9.10 live session freezing, unable to upgrade

[anon_private]

1. I have read that if the system locks-up (freezes) it may be possible to unfreeze it using:

ALT + F2 then enter or,

ALT + Control + F1 or

ALT + Print Screen + REISUB

I tried all of these and none worked.

Has anyone any further advice, short of a re-boot?

2. When I use the CD it usuallly takes a few tries before ubuntu is successfully installed into memory.

Does this mean:

I should clean the CD

The CD drive may be a little misaligned

This is normal for the CD's

3. Does ver 9.10 use less memory that ver 10.04 (LTS)

Thanks.

A

PS. As soon as I posted this message UBUNTU gave a black screen full of writing and a command prompt at the bottom. This disappeared and I was asked to login. I used ubuntu and no password and got back my screen - I had to restart Firefox. Can anyone explain

[ajgreeny]

I assume the comments in your PS at the bottom were from when you were using the live CD.

Did you check that the live CD was a good burn? You can do that as soon as you see the first screen after powering on the CD hit any key, choose language, then from the menu that appears use "Check the CD" or however it is listed. If any errors are found you will need to check the md5sum of your .iso file, download again if it does not match, and burn it again as slowly as possible.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

If all that checks out OK, what hardware do you have, in particular your graphic card?

[oldos2er]

ALT + Print Screen + REISUB

Should be Alt-SysRq-REISUB, see http://kember.net/articles/reisub-th...linux-restart/

PS. As soon as I posted this message UBUNTU gave a black screen full of writing and a command prompt at the bottom. This disappeared and I was asked to login. I used ubuntu and no password and got back my screen - I had to restart Firefox. Can anyone explain

Sounds like you opened a tty, a full screen console session, with Ctrl-F1 through Ctrl-F6. Ctrl-F7 runs the X desktop session by default.

[anon_private]

I assume the comments in your PS at the bottom were from when you were using the live CD.

Did you check that the live CD was a good burn? You can do that as soon as you see the first screen after powering on the CD hit any key, choose language, then from the menu that appears use "Check the CD" or however it is listed. If any errors are found you will need to check the md5sum of your .iso file, download again if it does not match, and burn it again as slowly as possible.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

If all that checks out OK, what hardware do you have, in particular your graphic card?

ver 9.10 live cd

I checked the disk

Initially on booting I got a message regarding kernal panic. I rebooted.

Ran the disk check three times. In each case: No errors found.

I ran the memory test. Pass1: No errors.

Video card: Nvidia GeForce 7300 Turbo cache 256MB DVI/VGA output with 1xs-video output.

After reboot system left for a few hours. On inserting disk(9.10), got the ubuntu symbol, then black screen, error code.

Rebooted. success, crash report: kernal problem, some drivers closed.

Thanks.

A

[varunendra]

2. When I use the CD it usuallly takes a few tries before ubuntu is successfully installed into memory.
..
PS. As soon as I posted this message UBUNTU gave a black screen full of writing and a command prompt at the bottom. This disappeared and I was asked to login.

Initially on booting I got a message regarding kernal panic.

Seems like a low RAM issue to me. How much RAM do you have? After a successful boot, please post output of

free -m

3. Does ver 9.10 use less memory that ver 10.04 (LTS)

Usually true. But I'd suggest to use 12.04 instead. If the RAM is less than 1 GB, try Xubuntu, if less than 512 MB, try Lubuntu... but keep the version 12.04 please.

[anon_private]

Seems like a low RAM issue to me. How much RAM do you have? After a successful boot, please post output of

free -m

Usually true. But I'd suggest to use 12.04 instead. If the RAM is less than 1 GB, try Xubuntu, if less than 512 MB, try Lubuntu... but keep the version 12.04 please.

Thanks for responding.

I think it is a RAM issue.

I have 512MB installed at present.

I have the UBUNTU disks 9,10 and10.04 from the days when they were sent out free of charge.

