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Trying to install linux on a VERY old laptop


ProDave

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I was given an old Compaq Evo N620c laptop that is in physically good condition, it even appears to have a battery that actually stores electricity.  An ideal candidate I thought for a version of Linux.

 

It came with Windows XP installed and aparently working but I can't access it as I don't know the password to get beyond the login screen.

 

Another "issue" is the bios is also password protected so I can't get in to change the boot order to boot from USB.  It will however boot from CD /DVD so that seems my only option.

 

First step tried installing Zorin 15.  First hurdle, it halts at boot telling me my CPU does not support PAE.  The work around is to force the PAE flag on boot which askubuntu says will work in most cases.

 

Second hurdle, select install zorin and it shortly just stops and dumps you to a text window with a command prompt, i,.e the linux equivalent of a "dos prompt" and goes no further.

 

Second attempt, I tried Ubuntu 14.04 since it is the version I have on this laptop and saved a 2 hour download to get any other version.  

 

That too throws up the PAE error and the same work around allowed it to boot to a GUI and start the install.  It got as far as selecting some basic information, I press "continue" and it just sits there on the "preparing to install" screen.  the DVD is working away but it seemed not to proceed.  I gave up after leaving it for 4 hours with no progress.

 

Third attempt.  Ask Ubuntu tells me that Ubuntu 12.04 was the latest version not to have this PAE issue, so just over an hour download later I try that.  Bugger me it throws the same PAE error with the same work around.

 

This time I select the same basic info and select "continue"  Instead of waiting forever, after a few minutes it tells me the install failed and is opening a ubuntu desktop so I can find out why.  45 minutes later I am still waiting for that desktop to finish opening.

 

Is the issue here that doing anything from the DVD is going to be ridiculously slow?   Or should I just give it up as a basket case?

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I HAVEN'T forgotten you, in fact I've 5 distros burnt to DVD now to post...Just Xmas and the New Year got in the way...

 

Anything here take your fancy? I could put say Puppy on a CD rather than DVD:

 

https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

 

I will TRY and post tomorrow. (First back to normal week for me).

Edited by Onoff
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I did try that with the exception of power it up with the main battery removed step. So I will try that later. At the moment I am still waiting.

 

Lots of stuff on ask ubuntu about slow DVD access, mostly about the the need to disable DMA to the DVD drive, but that assumes you have a working system otherwise and can actually do that.

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12 minutes ago, Onoff said:

I HAVEN'T forgotten you, in fact I've 5 distros burnt to DVD now to post...Just Xmas and the New Year got in the way...

 

Anything here take your fancy? I could put say Puppy on a CD rather than DVD:

 

https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

 

I will TRY and post tomorrow. (First back to normal week for me).

I would hang on just a moment. See how I get on just now.  I found a few blank DVD's the other day so thought I would try it myself.  Steep learning curve that.  IGNORE what every guide says, you do NOT need to download etcher (it did not recognise my DVD drive as "removable media" so would not work anyway)  then I found Ubuntu 14 has the ability to write a boot image to a DVD BUILT IN.  Nobody told me that in ANY of the guides I read about creating a bootable DVD. 

 

I will have one more go at erasing the bios password later and see if I can instead boot from USB.

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1 minute ago, ProDave said:

I would hang on just a moment. See how I get on just now.  I found a few blank DVD's the other day so thought I would try it myself.  Steep learning curve that.  IGNORE what every guide says, you do NOT need to download etcher (it did not recognise my DVD drive as "removable media" so would not work anyway)  then I found Ubuntu 14 has the ability to write a boot image to a DVD BUILT IN.  Nobody told me that in ANY of the guides I read about creating a bootable DVD. 

 

I will have one more go at erasing the bios password later and see if I can instead boot from USB.

 

I use Infrarecorder on the Windows pc. 

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Clearing the bois just revealed that there is no boot from USB option, just HDD or DVD.  

 

So It's now last chance saloon. One more attempt to install ubuntu 14 from the DVD, I will leave it however long it takes, even if that is overnight.........

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Some progress, bur not as expected.

 

My "final attempt" resulted in it just going dead, with a blank screen and nothing happening.

 

So, in order to do something, I re installed Windows XP, formatting the hard disk in the process.

 

It now has a working Windows XP service pack 3, install that I can use.

 

Is there any way from that, to initiate a download and install of a version of linux, starting that install from Windows (or dos)?  

 

Or even any way I can tell it to just start installing from the ubuntu memory stick I have, but again, starting that from windows?

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Not sure, as there can be some flakiness associated with booting from USB and installing GRUB on some older laptops, in particular.  It should be possible, but might be worth trying to pin down what in the configuration has been causing the problems.

