Crash during install? (KDE PCLinuxOS 2010.1)

[kergin]

bare with me here please.......

so my wife is bringing an old (2 year old) computer from from work when they get new machines, so i'm wanting to install linux on our old (7 yr old) pc.  it's currently got windows xp sp3, roughly a 40 gb  hd, 1 gb ram, i think it should be able to handle it.

after doing some reading, i downloaded pclinuxos 2101.1 w/ the kde desktop as a live cd.  downloaded and burnt.

so i defragged the hd, then forced a chkdsk on reboot, then booted from the cd.  it loads up fine, i could play around and navigate the provided software pretty easily, connected to the internet just fine, even picked up my printer, speakers worked, no "real" issues. 

so i logged out as guest and in as root.  i clicked on the "Install PCLinuxOS" icon, and the install process began.  i selected the "use free space on windows partition" option, and slid the bar over so i would use 10 gb for linux and the remaining for windows.  i clicked next.  it successfully resized the windows partition and then it began installing.

then it happened.

the screen went black, and after about 5 seconds, this came up -

"acpid: client connected from 2574 [0:0]

acpid: 1 client rule loaded


_"

i walked away for over an hour, nothing happened.  no system response no matter how hard i slammed my damn keyboard.     so i held down the power button on the tower to reboot, and it brought back up the pclinuxos desktop and said "Shutting Down" and the bottom of the screen.  then a message came up that it failed to dismount something or other and then i powered down.

so when windows started back up it did a chkdsk scan, then i used a partition manager tool to resize the windows partition to the full hd and rebooted.  no issues, the partition was back to normal, the show goes on.

so later that night when i got home from work, i tried it again, with same results.  i followed the same steps i stated above, except this time i left the computer alone over night at the "acpid: .............." screen.  over 7 hours it sat, then i had to force it to reboot.  this time i booted back up with the live cd just to see something, and the installer didn't even recognize the partition that was "lost" during the faield install, so i used the windows program again to resize everything back to normal or whatever.

you can imagine i'm starting to get frustrated, so i turned here for some help.

any and all is appreciated!

[menotu]

Resize your partition in Windows first, then create a new linux Ext4 partition using GParted LiveCD (or similar type software)

After you have your partition(s) setup properly, then use the PCLinuxOS LiveCD and point the installer to the new "clean" partitions.

BTW, you don't need to login as root to install PCLinuxOS - just use the guest account.

Remember, Windows and Linux use completely different filesystems. And when drives are being formatted the drive shouldn't be mounted (active / in use) otherwise problems WILL occur.

Although drives can be setup using the PCLinuxOS LiveCD it can often be easier to have your partitions "ready and waiting" for the install to take place (IMHO that is good advice for whatever OS your installing)

[kergin]

ok....resized my partition in windows using easeus master partition, and left 10 gb for linux.  downloaded gparted livecd and used it to format the allocated space in ext4 as the primary (it was primary or extended, i think?) for linux.

then rebooted and popped in the pclinuxos livecd and it loaded as per normal into the guest acct.  started the install, selected to use the 10 gb as the install location for linux, it started to install and had some screen with a "cd ~ pc" pic and the blue bar was scrolling along....at about 25% (it only took about one minute to get there) the screen went totally blank........no response, had to power down again.  i started the pclos cd up again, it tried installing again, and the same result at about the same point.

ideas?

 

[menotu]

If you haven't already done so it may be wise to do an md5sum and/or CD media check just to make sure your download was good and that the disk burn was okay.

Its often suggested to burn at a fairly slow speed to make sure no glitches occur.

What graphics card are you running? How much memory does your system have?

Edit: I would also suggest you backup any data you want to keep from your Windows partition.

[kergin]

already backed up windows 

intel 82845g graphics controller is about all i can come up with.

memory?  it's got 1 gb of ram, a 2.4 ghz processor, and a 40 gb hard drive.

i burnt it at the slowest speed it would allow......had one too many music cds turn out sketchy from doing it to fast.  thanks for the tip, though!  i'll try and re-d/l it and reburn and try from a second disc........

