Thinkpads Forum

i have an old IBM thinkpad laptop i think its a T23. but i was having major problems with windows so i went into command prompt and typed "format c:"

i followed through with it formatting it

now i want to install kubuntu 7.10 but at the install screen it freezes.

as soon as i click "start or install kubuntu" it does nothing.

any advice? am i impaitient and should wait?

First of all, did you verify that the CD image you downloaded had the correct checksum? Make sure the CD is correct. Is there a verify media option in the Kubuntu Live CD?

Otherwise, it may be a hardware incompatibility. Try a different distro, like PCLinuxOS MiniMe (this one is the latest and greatest, very speedy on old hardware).

whats a checksum?

sillycat wrote:whats a checksum?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checksum

There are lots of checsum verifiers for Windows (which I assume is what you are using to download the CD image).

http://sourceforge.net/search/?type_of_ ... s=checksum

Open the image you downloaded with a checksum verifier to see its checksum. Then make sure it is the same as the one they list in the Kubuntu download page.

Also, make sure the CD is clean. Sometimes little smudges on them have strange results (especially Pizza ). If there is a media check option when booting Kubuntu, use it.

ok i have the linuxos minime one that you told me to download. i popped it into my laptop and it seems like its getting further than the kubuntu7.10

i selected the first option when i started it up and it went fine up until about a tenth of the way through and stopped. the lights keep blinking on my laptop like its working but the bar doesnt move

i shutdown tried again but this time i clicked the save to ram option, it got all the way to "probing SCI devices" and doesnt seem to be doing anything else.

ahhh!

i tried installing it in safeboot and it gave me this big blue error

"could not install the x11-driver-video-neomagic package"

ok a couple things failed... not sure what, it went real fast. but now im at a black screen and it says
"pclinuxos release 2007 (pclinuxos) for i586
kernel 2.6.22.15.tex2 on an i686 / tty1
localhost login:"

then when i type something in it askes me for a password

sillycat wrote:ahhh!

i tried installing it in safeboot and it gave me this big blue error

"could not install the x11-driver-video-neomagic package"

What happens when you try the other video safemodes from the CD?

sillycat wrote:ok a couple things failed... not sure what, it went real fast. but now im at a black screen and it says
"pclinuxos release 2007 (pclinuxos) for i586
kernel 2.6.22.15.tex2 on an i686 / tty1
localhost login:"

then when i type something in it askes me for a password

Also, once you are at that login screen you can log in as root ( the password for root is root) or as guest (the password for guest is guest). But let me know what happens with the other videosafe modes first. We can go from there.

kay. i did that now in red it says"[root@localhost ~]#

should i shut down and go into one of the other video safe modes? i just left it on at that screen

sillycat wrote:should i shut down and go into one of the other video safe modes? i just left it on at that screen

Yes. Just type:

reboot

it ejected my cd and said please press enter once the medium is removed. i removed it and pressed enter. its doing nothing. is it ok to just manually shut it down

sillycat wrote:it ejected my cd and said please press enter once the medium is removed. i removed it and pressed enter. its doing nothing. is it ok to just manually shut it down

Yes, just put the CD back in before you do. You can also try Ctl+Alt+Del.

i went into safemodefdev its still stuck at that one tenth loaded

sillycat wrote:i went into safemodefdev its still stuck at that one tenth loaded

Make sure you do a Media Check as well. It is the second option from the bottom when you are booting the live CD.

it seems to be stuck at "probing SCSI devices:_"

sillycat wrote:it seems to be stuck at "probing SCSI devices:_"

Try entering the "noscsi" boot parameter. After you move down and select one of the video safe options just type noscsi before pressing the Enter key.

rm wrote:

sillycat wrote:it seems to be stuck at "probing SCSI devices:_"

Try entering the "noscsi" boot parameter. After you move down and select one of the video safe options just type noscsi before pressing the Enter key.

Since I haven't heard back from you, I assume that last option may have gotten you farther along. I am getting ready to leave. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to go to the PCLinuxOS Forums. They are very friendly and helpful.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php

its installing fine but when it askes me what my login and password is first it tells me that "general application crashed the program krootimage crashed"
"/etc/fstab" when in verbose mode always fails

i dont know what to do

sillycat wrote:its installing fine but when it askes me what my login and password is first it tells me that "general application crashed the program krootimage crashed"
"/etc/fstab" when in verbose mode always fails

i dont know what to do

Mmm, did you post the question in the PCLOS forum?

First off did you do a check to see that your disk doesn't have any errors.
When burning an ISO....always burn at the slowest speed possible.
That could maybe be your problem.
I have and R40 that I was running PClinuxOS 2007 on without any problems.
PClinuxOS is simple and just seemed to work.
MiniMe is the latest and pretty much just bare essentials. You could be better off with 2007. See if that will run in live CD.

What video card are you running and I was just curious how much memory you have?

i have whatever came with the laptop, so im not sure. iam able to install the cd all the way till the login screen. i did like you said root password root guest password guest but i always get that [root@localhost ~]# and it prompts me for something afterward. i didnt go to the linux site, i went to bed....

sillycat wrote:i have whatever came with the laptop, so im not sure. iam able to install the cd all the way till the login screen. i did like you said root password root guest password guest but i always get that [root@localhost ~]# and it prompts me for something afterward. i didnt go to the linux site, i went to bed....

What doog says may be a good tip. Some people with some older laptops seem to be having trouble with the latest kernels. Try a distro with an older kernel, like PCLinuxOS 2007. The god thing is that if it works you'll be able to update all the software packages to the latest very easily. PCLinuxOS is a rolling distro, meaning that as long as you keep updating it through your package manager, you will always have the latest. In other words, when a new version comes up you don't need to install from from scratch you already have it through your updates. In your case, however, you may want to avoid updating the kernel.