 

As an aside, when I was doing the shopping yesterday I noticed that one of the self-service check out machines was out of order.  It had crashed, yet was displaying a standard Windows XP desktop on the screen, complete with an error box.  Probably running embedded windows, but does make you realise just how many older versions of Windows are still in daily use.

 

I gave in and bought my wife an iMac for Christmas, which now frees up a  tiny, 15 W maximum,  fanless i7-7500, that had been running Win 7.  It had a nice aray of ports, a 250Gb m.2 SSD, plus a 1Tb HDD and 8Gb of RAM, so I', probably going to clear it out and load Ubuntu, or maybe Mint, on to it, running on my second desktop monitor.  Although my laptop runs Mint, I've kept my main desktop on Win 7, really because I still use a couple of Win 7 software applications that I can't get to run on Linux.  As the car runs on Linux, my new NAS I've built is running Debian, and the new interface I've playing with for the car is running on within Docker of Armbian, but about to be ported into either micropython or Lua on a very low power device, it would be handy to be able to work on a native Linux box, especially when taking directly to hardware.  It also makes talking to my wife's iMac easier, as that's essentially a Unix-like machine, too, from what little I've played with when setting up.

 

Much as people like to be critical of Apple, I have to say setting up one of their desktops is a million times simpler and easier than doing the same with Windows.  We had the advantage that my wife already has an iPhone and an iPad, so the new iMac just recognised both of these as soon as it was powered on, and then just set everything up automatically, even our non-Apple network printer (which previously needed a special app to work from the iPad).

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7 hours ago, ProDave said:

Clearing the bois just revealed that there is no boot from USB option, just HDD or DVD. 

 

Is that because there was no bootable USB drive plugged in? I seem to remember my laptop only shows a boot-from-USB option if something is actually plugged into the USB slot.

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Won't a Live CD boot/load/run quicker than a DVD?

 

There was a while back that linux based distro, Remix OS, the Android esque one, which would only run on top of an existing Windows install. I wonder if there's others?

 

Now that you have an OS on there, albeit XP have you tried from a Live disc?

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I think the DVD issue is something like Ubuntu by default enables DMA to a DVD drive and in some cases (mine) that runs very slowly.  If you think about it a DVD is never going to be fast, the seek time compared to a HDD is huge.

 

Anyway the answer appears to be WUBI, Windows Ubuntu Installer.  It is actually included on the Ubuntu memory stick I have already.  It is a little different as it does not partition the disk, instead it creates one massive file within the windows file system, and installs the entire ubuntu file system inside that file.  You start it from within Windows, and if it works you end up with a dual boot system.

 

I will give it a try shortly and report back.......

 

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Well it did not work.

 

It got part way and crashed with a brief error message and re booted.  By photographing the screen when the error flashed up I gleaned it was something to do with kill now restart <warn> could not acquire the 'org.freedesktop.modemmanager1' service name

 

I have posted a question on the ubuntu forum.

 

I am out of options really, it won't boot from the memory stick, it won't install from the DVD, so this is about the only option left to install it from the memory stick, albeit on top of windows.

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15 hours ago, ProDave said:

So, in order to do something, I re installed Windows XP, formatting the hard disk in the process.

 

It now has a working Windows XP service pack 3, install that I can use.

I haven't seen any mention of this but have you considered creating a new partition and downloading and installing a version of Linux on that and dual booting.

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41 minutes ago, PeterStarck said:

I haven't seen any mention of this but have you considered creating a new partition and downloading and installing a version of Linux on that and dual booting.

I am still waiting for someone to tell me how.

 

The only way I know needs you to BOOT from a linux install disk, and that is the issue, it won't boot from USB and there are problems trying to install from DVD.

 

WUBI seemed to be the only way I have found anywhere to install it from a non bootable USB source fir instance, even if it is not a "proper" instalation.

 

If you know a way to do it please share.

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12 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I am still waiting for someone to tell me how.

 

The only way I know needs you to BOOT from a linux install disk, and that is the issue, it won't boot from USB and there are problems trying to install from DVD.

 

WUBI seemed to be the only way I have found anywhere to install it from a non bootable USB source fir instance, even if it is not a "proper" instalation.

 

If you know a way to do it please share.

 

A lightweight distro on CD wouldn't read / install quicker? Puppy is circa 200MB.

 

Tiny Core is 15MB

Edited by Onoff
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3 hours ago, ProDave said:

I am still waiting for someone to tell me how.

 

The only way I know needs you to BOOT from a linux install disk, and that is the issue, it won't boot from USB and there are problems trying to install from DVD.

I installed Mint 16 many years ago from a download. I did it from the downloaded file  not USB or DVD, I think (hope) it was as described here.

https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-replace-windows-xp-linux-free.htm

Edited by PeterStarck
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