Update ends in black screen

[Javelin Dan]

I only stayed with this as an exercise in learning (I learned a lot!) and was willing to take each step to its next logical conclusion just for the educational value. However, it became only an exercise when I realized that this install, just like the last time I tried the mini install with the Xubuntu desktop, ran like a slug on this machine. It may well be because of the relatively low amount of RAM, but in its current state it was almost unusable.

When I was given choices for partitioning, I chose “guided” but I don’t recall the option to erase the entire disk and install this one over it. This happened once before and I had two OS’s installed on the same drive. If I had a desktop I could check, but I can’t.

I really want Lubuntu on this machine. That glitch I had the other day where it acted as if it was installed gave me a taste of the good life and I want it back. If I get a new RAM chip, and if it works, that will be the direction I’m headed.

I don’t have many skills here, but one thing I do have is quite a bit of experience installing various flavors of Linux (primarily Puppy Linux) on old, underpowered PC junk. When not relying on skills to make an OS bend to your will, you pretty much have to evaluate what works out of the box. I’ve tried virtually dozens of distros on an old Dell Inspiron 8000 laptop of mine with 128 MB of RAM, and only two would run extremely well – Antix and Wary Pup 5.1.2. While most (not quite all) versions of Puppy would boot on this computer, only this one was fast out of the box and had no glitches. Lubuntu failed to launch.

What I’m getting out of all this is that if you don’t have the skills of a code-writer (and I don’t), you have to rely on the natural match-up of a given distro (kernel) with your particular equipment. The Linux people do a marvelous job of trying to be all things to all people, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. I think this old G4 is just going to be cranky and limited in its compatibility. I’ll let you know if it decides to get along with anything I’m attempting here.

[Javelin Dan]

I finally got a 512 memory card that would boot this machine and now have 896 MB of Ram. I have successfully installed Lubuntu 12.04 Ppc. This box is still no speed demon, but it works. Now contemplating whether to max out the Ram to 1.5 GB to see if I can improve performance. I will mark this as solved.