No Distro will install SOLVED

[davovinch]

Hi Folks,
I'm loving my Mint 17.1 on my laptop and my Mint 13 on my old P4 but I've got a 2002 custom build based on an epox board that refuses as many linux distros as I could find to try.
epox 8rda+ board
nvidia n force chipset
SIS video card

board runs xp fine and will run Mint 17.1,elementary,fedora,lxle, from the live iso just fine.
BUT
when I try to install the install drops out before it finishes copying files. No error message no dialog box, just install disappears and the little rotating marker just keeps rolling forever. I have to force a shutdown.
Same with Mint 13
Other distros fail at various points, some wont even get going, Fedora makes the whole system go crazy with the cdrom and hard drive running constantly.
I have removed all cards except the video card (which I need)
I have swapped to two other harddrives that have been zeroed and/or formatted before install.
I've even removed the floppy drive.

Folks, I am at my wits end.

[Pierre]

first off - run the live environment in comparability mode,
- usually the 2nd item on the boot menu.

also try a lightweight o/s, such as:
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

[mank_in]

I think the problem is SIS video card. Maybe you can try different video card ( I know AGP card is very rare right now )

[Pjotr]

If it's a SiS 771/671 video card, there's a solution when you use Mint 13.... Please generate an overview of your system like this, in the live session:
- launch a terminal window and make it fullscreen, to avoid chopped lines;
- copy/paste this command into the terminal:

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inxi -Fxz

(if you type: the letter F is a capital letter)

Press Enter.

Copy/paste the output in your next message.

[Mark Phelps]

If the drive in the 2002 PC is that old, since the PC works fine from Live media, I would suspect hard drive problems. Ten years for a drive to continue working is a long time.

[girolez]

Hi

When you have the live mint session running, before selecting the install icon, open a terminal and run this:

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sudo apt-get remove ubiquity-slideshow-mint

(it won't ask for a password)

It should install now. This issue, I believe, is that the SiS graphics fails when confronted with the slide show and it locks up forever. I found this advice in a post on these forums from 2010 and have needed it with installing maya xfce on my 2003 laptop

Roger

[davovinch]

Thanks all for your responses. I think I'll try that one about the slideshow first. BTW I found that Manjaro's latest xfce would install but it runs very slow so I am not much interested in it. It also isn't easy like Mint is to deal with. Sorry for the delay in responding but I though I would get auto notif. of responses.
Dave

[davovinch]

UPDATE
Disabling the slideshow seemed to work. 17.1 did install although it hung right at the very end after it ejected my DVD with a $ showing on a black screen. I held in the power button as I didn't know what else to do.
17.1 boots up and runs and I have done the first round of updates

BUT
There is no green M splashscreen during boot, just monitor cannot display message. I'd like to get the spashscreen back if I could

YouTube videos do not work, Adobe test says I need a plug in but firefox says I have flash and pkg manager says I have up-to-date trusty flash, hmmm
VLC player plays DVD movie perfectly.

BTW here is the promised terminal shot
~ $ inxi -Fxz
System: Host: mint Kernel: 3.13.0-37-generic i686 (32 bit, gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: Xfce 4.11.6 (Gtk 2.24.23) Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Machine: Mobo: N/A model: nVidia-nForce Bios: Phoenix version: 6.00 PG date: 07/29/2004
CPU: Single core AMD Athlon (-UP-) cache: 256 KB flags: (sse) bmips: 2305.11 clocked at 1150.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 315PRO PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter bus-ID: 02:00.0
X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: sis (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1280x1024@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.4, 128 bits) GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1: NVIDIA nForce2 AC97 Audio Controler (MCP) driver: snd_intel8x0 ports: d400 d800 bus-ID: 00:06.0
Card-2: NVIDIA nForce Audio Processing Unit bus-ID: 00:05.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-37-generic
Network: Card: NVIDIA nForce2 Ethernet Controller driver: forcedeth port: d000 bus-ID: 00:04.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 76.4GB (-) 1: id: /dev/sda model: Maxtor_6E040L0 size: 41.1GB temp: 34C
2: USB id: /dev/sdb model: Cruzer_Blade size: 4.0GB temp: 0C 3: USB id: /dev/sdc model: DT_101_G2 size: 31.2GB temp: 0C
Partition: ID: / size: 501M used: 36M (8%) fs: overlayfs ID: swap-1 size: 2.11GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 21.8C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 139 Uptime: 4 min Memory: 175.3/1001.9MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4
mint@mint ~ $

At least it works, thank you again.

