Need advice for installing Lubuntu

[AbleTassie]

I am trying to help a friend who is disabled and has PC problems. I ran into some problems installing Lubuntu on his PC and so need some advice.

Background: First my friend's PC, a Samsung (specs) running on Windows 8.1 Pro was slow and poorly responsive, then it basically started freezing for hours on end, essentially useless. I figured he had viruses. I tried to scan the HDD by using ESET Rescue System (a Linux-based antivirus program, link) by booting off a thumb drive and then scanning for viruses. Unfortunately it appears that there was a hibernated (Windows) NTFS partition the linux-based ESET Rescue System could not mount and so it appears the ESET System could not scan the HDD.

So, I decided to show him a trial Live boot with Lubuntu 16.04 LTS on a thumb drive. This trial live boot went well, we were able to access his email and he could play solitaire online. These two activities are apparently pretty much all of what he does with his PC. So I decided to try starting the permanent install of Lubuntu on his hard drive. But I got this message (I've learned, people on the forum are familiar with):
This machine's firmware has started the installer in UEFI mode but it looks like there may be existing operating systems already installed using "BIOS compatibility mode". If you continue to install Debian in UEFI mode, it might be difficult to reboot the machine into any BIOS-mode operating systems later. If you wish to install in UEFI mode and don't care about keeping the ability to boot one of the existing systems, you have the option to force that here. If you wish to keep the option to boot an existing operating system, you should choose NOT to force UEFI installation here.

So I stopped and removed the USB drive per the Lubuntu protocol on the screen (shutdown > remove USB> press Enter). I do not necessarily want to preclude the possibility of him not using Windows 8.1 Pro in the future. It's not my PC. On the other hand he has no one else here to help him. And Windows as presently on his machine is useless.

He got the PC years ago and apparently no longer has any documentation or disks, etc. I have read some of the Ubuntu UEFI info page here and realize that I may have to do some work in order to install Lubuntu more safely alongside Windows.But, as I said, Windows as presently on his machine is useless.In fact, something else has now also apparently changed with the booting of Windows: I tried to get back into Windows after removing the Lubuntu live boot USB, but got this boot message: All boot options are tried. Press <F4> key to recover with factory image using Recovery or any other keys for the next boot loop iteration, see attached screenshot.I tried pressing the F4 key and other keys and the PC remains on this screen, so I cannot even boot into a useless frozen Windows anymore.

QUESTION(S): If I go back and force the Lubuntu install, do I run the risk of losing Windows 8 completely? Or could it be reinstalled later if it will not boot? I do not have a license key or disks, but perhaps there are free licenses around that could be used?

Is there some other approach (as described, perhaps, on the Ubuntu UEFI info page here) to installing Lubuntu that might help maintain the original Windows installation and perhaps allow an antivirus scan that would make Windows functional again?

Thanks,

A.

BootMessage.jpg

[Skaperen]

is there anything of value to your friend on this PC? if not, then i recommend a full-disk clean-wipe and just install Windows all over, again. does he have the CDs and original license code to do this? if not then install Lubuntu on the clean disk. be sure he's OK with losing everything.

if there are files to keep, get a partition map and show it in your next post.

[guiverc]

To virus scan the system, you'd need to boot into windows, turn off any 'fast boot' & cleanly shutdown (so the file system is in a safe/complete state, instead of parts of it stored in cache written in the hibernate/boot file instead of the file system correctly).

Ubuntu releases have a year.month format, so Lubuntu 16.04 LTS means it was the 2016-April release of Lubuntu, which only had three years of supported life, so is no longer supported, no longer gets security updates - as do all flavors of 16.04 LTS except for Kylin. If you want to use 16.04, I'd recommend Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS (no desktop so won't be suitable), or Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (desktop using Unity 7 desktop), or Ubuntu-Kylin 16.04 LTS - all of which have 5 years of supported life, all other 16.04 flavors are EOL & unsupported. http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2019/03/01/...-lts-released/

I don't know your device, but 16.04 is rather old (being developed late 2015 & early 2016) so I'd expect better results with a newer OS (eg. Lubuntu 18.04 LTS which is supported until 2021-April (ie. 18.04 + 3 years) let alone having access to newer software, and security updates. Yes a full-disk install (erasing windows) is far easier, but I can appreciate your desire to keep the older-OS door open (it's a lot more work though).

Also ensure you
(a) validated your ISO was flawless - https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutoria...erify-ubuntu#0
(b) your write to install media was perfect - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...IntegrityCheck (where CD refers to CD/DVD/hdd/ssd/thumb-drive/etc)

The Lubuntu manual installation reference is https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/1/I...g_lubuntu.html but note it refers to the current stable release (19.10)
https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/1/1...the_image.html
https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/1/1...the_image.html
https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/1/1...tallation.html
which will of course differ for older releases.

