Best Way to Install Ubuntu 10.04?

[Teasdale]

I've been having intermittent problems with my Ratel almost since I got it, with freezing and then sometimes not booting properly. It was suggested that I upgrade to 10.04, but my issue was intermittent enough that it wasn't worth the hassle. Now it looks like maybe I have no choice; it doesn't look like Ubuntu is going to load.

I downloaded Ubuntu 10.04 on another computer and put the disk in, and it gave me the option to use the Live CD or install. I clicked to install, but it wanted to know whether I wanted to install alongside 9.04 (and keep my existing partitions, I guess?) or do a clean install and erase the disk. At first I chose to erase the whole disk because that seemed simpler (I have all my files backed up). But it got stuck at 5 percent and said it "failed" at partitioning or something like that. Right now I'm using the Live CD.

With a System76 PC, is there a correct way to install? Is the disk already partitioned, so that I should choose the option to install alongside 9.04?

If I use the Live CD, can I access my existing files? I don't see them.

[isantop]

You should be able to access your files from the hard disk. if the partitioning is failing, you'll want to re-download and re-burn the image file; it sounds to me like it got corrupted.

[Teasdale]

I re-tried installing. It apparently already erased the file system and is giving me this error:

"Failed to create a file system.
The ext4 file system creation in partition #1 of SCS13 (0,0,0) (sda) failed."

What does that mean? Is there anything I can do?

[Teasdale]

You should be able to access your files from the hard disk. if the partitioning is failing, you'll want to re-download and re-burn the image file; it sounds to me like it got corrupted.

So it's probably the CD/iso image that's corrupted, and not the computer itself?

[Teasdale]

Nope, I downloaded a new image on a different computer (Windows this time) and made a new disk, and it's giving me the exact same error in the same place, at 5 percent.

I'm pretty sure this is a 64-bit computer, but maybe my problem is that I'm trying to use the 64-bit version of Ubuntu? Or should I try downloading 9.04 and installing that?

[jeffran]

Did you run md5sum on the downloaded image and install disk? If not,I highly recommend doing that. Instructions here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

I had the exact same problem with either 9.10 or 10.04, and it turned out to be a bad download.

Good luck!

[Teasdale]

Thanks, I'll try the md5sum - right now, I'm downloading Linux Mint to see if a different OS makes a difference.

I assume that, whatever I install, whether it's Ubuntu 9.04 or 10.04, or Mint, I still need to install the System76 driver like the instructions say to do when you install 10.10?

[Teasdale]

Did you run md5sum on the downloaded image and install disk? If not,I highly recommend doing that. Instructions here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

Good luck!

The "hash" matches fine: c19e5139e10df2626055f1d9985856d7

So it isn't the download. And since I downloaded and created a disk from two different PC's using two different operating systems (and even two different brands of disks), then I'm doubting it's the iso download or the disk. Which leaves . . . the PC I'm installing to.

[StephenDavison]

I'd suggest using gparted to re-partition the hdd from the 10.04 live cd. (I'm pretty sure gparted is on there.) While you're at it, why not update to 10.10?

My Ratel (pre-installed w/ 10.10) was having some issues related to disk partitions until I dropped the extended and logical partition containing the swap space. Even booted from a live disk image, it wouldn't let me resize the primary (root) partition until I deleted the extended partition (which served no real purpose anyway). I ended up creating a smaller partition for the root file system, a separate partition for /home, and put swap in a primary partition instead of the logical one. Everything works great now.

[isantop]

Actually, this might be a bad disk too. Go ahead and try the other suggestions, but should those fail, go ahead and send us an email at support...at...system76...dot...com. We can get you a new hard disk.