[ubuntu-nz] 8.04 CDs arrive, wahey!

[Bruce Kingsbury]

2008/5/27 Bob Harvey <bob.harvey at home.net.nz>:

> Hello all,
>
> You see, I have this aged machine with a P2 processor (400MHz or
> thereabouts), 128MB RAM and a fiddling amount of disk, but what the hey,
> it's just for screwing about with.  It's happily (albeit slowly) running
> 6.06 LTS.  Its CD-ROM drive shows up as an NEC 282 ATAPI device, and works
> fine.
>
> I think, why don't I get a bit of experience with setting up a server, say
> running Postfix, or doing firewall stuff, or whatever?  So I request both
> the Desktop and Server 8.04 CDs.
>
> I boot to the 8.04 Server CD, it prompts for language and then shows the
> menu; I select Install, it prompts for language again, checks my location
> and keyboard, then goes to 'detecting hardware'.  At this stage it finds
> that 'no common CD-ROM drive detected' and I get into a loop about loading a
> driver from floppy or selecting one from /dev/cdrom, with a CLI.  Clearly
> there's something about the CD-ROM drive that baffles the install.  It can
> read from it but not mount it.
>
> So I try booting to the 8.04 desktop CD and re-installing Linux over the
> top of what's there.  Select language, Install, kernel gets loaded, Ubuntu
> banner with the oscillating bar graph, then it drops out to the BusyBox
> shell with the CLI prompt, '(initramfs)'.  No error message, no clue as to
> what's wrong.
>
> I am aware that 8.04 Desktop requires 256MB RAM (preferably 384), but then
> 6.06 also says it needs that much...
>
> Anyway, can anyone tell me what I should do next?  It is 8.04 Server that I
> plan to install, as I said.
>
> Cheers, Bob.
>

I've seen the exact same problem, both with very old machines (IBM Netfinity
server, possibly the machine you described) and very new ones (laptops
'Built for Windows Vista') .. The drive and/or drive controller that your
cdrom uses is not supported by the linux kernel on the ubuntu install disk.

An easy workaround is to remove the harddrive and perform the install in a
different machine. Ubuntu copes very well with this, when you put the drive
back into the original machine it should run without any problems. Also in
my case the 'normal' kernel was able to access the CDROM drive.

As an added bonus, if you perform the install in a more modern machine it
goes a lot faster.

You may also be able to do the install using an external USB CDROM drive,
which will save you having to move harddrives around.
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