Tip: Ubuntu 7.04 on Asus M2A-VM HDMI: boot options I used

[felker2]

Hi,

This is how I got (k)buntu 7.04 32-bit working on my Asus M2A-VM HDMI mobo with AMD 690G chipset (further specs: Athlon64 X2 3600+, 4GB RAM and a SATA drive): it's all in the boot options. Without these boot options, (k)ubuntu halted during the boot process.
Thanks to ArjanW for the tips.

Disclaimers:
1) if your (k)ubuntu runs on your M2A-VM / AMD 690G without problems and does not need options, you won't need all this
2) I found the boot options by trial-n-error. I can't explain nor support them. Comments very welcome!


Short: apparantly the boot options "pci=nomsi irqpoll noapic acpi=off" (always without the quotes) are needed on my system. Maybe less boot options are needed, but this is what worked for me.

Long: the boot options are needed in three different phases of the install:

1) booting the Live CD: immediatly after booting, in the first screen press F6 and add the "pci=nomsi irqpoll noapic acpi=off" to the end of the line. Then press ENTER. The Live CD should now boot and you can install to the hard disk and later reboot.

2) at the first boot from the harddisk, when you see GRUB, press ESC, then e to edit the first boot option, press the cursor down key to go the line which says "kernel .. vmlinuz" and press e again. Then, at the end of the line type the boot options again: "pci=nomsi irqpoll noapic acpi=off". Press ENTER and then b to boot from the harddisk. (k)ubuntu should now boot from the hard disk

3) After (k)ubntu is completely operational, make the boot options permanent in /boot/grub/menu.lst . Use 'sudo' plus an editor (kate, gedit or vi) to put the boot options into /boot/grub/menu.lst at the end of the line with first appearance of "kernel /boot/vmlinuz".

So

sudo kate /boot/grub/menu.lst

and then add the boot options (given in bold below). Warning: you have to scroll to the right in the window below to see the boot option!

## ## End Default Options ##

title		Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.20-15-generic
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.20-15-generic root=UUID=82efad91-9c28-4d6d-9f7a-ae83a90eeaa1 ro quiet splash pci=nomsi irqpoll noapic acpi=off
initrd		/boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-15-generic
quiet
savedefault

Save & Exit from the editor and you should be OK: the next time you boot (k)ubuntu everthing should be OK with these boot options.

This is what worked for me. Once again: I can't support this. Tips welcome. HTH.

[fdkuyper]

Thank you very much!

My Ubuntu crashed every time I tried. I tried to change some simple options, like changing the screen resolution, but I would have never managed to find these settings.

After following your instructions I was able to install Ubuntu! This is the first thing I am doing with it, is writing this.

After this I will try to make it work as a media center with Linux MCE

Thanks again!

[fdkuyper]

It turns out that you have to use Ubuntu 6.10 for Linux MCE.

So, now I'm trying to get 6.10 installed: but here your solution doesn't work unfortunately

Somehow the boot options seem to help, because without them the system holds earlier with an error about a pci device (have to write it down still).
With the boot options the Ubuntu logo appears, and the orange progress bar, but this is as far as it gets.

Do you have any suggestions how to boot Ubuntu 6.10 on a M2A-VM board ?

Edit: I got it working now! I removed the 'quiet' option from the boot line, so I could write down exactly where it went wrong. It turns out it didn't go wrong, booting was just 10 times slower than the 7.04 version. Dropping the 'quiet' option made clear the boot sequence was still continuing. So in the end the boot instruction do work both for 7.04 and 6.10. Thanks again, and I will try to get the Linux MCE working

[manolito1998]

Hello, and thanks for your post,

I'm trying to do the same like fdkuyper, install the linuxmce in a HTPC. With your command I'm able to install ubuntu, but the problem is that the USBs are not up, so I can't use my wireless neither any device under USB.

Do you know how to solve this problem??

Thank you very much and sorry for my poor english

[fdkuyper]

Hello manolito1998: do you know if your usb-ports are connected in the right way? Because I had no problems using them. I have a USB mouse and keyboard, and they work just fine - right from the start. Do you have an other OS to see if the USB ports are working?

You could also check your BIOS settings, there are some where you can enable or disable the USB ports.

[dwbell]

Does anyone have the tv out add on card working with the Asus M2A-VM HDMI?

[BioN]

I am interested to know if the addon card works also as I have this board ready to be setup as a mythtv box but want to make sure all hardware is compatible first.

[nfoti]

HI, I have this motherboard and I'm attempting a mythtv install - Thanks for the help posted above in getting ubuntu to install - however,

I'm having major video issues with this machine:
ASUS M2A-VM AMD 690G ATI600SB ATI X1200.

I could not get video to playback reasonably well with the on-board ati video card - even installed the newest proprietary driver. So I chalked this up to ATI's drivers being sub-par. Next I threw in a nvidia geforce 7300 pci-e card i had lying around - did a fresh ubuntu feisty install, installed the nvidia drivers - and the video looks just as bad.

My question is - is anyone else having these video playback problems?

My video is choppy at best, any input from anyone with this board would be greatly appreciated.

BTW. - I wasn't aware that this board had a tv add on option, I know you can order the SPDIF out connector separately and it does work for digital audio.

[Ekorre]

I have installed both Ubuntu 7.04 and Kubuntu on my Asus M2A-VM HDMI (several times because I'm very new to linux). I managed this without any Boot options. My only problem was that no installation CD would boot correctly when I used only the DVI-port (x-server error at the end of the boot sequence).
If I connected both DVI and VGA, both screens worked without problems. I also tested to boot connecting to the TV through SVHS, this works as well.
Has anyone been able to boot this card with only the DVI-port connected?

[bobtins]

Thanks for the tip--I've got the same board and those options got me through the install. However, I ran into a very nasty problem later on--when I did some major MySQL access, my screen would get corrupted (it was in text mode, and little spots showed up all over) and the system hung completely. I don't know if it's something about the state of the drivers for this motherboard, or something wrong with my memory. I posted this at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=471505