[AbleTassie]

is there anything of value to your friend on this PC? if not, then i recommend a full-disk clean-wipe and just install Windows all over, again. does he have the CDs and original license code to do this? if not then install Lubuntu on the clean disk. be sure he's OK with losing everything.

if there are files to keep, get a partition map and show it in your next post.

Thanks for your replies Skaperen and Guiverc,

I don't think there is anything of value on the PC HDD. He does not communicate super well, he has something like cerebral palsy. But he still communicates well enough. I was able to poke around in the Windows 8 some before it really started freezing up. I suppose I might have been able to access the license key/code before it froze up, but I did not think it would freeze up as it eventually did.

He has no CDs or original license code. Somebody on another post in this forum said there are free Windows 10 licenses available. If that is true for Windows 10, I figure that maybe there are also free, legal, Windows 8 licenses or free, low cost CD/DVDs available if they should ever be needed. There is a version of his PC that is now on sale on Ebay for $199. I am surprised they are asking that much for it, but maybe a selling point is its large touch screen. I don't think he uses the touch screen though; I was showing him how to use it and he seemed not to realize he had a touch screen. I did not realize it either, but discovered it by chance.

What is a partition map and how do I get it? I am afraid I may be limited due to the hibernated Windows NTFS partition. I tried to look at Windows on his hard drive during the live boot Ubuntu session and I could not mount the files. I got this message:
….. the disk contains an unclean file system (0,0). Metadata kept in Windows cache, refused to mount. Failed to mount ‘/dev/sda5’ : Operation not permitted The NTFS partition is in an unsafe state. Please resume and shutdown Windows fully (no hibernation or fast restarting), or mount the volume read-only with the ‘ro’ mount option.

Thanks,

A.

[AbleTassie]

To virus scan the system, you'd need to boot into windows, turn off any 'fast boot' & cleanly shutdown (so the file system is in a safe/complete state, instead of parts of it stored in cache written in the hibernate/boot file instead of the file system correctly).

Ubuntu releases have a year.month format, so Lubuntu 16.04 LTS means it was the 2016-April release of Lubuntu, which only had three years of supported life, so is no longer supported, no longer gets security updates - as do all flavors of 16.04 LTS except for Kylin. If you want to use 16.04, I'd recommend Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS (no desktop so won't be suitable), or Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (desktop using Unity 7 desktop), or Ubuntu-Kylin 16.04 LTS - all of which have 5 years of supported life, all other 16.04 flavors are EOL & unsupported. http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2019/03/01/...-lts-released/

I don't know your device, but 16.04 is rather old (being developed late 2015 & early 2016) so I'd expect better results with a newer OS (eg. Lubuntu 18.04 LTS which is supported until 2021-April (ie. 18.04 + 3 years) let alone having access to newer software, and security updates. Yes a full-disk install (erasing windows) is far easier, but I can appreciate your desire to keep the older-OS door open (it's a lot more work though).

Also ensure you
(a) validated your ISO was flawless - https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutoria...erify-ubuntu#0
(b) your write to install media was perfect - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...IntegrityCheck (where CD refers to CD/DVD/hdd/ssd/thumb-drive/etc)

The Lubuntu manual installation reference is https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/1/I...g_lubuntu.html but note it refers to the current stable release (19.10)
https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/1/1...the_image.html
https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/1/1...the_image.html
https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/1/1...tallation.html
which will of course differ for older releases.

Thanks Guiverc,

I figured that I could not scan for viruses unless I got back into Windows and modified it as you have said. BUT, I could not and cannot get into Windows to do this. Your advice about getting a more current version of Ubuntu is good. I will certainly try that. I have done some Ubuntu/Lubuntu installations on my own machines, so I think I am aware of some of the things you are pointing out, but it is good to go over the points again. The specs for the device are here ; my guess is that the device will accomodate a newer version of Lubuntu fine. Any other comments from you or others will be appreciated.

Thanks,

A.

[CatKiller]

First my friend's PC, a Samsung (specs) running on Windows 8.1 Pro was slow and poorly responsive, then it basically started freezing for hours on end, essentially useless. I figured he had viruses.

It could just as easily be a hardware problem with the drive. Given that it spontaneously became less functional after you started using it, that seems more likely.

According to the specs you linked to, that machine has a particularly slow spinning rust drive. Replacing that with an SSD would give it a new lease of life even if the old drive was working properly.

