So frustrated! (Linux Freezes during install)

S

Sherrill

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 8, 2005
Messages
182
Ok...well this is the 2nd time I have downloaded mandrake and it has messed up on me...

A long time ago I downloaded 9.1 and it installed wrong and my screen was f'ed... so I decided not to again...

Well I just got pretty much a new computer so I decided to try on my old one... So I download the Cd's ALL NIGHT, wake up, go to work, come back..and burn them today(was looking forward to it)...And I try and install mandrake..

1 - Pop in the Cd's and let it boot up
2 - Press enter to install the software
3 - Thing scrolls with list of files
4 - Goes to "Welcome to MandrakeLinux (10.1) Oct 11 20054 14:49:28
<Alt-F1> for here, <Alt-F3> to see the logs, <Alt-F4> for kernel message
5- NOTHING HAPPENS...I push any buttons ...nothing...

So please help me, as I am really really frustrated..... :(
 
i'm not sure if this is the solution, but maybe the image is corrupt? i think you can use the md5 sum to check the iso.
 
piller1999 said:
i'm not sure if this is the solution, but maybe the image is corrupt? i think you can use the md5 sum to check the iso.
Click to expand...
If it turns out to be corrupt, find an rsync mirror and rsync to it rather than redownloading the whole thing again. Much faster. My $.02.

You might also try a small bootable Linux like Damnsmalllinux and see if that works; if not, it's probably a hardware issue.
 
Mind if I piggy-back Sherrill? As I am with you on the frustration with trying to install Mandrake, or any distro for that matter.

I can get past the 'press enter to install' part, the choose your language part, and all that... but when comes time to install it...it will either hang on the partitioning or I get a kernal install error on EVERY distro that I have tried. I too thought it may be my downloaded versions, maybe they got flubbered somehow, so I bought the CDs for 5 different distros and they all give me the same thing.

I am frustrated because the system that I am trying to install it to, had been running Win98 AND XP just fine. I wanted to have a full dedicated Linux box, so I wiped the drive clean several times and have had nothing but trouble trying to get Linux on it. I am about ready to just give up.

So I share you frustrations.

As far as you not being able to get past the part you mentioned. I second the redownload, or find a place that charges S&H only and get the cds from them. I know it is not fun waiting and paying for something that you can download for free, but that is all that I can suggest in my very limited time with Linux. People can bash WinXP all they want, but it was never this hard to install for me.
 
Sherrill what type of hardware do you have? and for tiny what type of errors do you get, can you post them?
 
sc3252 said:
Sherrill what type of hardware do you have? and for tiny what type of errors do you get, can you post them?
Click to expand...

I get "ext3 of hda1 failed" while Mandrake is trying to partition and then install. I have been to different stages with Mandrake. Sometimes it hangs where Sherrill's does, others I have gone through swapping out discs durning the install, only to have it reboot a final time and then give me a 'kernal failed' errror. With Fedora I can't even begin to start the install proccess. Fedora gives me a "kernal panic. cannot install" (not verbatim except for the kernal panic part) and then just sits there.

I am lost. Like I said this same system was running 98 and XP just fine for a long time. :(
SPECS:
Asus Tusi-m
1Ghz Cely
712mb PC133
Pioneer A04
WD 20GB 7200RPM
Riva TNT2 AGP
 
Tiny said:
Asus Tusi-m
1Ghz Cely
712mb PC133
Pioneer A04
WD 20GB 7200RPM
Riva TNT2 AGP
Click to expand...
712? is that 512?

Anyways, have you tried a livecd like Knoppix yet? If not, then try that and see if it works, and maybe just go for a hd-install from there. Might be worth a shot.
 
unhappy_mage said:
712? is that 512?

Anyways, have you tried a livecd like Knoppix yet? If not, then try that and see if it works, and maybe just go for a hd-install from there. Might be worth a shot.
Click to expand...

Sorry about that....it is 768. My bad.

I have tried DangSmallLinux, and it ran fine. I even installed Knoppix, with no problems. I just don't get it. :confused:
 
lol tiny..at least I know I am not alone! ... Well I downloaded Slackware 10.1 and I will see if it works one I put my computer back together (modding it at the moment mod linky )... Here are the specs for the computer...


AMD Athlon 2200+
512MB pc2700
ATI Rage 128 All-in-wonder PCI card (not doing any gaming on this comp dont worry lol)
20GB Maxtor
HP 4x DVD-Rom
Lite-on 52x32x52 CD-RW
Antec 430W
 
Well for anyone that is having this trouble...I went in and pushed F1, to go to the console. And I typed the code

linux noapic nolapic

and it worked!

Thanks to visionary from the mandrake club forums for helping me with this!
 
this should work better on MDK 10.2, btw. it won't enable APIC on machines for which the BIOS disables it...or at least it ought not to, heh.
 
Sherrill said:
Well for anyone that is having this trouble...I went in and pushed F1, to go to the console. And I typed the code

linux noapic nolapic

and it worked!

