Problem with installation CD

[Benj_C]

Hi,

I tried to install Xubuntu on an old Toshiba laptop with 256Mo of RAM, through the CD. And after the language menu, the only option that will work is "Boot from first hard disk". All the others just freeze and I have to force it to shut down. When I press F1 and look at the help, it says that the minimum required is 356Mo. Are they talking about Xubuntu or Ubuntu. 'Cause the title of the menu clearly says: Xubuntu, but online I found people running Xubuntu with less than 256Mo. So?.....

What's going on?

Thanks,

Ben

[yappie]

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 on an old Dell laptop P3 700mhz w/256mb of ram 10g HDD without any issues.
I did have a split screen which stumped me for a while.
It took a while to install but it works good....actually a lot better than I expected.

[Benj_C]

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 on an old Dell laptop P3 700mhz w/256mb of ram 10g HDD without any issues.
I did have a split screen which stumped me for a while.
It took a while to install but it works good....actually a lot better than I expected.
How long was "a while"?
What I did now is to press ESC on the main menu to get to the text interface. Then simply press Enter that gets me to another menu. There, if I press Install Xubuntu, I get to a screen (about Ubuntu now....) where it's printed:
Loading /casper/vmlinuz......
It it seems at first that the new dots were adding, it's been a few minutes since last change.

[theozzlives]

Ubuntu will run on 256 MB but the installer takes more RAM because of the "live" nature. When I first started, I had 2 machines with 256 MB... glad that's history.

[Benj_C]

Ubuntu will run on 256 MB but the installer takes more RAM because of the "live" nature. When I first started, I had 2 machines with 256 MB... glad that's history.
Okay. Is there any way I can install it then?

[yappie]

How long was "a while"?
What I did now is to press ESC on the main menu to get to the text interface. Then simply press Enter that gets me to another menu. There, if I press Install Xubuntu, I get to a screen (about Ubuntu now....) where it's printed:
Loading /casper/vmlinuz......
It it seems at first that the new dots were adding, it's been a few minutes since last change.






It took around 30min or so.....it could have been a little longer, I didn't actually keep track but it was a while.
Then there were 166 updates that took probably another 20-30min.....I was doing other things while it was loading and updating.
The screen was black for a while and it looked like it wasn't doing anything so I just left it and then the golden brownish background came on but I wasn't convinced until I was completely done and actually using it.

It's not blazing fast but it does move along pretty good and video isn't too bad.

I never thought I would be using this dinosaur ever again......I had thrown this aside and didn't look at it for at least 4 or 5 yrs.
it doesn't feel 10yrs old.

[yappie]

Hi,

I tried to install Xubuntu on an old Toshiba laptop with 256Mo of RAM, through the CD. And after the language menu, the only option that will work is "Boot from first hard disk". All the others just freeze and I have to force it to shut down. When I press F1 and look at the help, it says that the minimum required is 356Mo. Are they talking about Xubuntu or Ubuntu. 'Cause the title of the menu clearly says: Xubuntu, but online I found people running Xubuntu with less than 256Mo. So?.....

What's going on?

Thanks,

Ben






What are the specs of your machine?
Did you have any problems with it before trying this install?

I had checked all my hardware prior to doing this install.

[yappie]

Hi,

I tried to install Xubuntu on an old Toshiba laptop with 256Mo of RAM, through the CD. And after the language menu, the only option that will work is "Boot from first hard disk". All the others just freeze and I have to force it to shut down. When I press F1 and look at the help, it says that the minimum required is 356Mo. Are they talking about Xubuntu or Ubuntu. 'Cause the title of the menu clearly says: Xubuntu, but online I found people running Xubuntu with less than 256Mo. So?.....

What's going on?

Thanks,

Ben






What are the specs of your machine?
Did you have any problems with it before trying this install?

I had checked all my hardware prior to doing this install.

[yappie]

double post....sorry

[skeezer]

Hello,

Have you tried using the Alternate text based install? If not, it might do the trick for you.

[yappie]

Hi,

I tried to install Xubuntu on an old Toshiba laptop with 256Mo of RAM, through the CD. And after the language menu, the only option that will work is "Boot from first hard disk". All the others just freeze and I have to force it to shut down. When I press F1 and look at the help, it says that the minimum required is 356Mo. Are they talking about Xubuntu or Ubuntu. 'Cause the title of the menu clearly says: Xubuntu, but online I found people running Xubuntu with less than 256Mo. So?.....

What's going on?

Thanks,

Ben






OK I have an old Thinkpad P3 700mhz with 64mb onboard system memory and 192mb of ram which = 256mb total.

My Dell has 64mb of onboard system memory and 256mb of ram=320mb.
This is closer to the 384mb that is required for minimum system memory.

I tried to install on the Thinkpad and it would not install so it seems that if your unit is the same as my old IBM then it probably won't work.

I'm gonna try a lighter Linux distro and see if it works.

I know Puppy Linux will work if all else fails so that may be an alternative for you too?


Good Luck

[Benj_C]

Hello,

Have you tried using the Alternate text based install? If not, it might do the trick for you.


I did try the text interface. Not sure if I tried everything there, but I did get more info than from the initial menu.

So I pressed ESC from the Xubuntu menu to reach the boot menu "Boot: "

I tried to simply press Enter and got to another Ubuntu menu where I saw the "/casper/vimlinuz...."; it does not go very far.

I tried to specify more options about the boot when booting from the live CD "live " + options: acpi=off, noapic, nolapic, edd=no,....
Is there any thing I should try in particular?

Regarding the specs I don't have all the details right now: It's a Toshiba Notebook Satellite, with Intel Celeron 2Ghz, 256Mo RAM, 30Go Hard drive. Need any other info?

[yappie]

It's not as old as mine so I would guess that you should have at least what i have for onboard memory along with the 256mb of ram would give you what I have..320mb of total memory.
Your CPU is a whole lot faster than mine so there shouldn't be any issues there.

If you have the time and patience then you could go ahead and do the following to insure your hardware is OK.

If it's going to be the only operating system then I would wipe the HDD so that everything there is fresh.

When you do the install there is an option to do a memory test which might be a good idea to make sure the integrity of the memory is good.



Edited to add:

I didn't do the alternate install so I don't know how to address that method, maybe someone that has experience with that can chime in?