[girolez]

Hi again

Glad it worked. I think your remaining issues are to do with the age of your processor (you did not say exactly which model of amd athlon). I suspect it does not run sse2 instructions which would explain the issues you are having. If I'm right the best solution is to install an older version such as maya 13 which has packages which dont need sse2. You would still be unable to run some packages such as chromium (after version 34). You can check my guess by running this in terminal:

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$ grep flags /proc/cpuinfo

It either will or wont have sse2 listed in the output.

Roger

[Reorx]

It either will or wont have sse2 listed in the output.

SSE is listed on Line 4 of the inxi output (just before your post)...

[gold_finger]

YouTube videos do not work

I think your remaining issues are to do with the age of your processor (you did not say exactly which model of amd athlon). I suspect it does not run sse2 instructions which would explain the issues you are having.

@davovinch,

girolez is correct. Adobe stopped (Linux) support for that processor in its latest versions of flash. You need to install an outdated older version of flash to play flash-based videos properly. Problem with that is the old version is exposes you to possible security problems because it doesn't have latest fixes. Keep that in mind -- you might want to consider keeping the flash disabled until you actually want to use it. (On the plus side -- many sites, including Youtube, are starting to use HTML5 instead of flash which eliminates the need for flash.)

Anyway, installing Mint 13 won't solve the problem because the first time you update the system it will pull in an updated version of flash, which will destroy its functionality again on your machine. Instead, keep Mint 17 that you already installed and use this tutorial to get rid of current flash version and install the latest compatible old version for your system: How to Fix Flash Video Problems on Older Computers.

P.s. Given the limitations of older systems like yours don't expect the video performance to be without some hiccups, especially if you try playing flash videos in full-screen mode. A good way around the performance limitations on Youtube flash videos is to stream the videos through VLC media player either directly or by using SMTube. You can install SMTube with this command in a terminal:

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sudo apt-get install smtube

When install completes, it will show up in Multimedia section of the Menu. Open it up and look along the bottom of the interface for the "Settings" button (probably a screwdriver icon). Click that to open the settings menu and under "Playback" area make sure that the "Player" is set to "VLC". Hit "OK" when done. Now you can do searches for videos by name in the search box, or enter the exact HTTP address for a Youtube video you already know. When you find something you want to play just double-click it; or you can right-click it and select "Play video". There will be a delay of several seconds for the first video you do this on before VLC starts. Subsequent videos will start quicker. Using this method you should be able to play videos (even high quality videos) with good results even in full-screen mode.

[davovinch]

Hi all,
This machine runs Win XP usually, I have swapped out the Harddrive temporarily with another of the same model to do this experiment. Under XP I run the latest version of Flash and play YouTube vids perfectly even in full screen mode. This would lead me to think that there is something not right in Firefox under this install.The Flash web page diagnostics say that I'm missing a plugin but Firefox shows I have it and it is up to date. Im going to have to play aroud with this.
In my older P4 box running Maya I play YouTube just fine and that machine was old long before the AMD box was built. BTW the processer is AMD K-6-2.

These are niggling problems and perhaps I shouldn't waste space under this topic with them as they have nothing to do with the OP but you folks have helped me out so nicely I hate to let you go.

[MtnDewManiac]

Under XP I run the latest version of Flash and play YouTube vids perfectly

Keep in mind that Microsoft's Windows XP OS is now unsupported, so many things in it can be considered "static." IOW, if something worked in it a while back, I'd expect that state to exist ten years from now. Well, assuming that it was installed deep underground in a bunker that had no access to other computers , since, AfaIK, it is not receiving security updates, either (and never was entirely secure to begin with).

Linux, OtOH, can be considered "dynamic;" it changes and, presumably, evolves. And nothing lasts forever. A graphics manufacturer may drop support for one or more of its older cards. Sure, an old graphics driver should allow an old graphics card to function... However, in practice, this does not always equate to success in reality. That old graphics driver might have as a dependency (IOW, require in order to function) an older version of a library (et cetera) which has been superseded by a newer version. In theory, you could search out and find all of the old versions of files that such an old graphics driver requires - but what, then, of all the other components that make up a functioning system that require the newer versions?

Of course, the above might not be part of your problem. IDK, really. But when I read this:

the processer is AMD K-6-2.

I did begin to wonder. I thought my Desktop was "ancient" in computer terms; it, too, had an AMD CPU. My CPU was introduced way back in 2002... And it's an Athlon 2200+. Just how old is your computer, anyway? All I remember about the K6-2 (and the memory is rather vague, so it might be faulty) is that it was introduced some time in the late '90s, had pretty poor floating-point performance, had a FSB speed of either 66 or 100 mHz, did not have much cache memory (at least compared to recent - or... well, not-so-recent CPUs), and the CPU topped out at around 550mHz. IIRC, it competed against Intel P2s and the slower Celerons of that era.

