Lubuntu 12.10 on AMD Athlon 1800+ XP and 1GB RAM: installation crashes

[Nio Wiklund]

On 2013-06-16 07:40, Iberê Fernandes wrote:
> Hi there!
> 
> I had Ubuntu 10.04 LTs installed on my desktop  AMD Athlon 1800+ XP and
> 1GB RAM. According to cat/proc/cpuinfo it supports PAE. 
> 
> This desktop has been turned off for 2 years and now I decided to
> install Lubuntu there. Before start installing Lubuntu, I played a lot
> with that Ubuntu 10.04 just to remind me how it was. This desktop is not
> connected to the Internet, so no problem once 10.04 is EOL.
> 
> Although it has 1GB RAM, lubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386.iso  crashes when on
> slideshow. Removing ubiquity-slideshow-lubuntu didn't help at all once
> crashing remains. Desktop keeps rebooting by itself.
> 
> Alternate lubuntu-12.10-alternate-i386.iso crashes too on different
> parts, sometimes when partioning, sometimes almost at the end of
> installation. I know it was almost the end of installation because I
> followed Karl video on alternate installer. Desktop keeps rebooting by
> itself.
> 
> MD5 of the isos were checked. 
> 
> MD5 of the CDs were checked too with md5sum -c md5sum.txt | grep -v
> "SUCESSO" (SUCESSO means success because I'm running Lubuntu in
> portuguese from a laptop).
> 
> Install from LiveUSB is not possible once the BIOS does not allow boot
> from USB.
> 
> Hard drives are not that used because they were changed on 2011,
> installed Ubuntu 10.04 there and never turned on after buying laptops. 
> 
> I've even tested hard drives with palimpsest before trying to install
> Lubuntu.
> 
> There's nothing specific on release notes either.
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QuantalQuetzal/ReleaseNotes/Lubuntu#Known_Issues
> 
> Any ideas what else should I do to install Lubuntu on this AMD desktop? 
> 
> Ubuntu 10.04 is not there anymore once partition from Alternate
> installer was successfull.
> 
> Thank you in advance for your suggestions!
> 
> Cheers,
> Iberê
> 

Hi Iberê,

I don't know why this happens for you, but I have a few tips and
work-arounds.

1. Is there a good swap partition on the internal HDD? If not, make one
with gparted, when running a live session of for example Ubuntu 10.04 or
Lubuntu 12.10. Reboot and check that is used by the live session alias
the install CD. Swap should make the installer happier.

2. Remove the internal HDD and install any distro or version (10.04 is
OK) to get a starting point, when it is connected to another computer,
either internally or for example via a USB to IDE and SATA adapter. But
you can also install Lubuntu 12.04, 12.10 or 13.04, maybe as multiboot.

As long as you avoid proprietary drivers it should be portable. In other
words, it should work, when you move it back to the old computer. You
may need some boot option.

3. I have an old computer with an Asus mobo and a AMD processor (but
somewhat newer than yours). It can boot from USB, but does not recognize
it as USB, only as one of the HDDs. So when the USB drive is plugged in,
I can change the boot order of the HDDs in the BIOS to boot from USB.

But once it boots internally from grub (with a linux distro) it is more
convenient to make a custom entry in the grub menu for that purpose: to
chainboot any USB drive.

Append this (keeping the first few lines) to /etc/grub.d/40_custom

menuentry "External drive (on /dev/sdb) Check with ls in grub and edit
if necessary" {
        insmod part_msdos
        insmod fat
        set root='(hd1)'
        drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
        chainloader +1
}

And finally run

sudo update-grub

to make it active.

4. Lubuntu 12.10 failed to install from CD. I think chances are better
with Lubuntu 12.04 or Xubuntu 12.04.1 or 12.04.2

5. Try with Knoppix, which is very good for old hardware. It is intended
to run live with persistence, "poor man's install" in Knoppix terminology.

Good luck :-)
Nio