pgh
October 16th, 2011, 05:19 AM
Thanks to all the forum administrators who do great work helping out everyone. I write this to let people know how I got 11.04 to run on my particular desktop machine and it was because of all the advice I read on this forum and others that I was able to do it.
In short, the problem was the "ondemand" service. Whenever it ran, it locked up my machine. The lockups occurred within 30 to 45 seconds after I logged into the machine. That's why this was so maddening; you would get to the desktop, use it for a few seconds and the machine would lock up tight as a drum. Yet it would run fine in single-user mode. (ondemand doesn't load until you go multiuser.) The vast majority of lockup/freeze/stop behavior discussed on these forums points you towards the x11 software and video issues. In this case, that advice was wrong. (Which is why I'm writing.)
If you want to install Ubuntu on a Lenovo 3000 Series J115 (7387-26U) tower computer successfully:
1. Do NOT download the standard version. You must use the alternate installer version. If you want 64-bit (my choice), then you want the amd64 version. I used the desktop version, not server.
2. After your installation is complete and you get to the desktop on Linux (my display -- the flat panel that came with my J115 -- would not display Unity, so I used Gnome), there is a pretty good chance the machine will lock up and be unresponsive. You will have to power cycle it to get it to restart.
3. When you restart, hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard and the machine will boot into the recovery mode. On the choices that appear, select the second one (the one that says recovery mode at the end) with the arrow keys on your keyboard and hit ENTER to run that. In the window that appears, scroll to the bottom and select the last item, so you boot into a command-line interface.
4. When the command line appears at the bottom of the screen, run sudo apt-get rcconf (this is the Debian runlevel configuration tool).
5. When rcconf is downloaded and installed, run it from the command line by typing rcconf. You will get a list of services available on Ubuntu. Each entry has right and left brackets before the name. The ones at the top of the list have asterisks between the brackets; that means they are going to run when you log in normally. The ones that do not have asterisks will not be loaded. Find the entry for ondemand. Move your cursor down the list until the asterisk between the brackets is highlighted, then press the SPACE bar. That will remove the asterisk from between the brackets. Hit the TAB key so the <OK> choice at the bottom is highlighted and press ENTER to save your change. You may see some grouchy error message, but that's OK.
6. You should be back at the command line now. Type shutdown -r now and hit the ENTER key. The machine will reboot.
7. You probably will return to the recovery mode screen again. This time, hit ENTER on the first line to run a normal session. When the desktop comes up, log in and enjoy Ubuntu.
Two final notes:
1. I am not a Unix/Ubuntu/Linux expert. I just read the forums, locked up and rebooted my machine about 60 times until I figured this out. That means, I can't help anyone else with their problems because this was my experience and I wanted to help others who might have the same problem. We all kick the can a little further down the road and this is my attempt to do that.
2. I bought this machine about 5 years ago and it ran XP quite well, even with only 1 GB of RAM. I only took it out of service because I got an incredible deal on another machine and I wanted to put Linux on the Lenovo because XP is going to be dead soon. My machine now has 4GB RAM, a dual-core Athlon CPU, and a 250 GB drive. What was essentially scrap is now a pretty decent machine, thanks to Ubuntu and the open-source community.
Good luck, everybody.
In short, the problem was the "ondemand" service. Whenever it ran, it locked up my machine. The lockups occurred within 30 to 45 seconds after I logged into the machine. That's why this was so maddening; you would get to the desktop, use it for a few seconds and the machine would lock up tight as a drum. Yet it would run fine in single-user mode. (ondemand doesn't load until you go multiuser.) The vast majority of lockup/freeze/stop behavior discussed on these forums points you towards the x11 software and video issues. In this case, that advice was wrong. (Which is why I'm writing.)
If you want to install Ubuntu on a Lenovo 3000 Series J115 (7387-26U) tower computer successfully:
1. Do NOT download the standard version. You must use the alternate installer version. If you want 64-bit (my choice), then you want the amd64 version. I used the desktop version, not server.
2. After your installation is complete and you get to the desktop on Linux (my display -- the flat panel that came with my J115 -- would not display Unity, so I used Gnome), there is a pretty good chance the machine will lock up and be unresponsive. You will have to power cycle it to get it to restart.
3. When you restart, hold down the SHIFT key on your keyboard and the machine will boot into the recovery mode. On the choices that appear, select the second one (the one that says recovery mode at the end) with the arrow keys on your keyboard and hit ENTER to run that. In the window that appears, scroll to the bottom and select the last item, so you boot into a command-line interface.
4. When the command line appears at the bottom of the screen, run sudo apt-get rcconf (this is the Debian runlevel configuration tool).
5. When rcconf is downloaded and installed, run it from the command line by typing rcconf. You will get a list of services available on Ubuntu. Each entry has right and left brackets before the name. The ones at the top of the list have asterisks between the brackets; that means they are going to run when you log in normally. The ones that do not have asterisks will not be loaded. Find the entry for ondemand. Move your cursor down the list until the asterisk between the brackets is highlighted, then press the SPACE bar. That will remove the asterisk from between the brackets. Hit the TAB key so the <OK> choice at the bottom is highlighted and press ENTER to save your change. You may see some grouchy error message, but that's OK.
6. You should be back at the command line now. Type shutdown -r now and hit the ENTER key. The machine will reboot.
7. You probably will return to the recovery mode screen again. This time, hit ENTER on the first line to run a normal session. When the desktop comes up, log in and enjoy Ubuntu.
Two final notes:
1. I am not a Unix/Ubuntu/Linux expert. I just read the forums, locked up and rebooted my machine about 60 times until I figured this out. That means, I can't help anyone else with their problems because this was my experience and I wanted to help others who might have the same problem. We all kick the can a little further down the road and this is my attempt to do that.
2. I bought this machine about 5 years ago and it ran XP quite well, even with only 1 GB of RAM. I only took it out of service because I got an incredible deal on another machine and I wanted to put Linux on the Lenovo because XP is going to be dead soon. My machine now has 4GB RAM, a dual-core Athlon CPU, and a 250 GB drive. What was essentially scrap is now a pretty decent machine, thanks to Ubuntu and the open-source community.
Good luck, everybody.