I like Mint a lot(!), and see that you must want to use it, because you've had some issues and are still trying. I hope you are successful in getting Mint installed and set up so that you end up with a fully-functional, completely usable system. But... If at some point, you decide to give up, I'd rather see you find another linux distro that is more compatible with your hardware than to go back to an unsupported and insecure OS (Windows XP). That might be a challenge - if not now, then in the future, since your computer appears to have less prowess than my discount cell phone (and is quite a bit older). Some distros that are - or, at least, were - said to run on old computers:

AntiX (its Wiki page states "It should run on most computers, ranging from 64MB old PII 266 systems with pre-configured 128MB swap to the latest powerful boxes. 128MB RAM is recommended minimum for antiX. The installer needs minimum 2.2GB hard disk size.")

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http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Anitaos ("Fast on old Hardware.")

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http://sourceforge.net/projects/anitaos/

I have seen ArchBang and Puppy Linux mentioned in regards to old hardware. I would think that Debian Stable might have some possibility of functioning, since many companies/corporations use it and some entities in that category might be rather slow to upgrade their hardware (as they might have quite a lot of it). And here are a few websites that specifically focus on linux distros for older computers:

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http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Old+Computers
http://www.howtogeek.com/172987/revive-your-old-pc-the-3-best-linux-systems-for-old-computers/?PageSpeed=noscript
http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2014/08/5-linux-distributions-for-very-old.html
http://www.tecmint.com/linux-distributions-for-old-computers/
https://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/780781-6-excellent-lightweight-linux-distros-for-x86-and-arm
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2107641/3-easy-linux-alternatives-for-windows-xp-refugees-who-dont-want-a-new-pc.html

I certainly wouldn't bother trying three out of the four versions of Mint on an OLD computer; I would only attempt to install/use the Xfce version (but I use it out of preference regardless of my hardware, so that is no hardship for me ). There are DEs (Desktop Environments... What Xfce, Cinnamon, MATE, KDE, et cetera are - unlike the Microsoft world, where Windows is the OS and the DE, in linux they are two separate things and one can choose from among many of each.) that are even lighter than Xfce. I believe LXDE is one such. Or you might find that things are smoother on old hardware if you do away with a traditional DE entirely. No, I don't mean live in the terminal, lol - one can use a window manager instead of a full-fledged DE. Here is a web page that mentions quite a few window managers:

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https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/window_manager

Again, I hope that you get Mint working 100% on your hardware. But if you don't, there are options that may allow you install some form of linux on your old computer instead of throwing it away or <GASP!> continuing to use Windows XP.

Regards,
MDM

[gold_finger]

Under XP I run the latest version of Flash and play YouTube vids perfectly even in full screen mode.

That's because Adobe continued its support for flash-plugin under Windows. It discontinued support under Linux. So, on that machine you'll need to use an outdated version of flash-plugin -- the newer ones won't work. Your P4 machine apparently doesn't have the same problem. Its CPU is not one of the ones they stopped supporting. Mint has no control over this issue -- it's cause by Adobe. Also, in general they do a better job making compatibility with Windows than in Linux, which is probably why videos play better under XP than in Mint on that machine.

If you install the old flash-plugin, sites will complain about it and you'll get the screen with a circle and a dash in the middle of it along with warning to install newer version. You can simply click inside the circle to get a pop-up that lets you tell the site to stop warning you and use the old plugin.

Alternatively, you can stream using SMTube like I stated before.

[MtnDewManiac]

Hey, just a thought, but would it work to install Pepper Flash (aka "Freshplayer") in Firefox? Or does that not support Babbage-era CPUs, either, lol?

Regards,
MDM

[davovinch]

I downloaded the anti-x distro but it would not boot when I spun it up so I bagged that idea.
Tonight I was able to get videos on youtube with an extension to firefox called html5. At 480p playback the playback is acceptable.
The AMD K-6 was touted as the P4 slayer and was called the overclockers dream when coupled with the epox 8rda+ board. That was back then, I never did bother overclocking it. I completely re-capped the board a number of years ago and figur I should just run it to the end of days.
We received our refurbed dell from walmart today for $200 I couldn't bother with building something. DVDRW,1TB HD, 4 gig Ram momma is happy now with windows7 and from what I hear I'll qualify for free Win 10 when it comes out in the summer so that box will take us well into the future and the older boxes are upstairs for me to mess with as I please.

