[CLOSED- SOLVED] LMDE 6 fails to install on NEC V770/T desktop

[fmtk]

Hello,

After having gone through the typical download and ISO validation process, I have burned the image on a flash drive initially using Etcher.

Desktop: NEC770/T Japanese language, 32 bit, OS = Vista, RAM 4GB , disk capacity 83/831 GB. Uses NVIDIA GeForce 9400. The computer is from 2009.

Upon plugging the USB (minor tweak to get it to work but it runs), the splash screen appears. When selecting LMDE 6 to launch the installation, the computer starts hanging and after a few minutes shows the following error message:
task swapper / 0: 1 Blocked for more than 120 seconds. Not tainted 6.1.0-12 686 Debian 6.1.52-1

This goes into a loop and the message repeats at a specific interval.

Conducted a second attempt, using an USB burned with Rufus. The first thing to mention is that Rufus formats the USB as NTFS (FAT32 cannot be activated once the image is selected). Kicked off the installation with this USB. Under this scenario, no splash screen, simply a dark screen with the cursor blinking indefinitely.

I have two questions:
Question 1: What is the root cause of the installation failure and how can it be solved?
Question 2: In the event that LMDE 6 is not a suitable distro for this computer, what alternative is available?

Recommendations and tips on the above are very welcome for enabling the installation of a Linux distro on this computer.

[Hawaiihemd]

Have you tried booting the live system in compatibility mode?

[fmtk]

Hello Hawaiihemd,
Thank you for the suggestion. I haven't tried yet compatibility mode. Does it allow to install permanently the distro? My target is to remove entirely Windows and run only Linux as primary OS. Agnostic to how it can be accomplished (directly or in compatibility mode) as long as the process completes a clean install of Linux. Thanks again.

[Hawaiihemd]

To answer your question: Yes, you will be able to install a complete system in compatibility mode.

But you will probably want to install proprietary NVidia drivers later.

But the first thing I would do is boot one more time into Windows and disable hibernation which will in turn disable fast boot, which is important to not leave any hardware in a sort of "floating" state.
Then I would try to boot live session in compatibility mode and install LMDE.

[fmtk]

Thank you Hawaiihemd.
I made a mistake and ran the installation prior to disabling the windows hibernation. As you stated, the computer is now is a floating mode. Relaunching the installation fails. I even tried reverting to Vista (created a bootable USB) but this also fails. It looks like the chances of installing LMDE on this machine are becoming pretty thin.

[Hawaiihemd]

No need to be discouraged. Maybe it won't be a problem.

What exactly fails? The boot to Vista or the boot attempt from the usb thumb drive?

If Windows does not boot anyway I suggest you proceed with trying to install via compatibility mode.

[fmtk]

Hello Hawaiihemd,
I am too convinced that it can be solved but will likely time some time,
On a high level basis, this is what can be observed.
1- Unable to boot from the hard disk.
2- Booting from USB can be done.

Based on the above, I have created a new bootable USB with the Vista ISO. This option however doesn't work. The screen remains black when trying to re-install Vista.
On the contrary, booting works with the Linux distro. I get to the installation menu. When opting for the compatibility mode, the process starts and after a series of checks (most are looking fine, getting an OK mark), then stalls. The cursor simply remains stuck on the very top left corner and nothing happens.

The description of the problem is missing too many details for you to figure out the possible root cause. I will try to figure out how to retrieve the logs of the installation process from the vista computer and post them if successful.
Thank you for your support.

[MiZoG]

Fast startup was introduced with Windows 8 AFAIK.
So, it could not be the reason for your troubles if that computer had Vista previously.

Boot with your installation media (LMDE) in compatibility mode if needed.
Obtain a full system report. How?
Go to your Menu, find "System Reports" --> System Information --> Press the "Copy" button --> Paste here.

Edit: If this message " Not tainted 6.1.0-12 686 Debian 6.1.52-1..." means that you try to install the 32bit iso of LMDE...
There is no reason to install the 32bit version of LMDE in that machine since it has 4 gigs or ram.
There is no reason to install the 32bit version of LMDE because it happened to have had 32bit Vista.
Everything 32bit on Linux tends to become buggier with the passing of time. 64bit will perform better on any >2006 (Core2duo "class") CPU.
A few months ago I ran a bunch of tests on two machines of that "age" and I know what I'm talking about (I/O, compiling software, browser, "productivity" etc tests).
Create an installation media with the 64bit (x86-64) iso.

There is no more support by the proprietary nvidia driver for nvidia 9400 GT. 340.x series was the last driver to support it. You have to settle with the open-source nouveau driver.

