10.04 boots fine but 11.04 fails with kernal panic

[qbslug]

Linux newb here. So I have an ASUS G60 laptop with intel i5 cpu and currently running win 7 64bit. I extracted the ubuntu iso images on to my transcend flashdrive using universal usb installer.
When I start my computer I choose to boot from the flash drive and then I get what I assume is the GRUB boot loader http://i.imgur.com/8jorC.jpg

Then the two version diverge after this. With 10.04 I can run the install or the live desktop like normal. However with 11.04 on the flash drive I get an error message saying "kernal panic -not syncing : Attempted to kill init" http://i.imgur.com/s7SKs.jpg
Sometimes, seemingly by chance, a purple splash screen appears and then I get an amazing screen of white and black squares. http://i.imgur.com/ElQiG.jpg

Please help I have been struggling with this for 2 days now and I don't know what to do from here. With the screwy screen of blotches i suspected it might be a graphics card issue.
If it helps my graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M.

[kdavidb]

I have the same issue installing on a 10 year old Gateway server. 11.04 image downloaded from ubuntu.com fails like yours and 10.04 seems to be installing fine. i will upgrade to 11.04 after this install for more information.

[2F4U]

Do you get this error while you are running the liveCD or after installation? If you get it during the liveCD, may I ask whether you verified the downloaded iso file? If 10.04 runs well you could install that version and then upgrade to 11.04. as kdavidb suggested.

[varunendra]

qbslug and kdavidb,

Please post your systems' specs, especially, the amount of RAM. At least 1 GB RAM is recommended for Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity. If you have less than this amount of RAM, try Xubuntu (http://www.xubuntu.org/getubuntu) or Lubuntu (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/GetLubuntu) instead (for newer kernel), or just stick with 10.04.

As for upgrading from 10.04 to 11.04 from within the installation, although it is possible yet never recommended in Ubuntu. Instead, it is always recommended to make a fresh install, since upgrading from within an existing installation more than often causes problems. Besides, if 10.04 works well for you and 11.04 doesn't, I'd say stick with it since it is an LTS and thus will have support until April 2013.

If you are really keen to use natty, try this:


First of all, please verify that your downloaded iso is not corrupt itself: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM
After the integrity of the downloaded image is verified, do the following:
while booting, press any key. This should bring up advance boot menu.
In the advance menu, after selecting language, press F6. This will pop up "Other options" menu.
In this menu, select (by highlighting with arrow keys and pressing "spacebar"): acpi=off and nomodeset. Then press escape key, and selecting "Try without installing..", press 'Enter'.
If this does not help to boot normally, retry by also selecting noapic, nolapic and nodmraid this time.

Let us know how it goes.

[drs305]

I agree with varunendra's suggestions regarding Natty. There is a community doc which describes the kernel option process. What has been posted in this thread is all you probably need to set these options, but here is the link:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDBootOptions

[Maggou]

I have also the same issue with 11.04. I haven't yet tried 10.04. The error is exactly same as qbslug's. "Other Options" doesn't give any help to the problem. The problem occurs with both USB-stick and CD (both work in other computers).

I tried Memtest86+ and got very strange appearance, exactly same than this guy: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18230446

They say that Memtest86+ problem seems to be fixed in v4.20.

I guess that problem is related to new ASUS motherboards.

My system specs are:
ASUS P8Z68-V LE Intel LGA1155
Kingston 8GB 1333Mhz DDR3 NON-ECC CL9 DIMM KIT (2x4G)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3G 6M LGA1155
PowerColor HD6850 1GB DDR5
Samsung F3 3.5" 1TB SATAII 32MB 7200rpm
TP-LINK TL-WN781ND ver:1.0 (150Mbps Wireless N PCI-E)

[Maggou]

I have tried removing the PCI-E Wlan-card and every possible memory combination with no luck.

[Maggou]

Memtest86+ works normally if pressing 'F1' key when Memtest86+ is loading to enter the "fail safe" mode.

[varunendra]

Do you have any option in BIOS to disable the PCI graphics or set priorities so that the i5's embedded HD3000 graphics can be used instead?

Asus motherboards come with feature rich BIOS, so I hope there should be such an option in it.

Also, did you try 10.04 or any other distro in the meanwhile?

[Maggou]

I switched integrated GPU as an initial GPU with no luck. But I got more detailed errors to the screen. I didn't know how to copy the boot log so I recorded the log to a video with my camera: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/42511581/CIMG6579_v1.AVI.

I tried 10.04.3 32-bit and it had no errors.

[Maggou]

The same error occurs with my Acer 8943G laptop also.
It's specs are:
Intel i3 330M
ATI Mobility Radeon 5650 HD
4GB Memory
Internal Wireless Acer Nplify 802.11b/g/n

[Maggou]

With Lenovo W500 it boots from the CD without errors so the reason is not bad CD or bad image.

[varunendra]

In your attached video, the cd read errors begin immediately after loading root file system (after casper-premount script is run and filesystem is mounted) (@time:- 00:30). The errors keep going on afterwards.

But since the same cd works on other systems, it makes me believe that either the problem is with the drives in both your acer laptop and the desktop in question, or there is some incompatibility with the way the cd is read after loading root-filesystem.

At this point, I am out of any substantial ideas except a suggestion to try changing the optical drive and/or fiddling with the options in BIOS to change the connection/communication modes of the drive. And make sure the CD is written at minimum possible speed.

[Maggou]

You were right. I downloaded the ISO image again, checked md5sum and created a bootable USB disk. There were no errors with booting from USB. Thanks!

[varunendra]

In your first post, you mentioned that the problem occured with both cd and usb, while both worked on other computers:

The problem occurs with both USB-stick and CD (both work in other computers).

If the image was corrupt, then the cd/usb shouldn't have worked on any of the computers, but you said they did! And if it was related with optical drive or cd itself, then the usb should have worked earlier. So I am a bit confused now. Did you use a different tool to create the Live USB this time? What was different from the previous attempt? md5checksum? ....??:confused:

But anyway, it sure is nice to hear it worked finally, however, knowing the exact reason would have been better! :).

[Maggou]

I don't know because I overwrited the USB disk with new image. But there is a slight chance that I had both USB disk and CD connected to my computer and accidentally booted from the CD when USB was the purposed one. I'm sorry about the confusion.

[varunendra]

No problem with the confusion mate! At least we now have a possible explanation :)