It still gets me that out of the box mint 13 runs the videos better in that older P4 with an onboard via chipset/vido/audio a total crap setup with 512mb ram.

I refreshed firefox in the k6 box and messed around with the flash but it didn't make a difference.
Interestingly on yahoo videos I was able to see a pretty good shakira video with no trouble. They must use a different application to play.

I keep having the feeling that in doing the install with the slideshow disabled that somehow it broke something somewhere.

[gold_finger]

Hey, just a thought, but would it work to install Pepper Flash (aka "Freshplayer") in Firefox? Or does that not support Babbage-era CPUs, either, lol?

Regards,
MDM

I don't think that will work, but not sure -- have never tried it. A different option might be to install Google's Chrome browser because they have their own fully updated version of flash included in it. Maybe their version still supports older AMD CPUs -- doubtful, but you never know. (Is "pepper-flash" the Google version of flash? Or is that something else?)

I keep having the feeling that in doing the install with the slideshow disabled that somehow it broke something somewhere.

No -- disabling the slideshow wouldn't cause any kind of install issue. Unfortunately it must be just that support for that type of thing on that AMD processor is not very good. Just for the hell of it, go ahead and try installing Google Chrome and see if video performance is any better with that.

[MtnDewManiac]

I downloaded the anti-x distro but it would not boot when I spun it up so I bagged that idea.

I am sorry to read that. Still, that was just one of several possibilities. (Assuming that you got a good download/burn and that the thing will boot on a different computer...) Perhaps it has just evolved too much for that hardware, IDK. I suppose you could save yourself some potential wasted effort by posting at a few of the "community forums" that are associated with those "old hardware friendly" distros, stating what hardware you are using.

Tonight I was able to get videos on youtube with an extension to firefox called html5. At 480p playback the playback is acceptable.

That is good news. I didn't know HTML5 required an extension in Firefox (I thought it was standard). Netflix will use that, too, along with various other websites. I expect to see more and more because, AfaIK, Adobe is wishing to do away with Flash.

The AMD K-6 was touted as the P4 slayer

Funny, I thought it was advertised as the P2 "slayer." And that much (most?) of that argument was that comparable(+/-) Pentium 2 CPUs cost two to three times as much.

and was called the overclockers dream

I do remember that. But the floating point performance was still sub-standard. And the extension that AMD had that was supposed to make up for it (3DNOW?) hadn't really caught on. And I seem to remember that the K6-2 and -3 weren't really viable at higher (for the time) clock speeds. ~650mHz was about the limit? Still, it was a CPU that provided (+/-) performance as Intel's offering at a significant cost savings. And, when Intel had its infamous CPU shortage around that time, that had to have helped sales. I'm pretty happy that the K6-2 had the success that it did; it gave AMD the financial ability to produce the Athlons.

We received our refurbed dell from walmart today for $200 I couldn't bother with building something.

If you found hardware that meets your needs for $200... I probably wouldn't have built a computer, either. I've had friends buy refurbs, off-lease "business" computers, and barebones models from TigerDirect, and they've (generally) been satisfied. And those kinds of purchases come with a warranty, which one does not get from a CraigsList purchase (although the deals can occasionally be better).

momma is happy now

That is good news. "If Momma aint happy, no one is happy," .

with windows7 and from what I hear I'll qualify for free Win 10 when it comes out in the summer so that box will take us well into the future

Well, there's no guarantee that Windows 10 will run on it at a speed that you find to be acceptable. Then again, much of Microsoft's sales are upgrades to people who own computers that are "less" compared to current new hardware (and a big chunk of the remainder is to businesses that have lots of old hardware and limited budgets), so your chances are probably reasonably good. Certainly better than that you would be happy running Windows 10 on your OLD computer.

It still gets me that out of the box mint 13 runs the videos better in that older P4 with an onboard via chipset/vido/audio a total crap setup with 512mb ram.

Again, it doesn't surprise me. I pulled a P4 desktop out of a dumpster a couple of years ago, and it was "in the neighborhood" of my AMD Athlon 2200+ desktop. For one reason, it was (IIRC) clocked at ~2400mHz, and the Athlon 2200+ was only running at 1800mHz (actually, 1792mHz, I think; IDK why). And both of those CPUs are generations beyond the K6-2, being much faster, having significantly faster FSB, more cache, (IIRC) better pipeline, more advanced instruction sets/extensions, et cetera, etc.