[fmtk]

Hello MizoG,
Very interesting comments and suggestion. Let me try with the 64 bit media for this machine which is indeed newer than 2006. Encouraging comments.
I will post results on this thread after the 64 bit trial.
Thanks again

[fmtk]

Hello,

Below are the transcript of the screen shots taken during the installation. Those messages pop up right after selecting "install LMDE 6 in comaptibility mode". Despite my limited knowledge in this field, a few searches indicate that the computer is exhibiting hardware issues. My question is therefore. Is this a severe problem (in which case, I will simply trash the machine) or can it be solved by a layman in IT?

[3.421902] 18042: Probing ports directly.
[3.697182] serio: 18042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
]3.697786] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
[3.698178] rtc_cmos 00:02: RTC can wake from S4
[3.700340] rtc_cmos 00:02: registered as rtco
[3.700937] rtc_cmos 00:02: setting system clock to 2009-01-01T00:02:01 UTC (1230768121)
[ 3.701342] rtc_cmos 00:02: alarms up to one month, y3k, 242 bytes nvram, hpe t irqs
[ 24.444648] rcu: INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
[24.444874] rcu: 00-...0: (1 GPs behind) idle-2f9c/1/0x4000000000000000 softi rq=148/152 fqs=2625
[24.445119] o(detected by 1, t=5252 jiffies, g=-691, q=58 ncpus=2) 24.445475] Sending NMI from CPU 1 to CPUs 0:
[87.464583] rcu: INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
[87.4649421 rcu: 00-...0: (1 GPs behind) idle-2f9c/1/0x4000000000000000 softi rq=148/152 fqs=9179
[87.465176] o(detected by 1, t=21007 jiffies, g=-691, q=58 ncpus=2) 87.465404] Sending NMI from CPU 1 to CPUs 0:
[150.4847081 rcu: INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
[ 150.4849301 rcu: 00-...0: (1 GPs behind) idle-2f9c/1/0x4000000000000000 softi rq=148/152 fqs=15733
[ 150.485172] o(detected by 1, t=36762 jiffies, g=-691, q=58 ncpus=2) 150.4855281 Sending NMI from CPU 1 to CPUs 0:

[484.497454] task:swapper/0 state:D stack:0 pid:1 ags:0x00004000
[ 484.497694] Call Trace
[484.498050] </TASK>
[484.498269] __schedule+0x351/0xa20
[484.498499] schedule+0x5d/0xe0
[484.498855) schedule_timeout+0x118/0x150
[484.499080] wait_for_completion+0x86/0x160
[484.499311] devtmpfs_submit_req+0x6e/0x90
[484.499668] devtmpfs_create_node+0xac/0xe0
[484.499891] device_add+0x857/0x8b0
[484.500121] cdev_device_add+0x44/0x90
[484.500477] ? cdev_init+0x51/0×60
[484.500702] mousedev_create+0x230/0x2c0
[484.500933] ? input_leds_init+0x11/0x11
[484.501287] mousedev_init+0x19/0x86
[484.501508] ? input_leds_init+0x11/0x11
[484.501737] do_one_initcall+0x59/0x220
[484.502266] kernel_init_freeable+0x221/0x286
[484.502489] ? rest_init+0xd0/0xd0
[484.502718] kernel_init+0x16/0x130
[484.503069] ret_from_fork+0x22/0x30
[484.503297] <TASK>

[Hawaiihemd]

No idea what these messages mean but:
a) If it worked under win 7 I find it rather improbable that a hardware issue occurred right before switching to another OS and
b) If it did not boot I suggest you try one of the standard Linux Mint ISOs. They include a different kernel which might boot.

[fmtk]

Hello Hawaihemd,
Thank you for the support. I have tried both LMDE 6 (64 bit) and Mint Una (20.3) which I installed recently on a laptop. To no avail. From some comments on internet, a hardware problem cannot be fully discounted.

[Hawaiihemd]

OK. I am almost out of ideas. A few more thoughts and then maybe more knowledgeable folks can chime in.

Aside from the pretty obvious, trying another USB stick, trying a different USB port, you could try once more to get an ISO to boot using Ventoy.

Other than that, if you have access to another (desktop) computer, you can use that other pc to install mint on a HDD or SSD and then put that drive back into your computer.

If this is some problem with booting from USB and not a more "broad" hardware issue, this would be a solution.

[fmtk]

Thank you for your assistance and tips. Equally for MiZoG.
I managed to install Ulyana (Mint 20) yesterday. The installation process ran until the end without issues.
The problem now is that Linux won't boot. I will anyway close this thread, as it is unrelated to LMDE installation and post further questions on the mint forum for the Ulyana settings issues.

[fmtk]

For the benefit of readers: Though unrelated to LMDE installation, the fix for booting Ulyana was to remove "quiet splash" in GRUB and replace it by a long sequence "noapic noacpi etc....) which is well documented in this post: https://superuser.com/questions/1442828 ... ing-ubuntu

[Hawaiihemd]

Thanks for this feedback. That's good to keep in the back of my head. Glad you solved your issue.