10.04 LTS low memory installation issues

[MakOwner]

I have some older hardware that I want to use for a specific purpose - it's old, 1 GHZ processor, 2GB RAM old.

I really want to get 10.04 LTS server installed, a command line only install as this will be primarily headless operations in less than 40GB of disk space.

I can't get any form of 10.04 whether it be desktop server, or even the alternate install CD with the "lowmem" option enabled in expert mode to complete an installation.

The installation always fails with read errors from the CD - I have swapped out CD drives just to be sure it really isn't a hardware issue. I can confirm that it isn't because, on the exact same hardware I can install 9.10 desktop, from the live CD, no problem. The desktop loads the default gnome GUI during install, and after reboot comes up to the desktop - it's slow, but it works.

Seems to me this is a bit backwards - the "lowmem" instalation method should surely run in place of any GUI installation.

Can anyone point me to a way to get the long term support server version installed? If it helps any this is a Dell Poweredge 350 with a single 1 GHZ processor and 2 GHZ of RAM, installing onto 20GB IDE drives from an IDE CDROM.

[Hegh]

Have you run a hard drive test?

Barring that, I would suggest installing from a USB drive, to avoid possible hardware issues between the CDROM and motherboard. I would also suggest downloading an install image using BitTorrent, as it is much more reliable than TCP, as it hashes every 4MB or so; TCP has an error probability of (at worst) about 1 bit per 10 million. I'm not suggesting that this is the likely cause of your problems, I'm just trying to help you eliminate all possible sources of error.

From Ubuntu, you can use the USB Startup Disk creator, and from Windows you can use http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ to create the USB install disk.

You shouldn't need to worry about using a low-memory installer with that much RAM; my last laptop only had 2G of RAM and... a 2GHz processor, I think... You can use the server version if you want (it is certainly lightweight), but VNC is nice for some setup, and for that you'll need to have X installed anyway, so I'd suggest going with a desktop version anyway. Just make sure to provide a swap partition during install; 2x RAM is still a good rule of thumb.

[Bucky Ball]

Have you checked the CD??? The most reliable way to get Ubuntu is via a torrent download. Follow the links from the download page. (Alternative installation methods >Bit torrent or something along those lines).

[MakOwner]

Have you run a hard drive test?

Barring that, I would suggest installing from a USB drive, to avoid possible hardware issues between the CDROM and motherboard. I would also suggest downloading an install image using BitTorrent, as it is much more reliable than TCP, as it hashes every 4MB or so; TCP has an error probability of (at worst) about 1 bit per 10 million. I'm not suggesting that this is the likely cause of your problems, I'm just trying to help you eliminate all possible sources of error.

From Ubuntu, you can use the USB Startup Disk creator, and from Windows you can use http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ to create the USB install disk.

You shouldn't need to worry about using a low-memory installer with that much RAM; my last laptop only had 2G of RAM and... a 2GHz processor, I think... You can use the server version if you want (it is certainly lightweight), but VNC is nice for some setup, and for that you'll need to have X installed anyway, so I'd suggest going with a desktop version anyway. Just make sure to provide a swap partition during install; 2x RAM is still a good rule of thumb.




It's an issue with the installer, not the hardware. Remember, 9.10 installs and runs with no issues.
I found the minimal install image, and it will install on this hardware.
Exactly what I was looking for :popcorn:

[Bucky Ball]

Rockin'! Enjoy.