OQO Model 02 installation issues

[cjcardinal]

ah it seems that after the custom install, these options need to be made permenant per this little how-to

I think im getting somewhere!

Booting from CD

This section outlines how to workaround the video issue while booting from the CD. Your mileage may vary, depending on your video card, but hopefully this steers you in the right direction:

At the install screen press ‘F6‘ and insert one of the options below, depending on your hardware.
On first boot after install, press e to edit the GRUB menu.
Using the arrow keys to navigate, delete quiet and splash and again insert one of the options below.
Press Ctrl and X to boot.
The suggested options that I have found are hardware specific. Here is a list:

Older Intel video card: i915.modeset=1 or i915.modeset=0
nVidia: nomodeset
Generic: xforcevesa
Hopefully one of these options will get you up and running. Keep reading now to make these changes persistent!

GRUB

You’ll want to change these settings in GRUB so they’ll automatically be applied on each reboot. To do so, follow the steps below:

Edit the /etc/default/grub file. You will need Admin privileges to do so (sudo)
Find this line: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash”
Replace with: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash <option>”
For example, if I had an older Intel model, my GRUB configuration would read:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=”quiet splash i915.modeset=1″

Save your changes and you should get proper graphics on each reboot.

UPDATE: Based on a lot of user feedback I am reminded that you need to run ‘update-grub’ after you make changes.

obviously my main option being the xforcevesa, atleast to get booted up and address the resolution and xorg.conf issues i am assuming

[cjcardinal]

I am currently grabbing a fresh copy of xubuntu 10.04...Afghan internet is not exactly the best so it may be a while before i report back with the results of the CLI. my post previous to this made a few things a little easier to understand so hopefully i can find some success


EDIT: Scratch that-i realized i had a 3 day old ISO of Peppermint Two in my downloads so I am testing all of this out pending the creation of the Live USB. Will be back with my results

Again, thanks for all the help

[cjcardinal]

ok i tried two different ways:

the first being deleting "quiet splash" and replacing it with "nomodeset" and this allowed me to load all the way to the install screens, but had a screwed up splash. I went through the install, partitioned my 128gb Runcore SSD with my /, swap, and /home partitions, but after creating my user, time zone, etc, it started the formatting and i got an "installer crash" error.

the second attempt i did the same thing, except i used xforcevesa in the spot of the nomodeset. same issue.

while this is further than I have been able to get thus far, obviously i need to keep digging. I am currently throwing out the idea of Peppermint Two and creating a Lucid live disk and giving it another go

[cjcardinal]

Ok i have successfully installed Peppermint Two on the OQO Model 02 and am currently working on WIFI and sound. when I get those two handled, i will mark this as solved and put up a how-two on the OP because i have spent the last month on this thing!

Thanks to those who assisted in pointing me in the proper direction!

[Favux]

Nice work!

Put the HOW TO in a new thread as the first post. That way it won't be buried and you can add the appropriate tags. Then link to it from this thread.

[cjcardinal]

Nice work!

Put the HOW TO in a new thread as the first post. That way it won't be buried and you can add the appropriate tags. Then link to it from this thread.

I shall

Im currently working on the wifi issue via another thread and once i hash that out, i will definitely do so

thanks Favux

[cjcardinal]

I have completed a how-to for my successful 10.04 installation. thanks for all the help everyone

[cjcardinal]

Ok... as far as my "how-to" is concerned, I currently have 10.04 LTS installed, and running decently. I converted over to Lubuntu and am running an almost pure LXDE...but I am not happy. I mentioned the Intrepid install that a user put together, and while I was bored, I popped in the thumbdrive that is currently setup with that ISO. I located a file called text.cfg and this is the contents:

default live
label live
  menu label ^Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer
  kernel /casper/vmlinuz
  append file=/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.gz via_agp.blacklist=yes xforcevesa=xforcevesa --
label live-install
  menu label ^Install Ubuntu
  kernel /casper/vmlinuz
  append  file=/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity initrd=/casper/initrd.gz via_agp.blacklist=yes  xforcevesa=xforcevesa --
label check
  menu label ^Check CD for defects
  kernel /casper/vmlinuz
  append  boot=casper integrity-check initrd=/casper/initrd.gz quiet splash --
label memtest
  menu label Test ^memory
  kernel /install/mt86plus
label hd
  menu label ^Boot from first hard disk
  localboot 0x80

I figured that since the option of

via_agp.blacklist=yes xforcevesa=xforcevesa --

seems to be the key in this instance, I would try to install Peppermint Two this way (I have not tried a fresh 10.04 LTS using these options). There was no success. I am going to assume that things are a little different with peppermint even though it is loosely based off of Ubuntu, but in the same token, it SHOULD work, right? Forcing Vesa is the key graphics wise and blacklisting via_agp as well because I remember seeing that in the blacklist file when i was running that 8.10 install. I will report with my success, or lack there of, after trying a fresh 10.04 install, but other than that I am really lost. Why does that 8.10 install work with those options, but nothing later?

This is really becoming frustrating!

My reason for continuing all of this is that I really want to run ext4, and not ext3. (I am stuck with ext3 due to the upgrade from 8.10 EOL all the way to 10.04)

I'll download a fresh 10.04 tonight and give it another go tomorrow.

[Favux]

Good luck!

Say did you try it with just the xforcevesa=xforcevesa i.e. without the via_agp.blacklist=yes?

You can go from ext3 to ext4 on an intact install. I did that when I upgraded from Karmic to Lucid on my tablet PC. Couldn't see the point of Lucid with ext3. I could maybe find my notes on that. But as I recall it is not for the faint of heart. I seem to remember running into problems that took a lot of tedious hand correcting with fschk. "Yes I really want to do that" pressing OK and so on for a long time. But I managed to recover it and succeed.

[cjcardinal]

Good luck!

Say did you try it with just the xforcevesa=xforcevesa i.e. without the via_agp.blacklist=yes?

You can go from ext3 to ext4 on an intact install. I did that when I upgraded from Karmic to Lucid on my tablet PC. Couldn't see the point of Lucid with ext3. I could maybe find my notes on that. But as I recall it is not for the faint of heart. I seem to remember running into problems that took a lot of tedious hand correcting with fschk. "Yes I really want to do that" pressing OK and so on for a long time. But I managed to recover it and succeed.

I will try momentarily... the fresh 10.04 is being made into a USB. I will try xforcevesa=xforcevesa as well as the one above. I WILL figure this out hahaha