important step so I'm going to give it a try, then will report my results.

[plevans]

Well, that was a no-go. Installing everything on one partition did allow me to login, but once I moved /home to a new partition I could no longer login. So to save myself any more frustration and computer downtime I downloaded and installed Mint 11. Works like a charm But, I really wanted to try a roiling distro

[AlbertP]

Perhaps the final release works better. This is just the RC.

[a4b96384]

I've got the same issue as the initial and other posts - login appears to get started but then black screen and back to the login screen again.

I downloaded and burned yesterday (using InfraRecorder in WinXP). I didn't see any mention of it being an RC version. Did the install to HD from the DVD. I'm running this on a 10 yr old Sony Vaio - sorry, can't give you too much detail about it because it's no longer functional. It's a PCG-R505JL, with I'm pretty sure 384 MB RAM. Mint had about 3.5 GB for root partition and about 1 GB for home on which to do the install. df reports 400+ MB free on / after install.

I flipped over to tty1 (Ctrl-Alt-F1) and was able to login there using the ID/PW I'd created. I then went back to tty8 and tried loggin in again on the gdm side. I then went back to tty1 to see if I could catch the login with w - there were two users for a brief period, then back to one, so it sounded like the login was successful but there's something troubling the gdm.

When I did that again, some output appeared on the screen that looked like partial error messages. I checked dmesg - the end of it had error messages including the stuff I'd seen on screen. I did this a few more times - each time I try to log in, the same string of messages is appended to dmesg (with the new time counts of course).

Here is the output from dmesg - I've replaced the time counts at the start of the lines with # for clarity and in case there's word wrap:

# [drm:drm_reclaim_locked_buffers] *ERROR* reclaim_buffers_locked() deadlock. Please rework this
# driver to use reclaim_buffers_idlelocked() instead.
# I will go on reclaiming the buffers anyway.
# [drm] DMA Cleanup
# mtrr: no MTRR for f8000000,3000000 found
# mtrr: base(0xf8000000) is not aligned on a size(0x12c000) boundary
# [drm] Using v1.4 init.
# mtrr: base(0xf8000000) is not aligned on a size(0x3000000) boundary
# [drm:drm_reclaim_locked_buffers] *ERROR* reclaim_buffers_locked() deadlock. Please rework this
# driver to use reclaim_buffers_idlelocked() instead.
# I will go on reclaiming the buffers anyway.

(PS - typed this because the machine is hooped - have checked for typos carefully - pretty sure it's precise).

These lines repeat every time a login attempt is made. Using sudo, I see a couple of the lines from the above also appear in /var/log/messages. In /var/log/auth.log there are gdm-session-worker sessions - the session open and close a second apart.

I saw the comments on MD5 sums and burning. It seems kind of unlikely to me. There are multiple users reporting the same problem. Burning problems or bad MD5 sums would give random imperfections in the DVD, wouldn't they? And didn't one check the sums and they were fine? I wouldn't have thought there'd be multiple reports of the same issue b/c of burning/MD5 problems - possible I guess, if there was a bad image on a mirror, say, but would't be the first thing I'd think of. (IMHO - just an observation - not a complaint).

Hope this helps . I need the machine working though, so am going to install a different distro - maybe one of the Unity Linux respins (the Unity distro, not Ubuntu's thing).

[AlbertP]

Do you have a swap partition? For running Mint 11 Gnome on a computer with only 384MB of RAM, I'd recommend to use a swap partition of at least 650 MB.

I think you should add some more RAM to your old Sony Vaio. Those old computers often support up to 1GB or 2GB of RAM.

How to install RAM memory in a laptop: http://www.computermemoryupgrade.net/in ... emory.html

You can also use Mint 11 LXDE instead. Then you don't have to worry about swap or RAM upgrade on a 384MB computer.