I am going to transfer to LUBUNTU and have downloaded the iso file (12.04, alternative version). But because I have no Windows OS that works I am using the LiveCD from the CD drive.

I will re-download the iso file to a stick and try and find someone to burn the file.

Best wishes.

A

Ps. After booting up (ver.9.10) and with Firefox running:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 495 477 17 0 41 176
-/+ buffers/cache: 260 235
Swap: 123 0 123
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

[varunendra]

I think it is a RAM issue.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          495       477        17          0         41       176
-/+ buffers/cache:       260       235
Swap:         123         0       123

Indeed it is a low RAM issue. (EDIT: Misunderstood. Best explanation of above in post #48 by mörgæs.)

For iso burning, if you are relying on the live session from the live cd, try "Slax" on a usb thumb drive. It is approx 200MB iso, & can be run with even 36MB RAM. Its contents can be simply extracted & copied to the target drive, then making it 'Slax' bootable is just a matter of running ./bootinst.sh from the /boot directory extracted from the iso (Caution! that command must be run from the directory extracted on the thumb drive. Because it simply overwrites the MBR of the disk from which it is run - after a warning & seeking your permission of-course). I'm recommending it because it contains K3B - perhaps the best & most reliable cd/dvd burner for linux.

[anon_private]

Thanks for responding.

I am afraid that I don't understand your post.

I have downloaded the iubuntu iso file.

For some reason, it was faster than last time, and I did not see the progress graphics. But it is the same size.

I will try and find a pc with Windows running and burn the iso file to a disk.

What are those 27k torrent files for?

I don't seem to be able to delete files in Firefox. Can you tell me the correct procedure for deleting unwanted files using Firefox.

Thanks

[zombifier25]

What are those 27k torrent files for?

torrent files are files that tell a BitTorrent program how to download a file. BitTorrent is a p2p file sharing protocol that is usually preferred when downloading large files.

[varunendra]

I am afraid that I don't understand your post.

and I'm afraid I don't understand properly yours, these parts -

I have downloaded the iubuntu iso file.

You mean Ubuntu, right?

For some reason, it was faster than last time, and I did not see the progress graphics. But it is the same size.

What do you mean by "program graphics"?

I don't seem to be able to delete files in Firefox. Can you tell me the correct procedure for deleting unwanted files using Firefox.

Do you mean the files 'downloaded using firefox'? Where are these files showing up ? If it is the 'Download' list (Tools > Downloads in firefox), just click the "Clear List" button at the bottom, or click an item and press 'Delete' to delete individual items.

Torrent files contain just file checksum hashes and list of trackers (torrent tracking servers). So it does not contain the actual file itself, but only checksums (to test the integrity and download status) and pointers to it, hence the small size. When you load it on a bit-torrent client (e.g.- Transmission, Ktorrent, uTorrent, BitTorrent, etc.) that client starts downloading the actual file based on the information contained in the torrent file. It is a recommended method of downloading Ubuntu ISOs due to automatic integrity checking in the background. Only make sure you are downloadin the torrent from an authentic source, preferably ubuntu.com itself.

As for clarity of my previous post, sorry, I should have elaborated it. I suggested to download "Slax", which is just another linux operating system which is small in size, and portable. You can easily install it on a usb flash drive and make it bootable using the method I described in my previous post. That way, you can use 'Slax' from a flash drive to burn the 'Ubuntu' iso onto a CD/DVD. It can run smoothly with very low amount of RAM, and has a very good cd/dvd burning (writing) application - K3B - inbuilt.

If it was something else you couldn't understand, please point me to it, and I'll try to make it clear as much as I can.

My intension is to suggest you ways to easily achieve your goal using whatever you already have (oh, the 200MB iso you'll have to download, or try "Slitaz" instead which is just 34.7 MB in size, and has "Burnbox" cd/dvd burning application, but I'm not sure how reliable it is for burning CDs/DVDs). No need to look for a windows system or something else if you already have a working computer.