[guiverc]

My desktop is over a decade old (c2q-9400, or before processors went i series), and runs Lubuntu 20.04 fine (or the development release that will be released in a few months). The oldest laptop I have used today was a 2005 dell latitude d61 (single core pentium M with 1gb ram) which was running Lubuntu 18.04 LTS (used today for support purposes; thankfully I don't need it as it needs more ram, but I used it in testing Lubuntu 18.10 & 19.04 too) so I'm convinced you won't have issues with later releases.

On initial reading of your first post, I blamed your issues on malware... after reading Catkiller's response I'm thinking I'd suggest validating the hardware too. ie.

- a RAM test ('Test Memory' is how it appears on my d61 using Lubuntu 18.04 LTS; https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MemoryTest); full test will take awhile but I think of it as good insurance

- check your disk health (ie. it's SMART or self-monitoring analysis and reporting technology built into most drives; https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Smartmontools) On Lubuntu 19.10 you can use KDE Partition Manager to view this info, on 18.04 LTS use `gnome-disk-utility` which appears as "Disks" in the menu), or `smartctl` via command if so inclined and love the raw data). SMART keeps loads of stats, meaning it's not real easy to understand, but maybe worthwhile being good insurance.

For Lubuntu the pro's & con's of your release choices are as I see it

Lubuntu 18.04 LTS - a long term support release with 3 years of life, so until 2021-April, meaning you can set it and it should be okay for some time. The negatives are it's a very old desktop (like old w2k or early xp maybe) but that's also why some people love it; it's familiar. It's big weakness though it's the last LXDE for Ubuntu or Lubuntu.

Lubuntu switched to the LXQt desktop in 18.10 which is where future work is now performed (upstream LXDE is pretty much on life-support with most devs having moved to LXQt; there are technical reasons for this; LXDE used old GTK2 technology which is dead) The significance of this history follows...

Lubuntu 19.10 or the 2019-October release has a short 9 months release, so installing it means you'll have to move to Lubuntu 20.04 LTS within by 2020-July. This is the hassle with using 19.10. The benefit is it has an upgrade cycle; 20.04 will have 3 years of life after you've made that jump. It is a more modern desktop, is very light, our Lubuntu manual assumes you're using LXQt now.

(I knew touch screen works on 19.10; so I booted 18.04.4 on a sony thingy and it works there too. I can't say how well on either as I don't use touch)

If you use Lubuntu 18.04 LTS you'll need to re-install to switch to LXQt, so that's the hidden hurdle with using Lubuntu 18.04 LTS to my thinking. The main alternative to me would be using Xubuntu 18.04 LTS (which will easily upgrade to Xubuntu 20.04 LTS), though a number of other Ubuntu flavors can be used too. As for which will be best for you; it's mostly a personal choice on what type of interface you like along the lines of which is the best cake (chocolate, banana, carrot etc) Ubuntu Flavors can be downloaded for trial via https://ubuntu.com/download/flavours. It's my opinion your box will run any Ubuntu flavor. Some are less fancy when booted up, having less flare, but they stay out of your way which actually is good; but how much frosting do you like? or really your friend likes?

[oldfred]

That system is Haswell based, so should be UEFI/gpt.
Microsoft required vendors to install in UEFI boot mode starting with Windows 8 in 2012. Only systems that were upgrades from Windows 7 may be BIOS/MBR configuration.

Post this:
sudo parted -l

Not sure if this works or not to remove hibernation flag on the NTFS partition(s).
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1459...to-hibernation

Best to boot Windows and shutdown without hibernation - all similar instructions:
Fast Start up off (always on hibernation), note that Windows turns this back on with updates, SHIFT + Shut down button
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...2#post13488472
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/4...dows-10-a.html
http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-d...0-fast-startup

[AbleTassie]

It could just as easily be a hardware problem with the drive. Given that it spontaneously became less functional after you started using it, that seems more likely.

According to the specs you linked to, that machine has a particularly slow spinning rust drive. Replacing that with an SSD would give it a new lease of life even if the old drive was working properly.

Thanks for your input CatKiller. Regarding SSDs, how much do they go for these days, $US/GB? His current drive is 500 GB, but given the fact that he really does not do much with his PC, a large SSD would not be necessary. I have replaced a couple HDD drives on a laptop and it's not particularly tough.

A.

[CatKiller]

Regarding SSDs, how much do they go for these days, $US/GB?

I had a quick look at laptop form factor (which is probably what's in there already, since it's 5400 rpm, although you should check) 500 GB SSDs on Amazon and they were £50-60, which Google tells me is around $65-75.