Thanks to visionary from the mandrake club forums for helping me with this!
Click to expand...
Congrats on getting yours up and going!

Do you do that before Mandrake asks you to intall? Where it gives you the two options (I forget what the first option is)?

Any comments on why it hangs during the partitioning of the drive?
 
Tiny, you press f1 not enter...and it takes you to the console and then type in that code...Good luck if you try it, but since you get stuck in diff. parts I dont think it will work. But its always worth a try!
 
Sherrill said:
Tiny, you press f1 not enter...and it takes you to the console and then type in that code...Good luck if you try it, but since you get stuck in diff. parts I dont think it will work. But its always worth a try!
Click to expand...

Thanks! I will try it later tonight, got a hot date so wish me luck....on both (but not in a pervert way for the date). ;)
 
Didn't work. :(

I typed it in and then it just hung there, I let it sit for 1 hour and still nothing.

I guess I will head on over to the Mandrake forums to see if I can gleam anything from there.

Off topic: The date was a success (not in the perverted way). I had a blast and so did she (that is the most important part). Going out again tomorrow!
 
Ok. I am about to give up. Seriously.

Now I get, without fail, the following error EVERY TIME when trying to install Mandrake 10.1: ext3 formatting of hda1 failed

And I get "kernal panic" blah, blah, blah. When trying to install Fedora Core3.

I know for a fact that the drive is good, just a week ago it was running WINXP. I checked it with every tool under the sun and they all say it is fine. What gives!? It is a good thing I shave my head, or else I would have pulled all my hair out by now. :mad: :(
 
this is a a stab in the dark:

if you plan on using this pc as linux only, you might consider formatting the partitions manually. i don't know if this will work, but it may be worth a shot. do you know how to use the ultimate bootcd? you can use xfdisk to manually setup the partitions. after you do that, maybe the installer will detect that you have partitions already setup and start the install. here's the standard partitioning scheme:

/boot == 32 megs
/swap == 2.5 (or 2 can't remember) x ram size
/ == rest of drive.

as i said, i'm not sure if that will solve your problem, but it might be worth a shot.

if you decide to use Slackware, i DO know for certain that if you setup the partitions manually like that, the installer doesn't mind and will go happily on it's way. unfortunately, Slack isn't a beginner's distro.
 
Thanks for the tips.

I will try that later today. I do have and use the UBCD.

I may try Slack down the road but not until I get at least one of these distros up and going well.
 
Update.

Thank you to piller1999, your tips helped get me over that initial hump that I was having trouble with. Sadly, I ran into another. ugh, I know. :(

Now, after 8 re-do attmepts (of coming to the spot with the new error) of wiping the drive clean, re-doing the manual partitioning, and going thru the first part of the Mandrake install....I get the following without fail: gtk+2.0-2.4.9-9mdk.i586.
So I finally do the right thing and google it. Turns out it is a tool-kit for creating GUI's, well I don't want to create GUI's, so I go thru the proccess all over again and make sure that package is not selected. So what happens? It hangs during the install about a 1/4 of the way thru the first disk. So I went back and checksumed (I think that is the term) all the discs. They all checked out as good. I changed the IDE cable....same thing. I changed between four different drives (I have a lot of stuff laying around).....same result. And this is just Mandrake. FedoraCore3 doesn't even get to the install part...I get to select if I want the graphical install and then it hangs with a kernal panic error when it is zipping thru all the text on the screen.

I don't know what to do now.

Is it wrong for a grown man to cry over this? :(
 
It honestly sounds like you've got some hardware problem that didn't show up before. (Linux likes to use as much memory as possible for buffering and the like, so it's likely to expose memory problems that you haven't hit before.)
Could you give it an hour of memtest86 and see what it says?

BTW, you need the gtk package if you want to run anything built using gtk. A lot of useful things (firefox, for instance) do, so you normally want to keep it.
 
I looked up the specs on your board:

Asus Tusi-M right?

It says it's a SiS 630et chipset. Going along with what HHunt said, maybe Linux doesn't like the SiS? That could *possibly* explain the kernel panic, right?
 
Just for fun, you could try FreeBSD instead. A different kernel and a different set of drivers just might work better. Just be prepared for a somewhat less streamlined install. :D
(It's not hard, really, but it probably looks scary if you're not used to it.)
 
I hope it is not the chipset problem. I had my heart set on using this little board. :( That could explain the kernal panic for FadoraCore3, but what about Mandrake?


I ran memtest86 for 4 hours yesturday, came out clean.

I am going to try two things. One is to try installing Mandrake and FedoraCore3 on a new mobo. It is another Asus but this one is an old Slot1 AMD 700MHz with 512MB of ram. I will see if that works. The other option is to try FreeBSD, all I know about that one is that it has a little devil on it right....or is that Debian?
 
mdk is Linux too, after all :). The kernel's the thing they share, so unless MDK has some patch Fedora doesn't, it'll probably have the same problem, if indeed it's a kernel / chipset issue.
 
I have actually once got all the way through install with Mandrake, only to have it hang on reboot. Tried a repair, didn't do anything.
 
