What am I doing wrong?

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Toshmarple

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Over the years I have installed linux on many computers, both laptops and desktops. In fact my every day pc is my daughter's old Dell whic runs Mint flawlessly but it is a VERY heavy laptop so I decided to buy a lightweight netbok and, as my daughter has a Lenovo C340 ideapad, I decided to get one for myself after testing Mint on a live USB.

I bought a nearly new C340 and that is when it all went wrong! The ideapad runs the live version of Mint but will not fully install it, just when I think all is well (about 75% complete) the installation crashes. I have tried several times with tweaks to the BIOS settings and different installs, all to no avail. So, I decided to try alternative OS's, none work and some do better than others but none will fully install. This resulted in me concluding that it must be me doing something wrong so I decided to let one installation do it's own thing. That did not succeed and in fact made things worse because in the process of getting where I am today, myself and the OS that is, wiped the drive of W10 along with it's two associated partitions.

With a surprisingly phylosophical attitude, I saw this as a positve; at least I could start with a clean SSD! So, armed with a live USB and Gparted I Cleaned the SSD, reformatted it for Linux and started again. No change, regardless of combo no success so now I'm asking you guys for HELP please as I really have run out of ideas.

Can someone PLEASE help, bfn, Tosh
 


First of all, Enter into the BIOS and open the Exit Menu.
Set OS Optimized Defaults as Other OS or go to the Boot tab and set the Boot Mode to Legacy Support, then set USB Boot to Enabled.
Press F9 (Fn+F9) to Load Default Settings, then press F10 (Fn+F10) to save the BIOS.
Plugin the bootable USB Stick.
Restart PC, press F12 (Fn+F12) to boot from USB disk.
 
something that most people ignore is the physical health of the system. Before doing the next install try S.M.A.R.T. and do an extended test (about 2 hours) on the system drive. You should be able to run the disk utility with smart in it from the live USB, if anything that says error on it has a number more than zero, you may want to replace it. seek errors and read errors cause many problems such as inability to install and unexplained slow downs and crashes. These problem are almost unnoticed by you and I. Other errors such as ECC and CRC errors are serious. Rule out the easy physical stuff before you look for software and setting issues. May save you alot of time.
 
Toshmarple said:
Over the years I have installed linux on many computers, both laptops and desktops. In fact my every day pc is my daughter's old Dell whic runs Mint flawlessly but it is a VERY heavy laptop so I decided to buy a lightweight netbok and, as my daughter has a Lenovo C340 ideapad, I decided to get one for myself after testing Mint on a live USB.

I bought a nearly new C340 and that is when it all went wrong! The ideapad runs the live version of Mint but will not fully install it, just when I think all is well (about 75% complete) the installation crashes. I have tried several times with tweaks to the BIOS settings and different installs, all to no avail. So, I decided to try alternative OS's, none work and some do better than others but none will fully install. This resulted in me concluding that it must be me doing something wrong so I decided to let one installation do it's own thing. That did not succeed and in fact made things worse because in the process of getting where I am today, myself and the OS that is, wiped the drive of W10 along with it's two associated partitions.

With a surprisingly phylosophical attitude, I saw this as a positve; at least I could start with a clean SSD! So, armed with a live USB and Gparted I Cleaned the SSD, reformatted it for Linux and started again. No change, regardless of combo no success so now I'm asking you guys for HELP please as I really have run out of ideas.

Can someone PLEASE help, bfn, Tosh
Click to expand...
Evidently, it's a chromebook that comes with the particular issues associated with that. Here's some info with links that may be useful:
https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/t5qx0x/can_lenovo_chromebook_c34011_run_linux
Maybe here as well: https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/faqs/operating-systems/install-linux-chromebook/
 
osprey said:
Evidently, it's a chromebook that comes with the particular issues associated with that. Here's some info with links that may be useful:
https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/t5qx0x/can_lenovo_chromebook_c34011_run_linux
Click to expand...
oh damn, I was not aware it was a chromebook, why do they make these things or more on, why do people still buy these POS's. We need to educate people so they do not purchase land fill fodder.

Let me change my previous answer, what you did wrong is you purchased a chromebook
 
Yes we love chromebooks...NOT.
to install Linux to chrome books you have to enter developer mode, on newer ones this may just mean finding and altering the settings in the BIOS, on older ones it may mean stripping down to find a toggle switch on the mother board, and on some others it's a case of removing an earthing screw, and then there are some of the cheaper ones that just do not have the facility to be changed.
Chromebooks are budget machines, they are not built with longevity [the average life span is around 4 years before they cannot have their OS upgraded].and with poor resources a lightweight Linux would be best, look at Bunson Labs, Elementary Linux, Lubuntu, and Void Linux.
 
Thank you for your replies guys.

To start with the C340 is not a chromebook it had W10 on it but because I hate windows (I have not used it for a decade or more) but rather Linux in one flavour or another that is until now. So I wanted to get Mint on it but without success, hence these postings,

Tried what you said and checked the disc, all is seemingly well but don't know how to upgrade the BIOS from a USB stick which maybe worth a try.