[menotu]

Memory looks fine.

Try an md5sum check as well (to cover all bases  )

Hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs 

From command line:

md5sum /dev/cdrom

Note, the space at the end of sum and /

[kergin]

did a media check from the "start up" menu of the pclos livecdand it "Passed"

then when i opened the konsole after it reloaded, this is what i got -

[guest@localhost guest]$ md5sum /dev/cdrom
md5sum: /dev/cdrom: Input/output error
[guest@localhost guest]$

does that tell you anything?

i'm going to re-download the .iso and try again, maybe from a different mirror?

[DuaneF]

Any new ideas on this problem? I'm having the same issue - downloaded twice from different mirrors, have md5'd the isos, and the disks "pass" the media check from the grub screen. The live CD runs fine, but I've now tried to install on three different systems, with the same results reported by the OP. The display suddenly goes black during the "installing" phase, then the two lines of text starting with "acpid:" appear in the upper left corner. HD activity seems to go on for a while thereafter, and the live CD distro seems to continue running.

[genomega]

Have you tried installing with the -> no acpid option or by using vesa driver?

[DuaneF]

Have you tried installing with the -> no acpid option or by using vesa driver?

No and yes. I'll give the noacpid option a try. Using the vesa option was a disaster. The display was at a resolution of something like 360x480, so the buttons on the graphic installer were off the screen. When I tried to change the resolution, the live CD crashed entirely.

[CaptainSarcastic]

I'd suggest doing an end run around the CD altogether and use Unetbootin to load and install from.  I've used it for the majority of installs I've done this year, and it also has the advantage of being faster than CD (assuming USB 2.0).  You can run it from Windows, put the PCLOS .ISO on a thumb drive, and go from there.

It's pretty straightforward to use:

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

[menotu]

I'd suggest doing an end run around the CD altogether and use Unetbootin to load and install from.  I've used it for the majority of installs I've done this year, and it also has the advantage of being faster than CD (assuming USB 2.0).  You can run it from Windows, put the PCLOS .ISO on a thumb drive, and go from there.

It's pretty straightforward to use:

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Yup, that's worth giving a whirl - lets hope the 7yr old PC can boot from USB

[pags]

Have you tried installing with the -> no acpid option or by using vesa driver?

No and yes. I'll give the noacpid option a try. Using the vesa option was a disaster. The display was at a resolution of something like 360x480, so the buttons on the graphic installer were off the screen. When I tried to change the resolution, the live CD crashed entirely.

VESA can't allocate memory for the video card from main memory, as the Intel driver can.  Is there any option in the BIOS about allocating Video Memory?  If there is, select the largest amount possible, and try VESA mode again.

Just a suggestion, but if you can get installed in VESA mode and then update, then you'll have the latest drivers available when you re-configured your video to use the Intel drivers (you could also get a newer kernel, which may help with the ACPI issues, also).

[jakesdad]

I had a motherboard with a NVidia 6100SE onboard video. It would only boot using Safeboot, not VESA or normal  on the LiveCD. After the install it used the proper NVidia driver and worked great.

[DLWood]

I'm having the same (or similar) problem trying to install PCLOS 2010.07kde to a Compaq desktop with the intel 82845g graphics controller.  It will boot from the live CD every time so far.

Once, I even installed the whole system.  I updated from Synaptic, but after downloading 702MB, it gave the blank screen while updating the packages.

Several times, the screen will go blank while installing.

Booting into safe mode and trying XFdrake won't find any drivers which work....I've tried intel 810 and later, 810, vesa, etc......nothing works.

I'm thinking it's the intel 82845g that's the problem, but I'm not seeing a ton of complaints on this forum about it, so who knows.

I'd sure like to put PCLOS 2010kde on this computer as a dual boot before I give it away, but it's not looking good at this point.

Bummer!!!