Tiny said:
I hope it is not the chipset problem. I had my heart set on using this little board. :( That could explain the kernel panic for FedoraCore3, but what about Mandrake?

I ran memtest86 for 4 hours yesturday, came out clean.

I am going to try two things. One is to try installing Mandrake and FedoraCore3 on a new mobo. It is another Asus but this one is an old Slot1 AMD 700MHz with 512MB of ram. I will see if that works. The other option is to try FreeBSD, all I know about that one is that it has a little devil on it right....or is that Debian?
Click to expand...

It does indeed look like it's the chipset, sorry. It might be better supported in some kernel versions than others, but I suspect Mandrake, at least, uses a recent 2.6, so it doesn't look too good.

As for FreeBSD, yep.
 
I was looking over FreeBSD, and I am certainly not ready for that. But I downloaded it anyway so I will have it there when I get the gumption to try it.

Right now I am at work so I am just downloading Mepis, Xandros, and Suse Live DVD. So I can try them all out when I get home. Along with trying to install Mandrake and FedoraCore on that other system.

*fingers crossed*
 
Installing FreeBSD for the first time is a memorable thing. :D
(Everything is well documented and normally well lableled, but it sure looks daunting.)

I'd suggest trying it sometime, if linux doesn't work out. At worst I could try and walk you through it on msn/irc/something. :)
(Yet another reason one should never install an OS without having another computer and an internet connection at hand.)
 
Thanks for the offer of help, but I am going to get my feet wet before I jump in headfirst. ;)
 
UPDATE*

Ok. So I downloaded three more linux distros plus FreeBSD while at work (see what you can do kids when you finish your work early? :D ). I get home, clear the drive out once more and pop in Mepis. Everything is going well. Goes through the install all on its own....good. Then it gives me a login name to enter. Uhm...ok. So I type in my name. Then it asks for a password....so I just hit enter. "Login not valid". Darn. So I type my name in again and then for a password I type in my girlfriends name (I know...not very secure, but this can be changed later). "Login not valid". So I give up.

Wipe the drive again and pop in Xandros. It starts doing its thing, showing off how fast it can scroll text and what not. Come to the welcome page and I get to choose to install. I press install and go through all the options, and then start the actual install and yup...you guessed it...."Kernal Panic". Ugh. :rolleyes:

Wipe the drive clean again (probably not needed but I am anal about those things) and pop in Suse LiveDVD. Guess what? It works perfect. I mean not even a hickup. So I am trying to wipe away tears as I am playing around with it as I am happy just to be seeing something other than an error screen. So I get done messing around with that and now I want to try and install it. After downloading the mini install, I pop that in and it won't let me install it. Ughx2 :rolleyes:

After my eyes clear of the tears that had been streaming down my face, I hop on the internet and spend $300 (much like not grocery shopping while hungry...one should not shop online while frustrated and angry) on some hardware that will allow me to take the motherboard I am using now and use it for the Linux box. Now I get to sit and wait for it because non of the vendors I used process orders on the weekend.

Thank you everyone for your help. It has been greatly appreciated and truly helpful ( I do mean that). I have learned a lot from you all. Hopefully my next post will be one of joy and success. Until then....I have to put some overtime in on Saturday. Ughx50 :rolleyes:
 
It seems the default username/password for mepis is root / demo . Could you install it again and try that?
 
HHunt said:
It seems the default username/password for mepis is root / demo . Could you install it again and try that?
Click to expand...

With me being this dumb....I should just give all my computer stuff away and go back to exclusive use of paper and pencil. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the tip, will try it this weekend.

UPDATE* Tried the root/demo thing...didn't work just told me it was invalid. Oh well. My stuff will ship on Monday and I should have it all by Friday.
 
take it all as a learning experience- i bet you won't forget the next time.

glad to hear that you at least got a distro to work. happy computing.
 
I have the Linux format free versions of Mandarke 10.1, if you PM me I will send them to you. then we will know if it is download or hard ware.

Just let me know, and they will be in the mail.


 
Tiny said:
What does 'format free' mean in terms of Linux?
Click to expand...

I assume it's "the 'Linux Format' (the magazine) free version of ..."
 
HHunt said:
I assume it's "the 'Linux Format' (the magazine) free version of ..."
Click to expand...

Oh yeah! I forgot about those. I bought them when I flew out to see my brother in California a few weeks ago. But I left them in California.

I am still waiting on my stuff to see if I can get it all working.
 
UPDATE*

For those of you wanting to try Mepis....the username and password by default is Login user:demo/demo | Root user: root/root.

Found a cool guide at mrbass.org

Going to try that later on Monday.
 
Oh, BTW, I totally forgot something to try on MDK - alternative install kernel. Try hitting F1 on the very first screen that pops up after you boot with the MDK install CD, type 'alt0' and hit enter. Might help. If it does help, you probably want to install kernel-2.4 during the installation, maybe your board works better with kernel 2.4 than kernel 2.6, and MDK still has a maintained 2.4 kernel, it's just not the default.
 
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