Last attemt said: "/target/usr/share/cups/data/form_english.pdf" and offered the option to skip it so I did and the installation continued for a while until about 80% installed. It then came up with: "The installation encountered an error copying files to the hard disk [error 5] input/output error" and crashed.

I got this far on a previous attempt at installing so I decided to try using my spare portable hard drive, the Dell and the live Mint stick. That installation worked and when I plugged the drive into my old Dell it ran, quite slowly, I guess due to the age of the HDD (twenty years or more). However it would not run on the C340, it booted but stalled.

All very dissappointing, don't know what to do next.
 
@Toshmarple wrote:
Code: 
To start with the C340 is not a chromebook
I'm sorry about the confusion from post #4. It happened because Lenovo has the C340 model number in both a standard and chromebook model I now see upon further investigation. Sorry to have misled @APTI as well.

There may be some more users of this machine on the lenovo linux forum who may have some suggestions.
 
The Ideal pad for windows has some peculiarities the following are some of them..

Select MRB partition from BIOS
if using Bios then use NTFS file system, if using UEFI choose Fats 32
make sure you enable both legacy support and USB first boot in the bios

boot the usb [let it do its thing] then turn off machine insert usb and switch on to get the installation page
 
Hi best thing you can do to help us help you is boot to the live mint desktop and go to a terminal and type
Code: 
inxi -Fxxzr
And post the output back here.
 
Toshmarple said:
Thank you for your replies guys.

To start with the C340 is not a chromebook it had W10 on it but because I hate windows (I have not used it for a decade or more) but rather Linux in one flavour or another that is until now. So I wanted to get Mint on it but without success, hence these postings,

Tried what you said and checked the disc, all is seemingly well but don't know how to upgrade the BIOS from a USB stick which maybe worth a try.

Last attemt said: "/target/usr/share/cups/data/form_english.pdf" and offered the option to skip it so I did and the installation continued for a while until about 80% installed. It then came up with: "The installation encountered an error copying files to the hard disk [error 5] input/output error" and crashed.

I got this far on a previous attempt at installing so I decided to try using my spare portable hard drive, the Dell and the live Mint stick. That installation worked and when I plugged the drive into my old Dell it ran, quite slowly, I guess due to the age of the HDD (twenty years or more). However it would not run on the C340, it booted but stalled.

All very dissappointing, don't know what to do next.
Click to expand...
so not a chromebook, well the error 5 sounds to me like a hard drive issue. how did you check the drive? did you use S.M.A.R.T.? or something else? you need to use SMART on it not a windows utility. SMART will find things that chkdsk, format and others do not.
 
Been on the Lenovo Linux Support site and it's not good news! The C340 model is not even listed, it seems as if it does not exist so I might just have to write it off to a bad experience and go buy a certified one.
 
@Toshmarple

dont give up yet, its had windows 8.1 or higher on it so just make sure you have disabled windows quick start and windows secure boot in the bios, be aware of what i have said 2 post up from here.
Now I will give you a link, this should work for most Ubuntu based distribution [Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint 21, LX LE, Zorin etc] I do not expect it to work for Kali.Pop and a few others that are heavenly edited

www.infofuge.com

How To Install Ubuntu on LENOVO IDEAPAD C340? - infofuge

Here is How to install Ubuntu 18.04 on Lenovo IDEAPAD C340 by just following a few steps you can try or install this operating system
www.infofuge.com www.infofuge.com

or for Debian based distros [mint LMDE,Parrot,MX etc]

InstallingDebianOn/Lenovo/ideapad 340 (buster) - Debian Wiki

How to install Debian/Linux on a XXXXX
wiki.debian.org wiki.debian.org

BUT YOU MUST TAKE YOUR TIME, be methodical and make sure you follow each step carefully
 
Brickwizard said:
@Toshmarple

dont give up yet, its had windows 8.1 or higher on it so just make sure you have disabled windows quick start and windows secure boot in the bios, be aware of what i have said 2 post up from here.
Now I will give you a link, this should work for most Ubuntu based distribution [Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint 21, LX LE, Zorin etc] I do not expect it to work for Kali.Pop and a few others that are heavenly edited

www.infofuge.com

How To Install Ubuntu on LENOVO IDEAPAD C340? - infofuge

Here is How to install Ubuntu 18.04 on Lenovo IDEAPAD C340 by just following a few steps you can try or install this operating system
www.infofuge.com www.infofuge.com

or for Debian based distros [mint LMDE,Parrot,MX etc]

InstallingDebianOn/Lenovo/ideapad 340 (buster) - Debian Wiki

How to install Debian/Linux on a XXXXX
wiki.debian.org wiki.debian.org

BUT YOU MUST TAKE YOUR TIME, be methodical and make sure you follow each step carefully
Click to expand...



Great post, @Brickwizard
Thanks for those links. They are very informative.
TAKE YOUR TIME is something we all have to learn when coming from Win.
OG
TC
 
charlie.corder said:
Thanks for those links. They are very informative.
Click to expand...
They are for his particular machine although a W8 machine it is based on the chromebook parts bin , so has some of its own peculiarities
 
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