Install failure - Toshiba Equium A60

Hi all

Maybe someone else with this machine has had the problem. Using the LiveCD for Ubuntu 11.04, I have been trying to install ubuntu on the above mentioned machine. I get the little logo at the bottom of the screen, press return and can get to the menu, but when I attempt to boot the live version, the screen goes black with a rapidly refreshing series of numbers and text that moves too quickly to read. Nothing but a hard reboot will make the laptop respond at all.

I know the disk is fine as I have used it to successfully install Ubuntu on a different machine; I have tried Linux Mint on this machine also with exactly the same problem (am I correct in thinking that Mint is based on Ubuntu?) however another distro I had knocking around on a disc, Slitaz,seems to work OK.

I would very much like to use ubuntu or a variant of it on this old machine, I hope someone can help.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

Stu

Can you give more details about your hardware? A comparison with Slitaz would only make sense if it has about the same software versions, in particular the kernel version. Do you know if thats true?

Hi, thanks for your reply!
The processor for the laptop is Pentium 4, 2.8GhZ, 256Mb RAM. It's an old machine that I want to breathe some new life into. It has XP on it now, which runs fine, but way too slowly for my taste.

The kernel numbers are different, for Slitaz 3.0 it is 2.6.30.6 ; a fresh Natty install is 2.6.38-something isn't it? Do you think it's worth me trying another distro out before deciding it's a problem with ubuntu?

256MB RAM is not much, at least 512MB as minimum. You may want to try a non-live CD (alternate version), or a lighter DE - Lubuntu would properly be better with your computer specs.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try Lubuntu and report back. :)

Harumph....Lubuntu didn't work...after several hours downloading and burning the disk, I just got the same error. :(

I'll try this alternate CD next, will take some time...

I guess that no one knows of any particular issues with Toshiba Equium laptops that might be causing this?

All 11.04 variants have the same kernel. If you want to try an Ubuntu variant, go for one of the LTS variants (10.04). They also have an older but more stable kernel, so chances are that it will boot on your machine.