What to tagg if not possible to solve

[SprinterDriver]

Hi.

Having this habit of trying to ressurect some hopeless oldish computers, and making topics about that - and eventually it turns out that the project is not possible to complete (ie. cannot install the OS I wanted on a computer): I feel to ask for suggestion.

If a thread is solved - it is good practice to add [solved] in topic field - that applies to most forums out there. That is what people that have the same problem really want to find when they search for a solution on web. However, those threads that just would never be solved - kind of "it just not work whatever I do" - wouldn't it be an idea to have some concept of naming those too?

[Schultz]

I had a situation like that where "SOLVED" wouldn't be right. I just put "RESOLVED." Maybe "RESOLVED-CAN'T FIX" would be better?

[jimallyn]

Just curious, are you trying to revive old computers with Mint? There are a number of other Linux distros that are probably better suited for older computers. One of my favorites for old computers is antiX, but there are others. I have antiX installed on a computer that had Win98 on it when I got it, and it works surprisingly well.

[SprinterDriver]

Yes, I think it's fun to give new life to old computers that otherwise would be thrashed.

Maybe [UNFIXABLE]? I'm not a native english speaker so I can't tell if that sound bad

[Portreve]

There are two kinds of scenarios that may, at first blush, appear to be unsolvable: those which are, and those for which someone simply hasn't asked all the right questions, or tried all the right things.

There are a LOT of distros out there. I haven't tried antiX, but another possible choice could be Debian. That is just about the lightest-weight "normal" distro I've ever seen, and it's got ports for an insane number of platforms. That's not to say that Debian is the universal panacea for any kind of difficult-to-handle hardware, but just to suggest lack of support by more mainstream distros does not mean lack of possible support by any distro.

Unless, of course, the hardware in question is a literal toaster. Then it might not be possible to get GNU+Linux support for it.

Let me give you an example that's serious (in the sense of being a legitimate thing):

You have an uncle who's been into computers for a long time. In fact, he might have started out as an Apple II guy. Or, maybe he started out on the Macintosh.

Anyhow, he comes to you one day and says, "Hey, SprinterDriver, I have some old data, kind of important documents, that I need to get off these old floppies. Can you help me?" And, being the wonderful human being you are, you're like, "Yeah, uncle JimAllyn, I can do that for you."

So, you get the disks and you're like, hey, I know where I've got a USB floppy drive. I'll plug that in and grab the files off of it. So, you get the floppy drive, plug it into your LinuxMint-running box, stick in the disk... and nothing. Maybe there's something weird going on on the computer, you think, so you reboot and try again. No dice. Huh. You try different ports, nothing. You go back to your uncle, and he's like, "Oh, hey, I've got a USB floppy drive I used to use when I got that Blue and White G3 tower back in 2000. I'll get it for you." Great. So, you get it and he's got a different floppy taped to it, so you try that disk and still you've got trouble.

You come on here on LM Forums and ask around, and Schultz, who's this super-awesome dude in a WWII German helmet, is like, "Oh, hey, you need to make sure you've got HFS support enabled on your box." Cool, so you double-check, maybe there was some tweak, and you get it all set up. That floppy disk now mounts and you can see the data on it. So, you eject it and go back to the other disks you really care about. Nothing. You try your own USB floppy drive again. Still no dice. So, you're like What the f...antastic?!?!?!?

Thing is, you didn't know to really look at the floppy disks and see the fact that the floppy taped to your uncle's USB drive was a high density floppy. The others, the ones he's really interested in, aren't high density disks. They're actually all 800K floppies.

So yes, there is a solution, but it's a total PITA. And you won't be able to do it just using LinuxMint. Or, for that matter, your current box.

The moral of this tale is you have to keep asking questions, even when the question is, "What am I not asking that I need to ask to make this work?"

[Hoser Rob]

There are a bunch of reasons a thread may have remained unsolved.

There may not been anyone reading it who understood the problem. This may be because there genuinely was no one who could answer. I've switched from Mint back to Ubuntu for exactly that reason with my netbook.

The OP may have been worded so badly that no one capable of answering would have the patience to bother. This is quite common, and why newbies are advised to read the stickies. You need to state the problem clearly. Preferably in the thread title.

Or not enough people read it in the first place.

I've used better support forums than this and still found that no matter how clearly you put the question you still have to be prepared to research it yourself.