BtW, just like adding more RAM is not going to solve your issue, taking away RAM (to some extent; there are always going to be "minimum requirements") from a computer is not necessarily going to give you issues in regards to accomplishing any given task. It might happen slower as one reaches a point where the disk cache is being used almost constantly (like when I installed Mosaic (IIRC) and other "Internet-related" apps (Gopher client, etc.) on my 486SX with its couple of megabytes of RAM and tried to browse web pages that had graphics and whatever else they offered at the time... I heard my hard drive's head thrashing constantly and I could pretty much go eat a sandwich and return before the page had finished loading, lol - but it would, eventually).

Were motherboards "universal" things, IOW, one could use any CPU on any motherboard, I would expect that you could solve many of your issues by installing an old P4, first-generation Athlon, or something else that was only a few(?) years newer. Sadly, that's not how things are designed; installing one of those CPUs would require a different motherboard, which might involve different RAM, maybe a different video card, et cetera, so it would be impossible to know for sure.

I refreshed firefox in the k6 box and messed around with the flash but it didn't make a difference.
Interestingly on yahoo videos I was able to see a pretty good shakira video with no trouble. They must use a different application to play.

YouTube will use HTML5 if available. Perhaps it is doing so. BtW, have you tried a standalone YouTube app, such as MiniTube (available in our repositories via Synaptic Package Manager, just type the name into its search box)? That might bring the "overhead" down enough to make a difference. And - if it works well on your computer - you might try VLC. It seems to use less RAM than some other video player apps I have used (I cannot say for sure on CPU load, though) and, IIRC, you can set firefox to use it for video.

I keep having the feeling that in doing the install with the slideshow disabled that somehow it broke something somewhere.

No, the reverse is true: If you cannot successfully complete an installation of Mint due to that slideshow being installed, removing it will help (not hinder) things. And it is only relevant during the actual installation process; it is a moot point, otherwise.

would it work to install Pepper Flash (aka "Freshplayer") in Firefox? Or does that not support Babbage-era CPUs, either, lol?

I don't think that will work, but not sure -- have never tried it. A different option might be to install Google's Chrome browser because they have their own fully updated version of flash included in it. Maybe their version still supports older AMD CPUs -- doubtful, but you never know. (Is "pepper-flash" the Google version of flash? Or is that something else?)

AfaIK, yes, Pepper Flash ("Freshplayer") IS the version of Flash that is rolled into Google's web browser. One might even have to install Chrome (or Chromium?) as part of getting it into Firefox, IDK. I have not ran into a need for it and only know of it through related reading. It does, however, offer the same (if not newer) version of Flash to linux users who use Firefox as is available to Microsoft OS users.

But you do bring up a valid question, whether or not that version supports the K6-2. I don't have even a guess on that account. <SHRUGS> It's just something to try. The fact that Adobe dropped support for it (which was something I had no knowledge of before reading this thread) is probably not a good indicator.

Which probably touches on the entire issue: When the K6-2 was new (or even five - or ten) years old, people were probably writing applications/components in such a way that it was a case of "See if the CPU supports {all the instruction sets/extensions that have come along to better both general computing and graphics performance in the years since it was new} and, if so, use them in order to provide a better experience to the user." But by this time, my guess is that people are writing things so that it is "Use those instruction sets {period}. See if the CPU supports {i3/i5/i7 extensions/instruction sets} and, if so, use those." Dropping things that have (mostly) fallen by the wayside does tend to make for less weighty code and an easier time for the coder. I think I read a year or two ago that they finally dropped support for... the 386 (lol) from the linux kernel, for example. That was at a "basic" level, so I would not expect any current linux distros to run on a 386 (unless someone who was very dedicated did a lot of kernel work and compiled their own). Luckily, linux will still run on a K6-2 "in general." It's just a lot of the specific things that a person might wish to do with one that could (and, obviously, do) present problems.

Regards,
MDM

[davovinch]

lol all this time I've been talking K6 mine is Athlon

Chrome will not support my CPU, tried last night.
Yup on the refurb. The first one I got puked the blue screen within 15mins of startup. One thing that is good abt. buying refurbs thru Wally is the local stor is close usually and they take your return within 15 days without a question. No tiresome packing and shipping. Plus they ship the pc to you fast, I mean like 2 to 3 days fast, totally insanely fast. I read one reviewer on their site who had through time ordered 13 of them having about 1/3 of them be duds. He loves them says when you get one that works its good to go. Plus there is a 1 year guaranty. So now momma's got a nice up-to-date pc.
I never was really that taken with the K7
I've had quite a number of distro dvd burns not boot and they all were light versions of the regular, one was mint lite 3.0. but I have never had a full version of any distro refuse to boot. I figured that I was missing something somewhere like needing a separate boot image or something kinda like the old days when you would put in the win 98 boot floppy then take it out and put in a utility disc and do a change directory.