[Solved] Linuxlite fails to install on laptop!

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sinergy

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Hi,
yesterday night I tried to instal Linuxlite on a 32-bit laptop, (Acer Travelmate 4020, with Intel pentium M, and 2Gb ram) which had alredy Ubuntu 12.04 installed. I just wanted to get rid of Ubuntu because the machine was going really slow and install a lighter linux distribution. Also for some reason this ubuntu couldn't (can't actually still) connect to internet because, both airplane mode is on and wireless is disabled and found no way (also looking at other forums/searching for aswers in the internet) to reverse those, also the Bios doesn't give any hint that there is any such switch there that can be modified)
So I went for the flash drive install, and when it seemed that the installation was almost complete it just failed, but could not get any log of sorts about what had happened and wonder what might have caused this. The linuxlite release that I used was: Linuxlite 3.8 the latest release for 32-bit systems
Any suggestions on how to continue? (maybe trying an even older release, or trying some other distribution/flavor?)
 


Did you check the integrity of the .iso file before you made it bootable on your flash drive?
 
Well I just checked that the downloaded version had the same size as before downloading.... are there other checks that might be needed?
 
sinergy said:
Well I just checked that the downloaded version had the same size as before downloading.... are there other checks that might be needed?
Click to expand...
Go to the page that you downloaded Linux Lite and look for the MD5sum on the SHAsum.
If the signatures don't match than the .iso could be corrupt.

How to verify downloaded ISO images

This article contains information about checking the integrity of the downloaded ISO image before burning it to a media.
support.citrix.com support.citrix.com
 
Alexzee said:
Go to the page that you downloaded Linux Lite and look for the MD5sum on the SHAsum.
If the signatures don't match than the .iso could be corrupt.

How to verify downloaded ISO images

This article contains information about checking the integrity of the downloaded ISO image before burning it to a media.
support.citrix.com support.citrix.com
Click to expand...
Thanks! I just checked it and the returned string is exactly the same as that of the Md5sum in the linux site where I downloaded
 
Mine doesn't have Wi-Fi [or USB boot] so I installed it dry from a CD-r, but that should not make any différance, it's old enough that the drivers for the Wi-Fi should be in the kernel, [is yours a Broadcom Wi-Fi?] i can take a look at mine later this evening
 
sinergy said:
Hi,
yesterday night I tried to instal Linuxlite on a 32-bit laptop, (Acer Travelmate 4020, with Intel pentium M, and 2Gb ram) which had alredy Ubuntu 12.04 installed. I just wanted to get rid of Ubuntu because the machine was going really slow and install a lighter linux distribution. Also for some reason this ubuntu couldn't (can't actually still) connect to internet because, both airplane mode is on and wireless is disabled and found no way (also looking at other forums/searching for aswers in the internet) to reverse those, also the Bios doesn't give any hint that there is any such switch there that can be modified)
So I went for the flash drive install, and when it seemed that the installation was almost complete it just failed, but could not get any log of sorts about what had happened and wonder what might have caused this. The linuxlite release that I used was: Linuxlite 3.8 the latest release for 32-bit systems
Any suggestions on how to continue? (maybe trying an even older release, or trying some other distribution/flavor?)
Click to expand...
Puppy OS might be worth a shot depending on what you need to do. Also, have you tried to reinstall yet.
 
DexTheDog said:
Puppy OS might be worth a shot depending on what you need to do. Also, have you tried to reinstall yet.
Click to expand...
yeah, I was considering trying another distro as well and yes, to reinstall just to see if it was a temporary gltch of sorts
 
brickwizard said:
Mine doesn't have Wi-Fi [or USB boot] so I installed it dry from a CD-r, but that should not make any différance, it's old enough that the drivers for the Wi-Fi should be in the kernel, [is yours a Broadcom Wi-Fi?] i can take a look at mine later this evening
Click to expand...
Here it says: Wireless LAN Driver Ambit 2.10.03.2004 or this Wireless LAN Driver 9.0.1.9 (by Acer)
 
Please can you run inxi -N and post back
 
sinergy said:
Thanks! I just checked it and the returned string is exactly the same as that of the Md5sum in the linux site where I downloaded
Click to expand...
You're welcome-
 
brickwizard said:
Mine doesn't have Wi-Fi [or USB boot] so I installed it dry from a CD-r, but that should not make any différance, it's old enough that the drivers for the Wi-Fi should be in the kernel, [is yours a Broadcom Wi-Fi?] i can take a look at mine later this evening
Click to expand...
Hi @brickwizard .... something must have happened during the install last night. Right now the laptop isn't any longer receptive to the usb drive and the hard disk has been erased, so no ubutu to come back to.
The CDROm drive doesn't open for some reason (well the plastic cover doesn't exist any longer) and what's behind is exposed and can't see any button to push to provoke extraction, any idea on how could I have the laptop to eject the cdrom drive?
 
You're really pushing me now… think… Acer laptop optical drive, although the plastic is missing, do you still have the red diode [that flashes in use]? If so, 5 mm to the right of that should be a Microswitch switch power on and gently push the microswitch [use something non-metallic], Harder to find without the cover is the pin switch which again is on the right of the diode by aprox 10mm and about 5 mm inside, if you can find this it will open without power. As there is no case, a wood cocktail stick/tooth pick would be best to operate this.

Got my old travel mate out and if you have a Broadcom 43** Wi-Fi- then the drivers are there they just need installing.
 
brickwizard said:
You're really pushing me now… think… Acer laptop optical drive, although the plastic is missing, do you still have the red diode [that flashes in use]? If so, 5 mm to the right of that should be a Microswitch switch power on and gently push the microswitch [use something non-metallic], Harder to find without the cover is the pin switch which again is on the right of the diode by aprox 10mm and about 5 mm inside, if you can find this it will open without power. As there is no case, a wood cocktail stick/tooth pick would be best to operate this.

Got my old travel mate out and if you have a Broadcom 43** Wi-Fi- then the drivers are there they just need installing.
Click to expand...
Ok I managed to open it! wheew....Now I need to find someone who can burn a cdrom....not easy.
Still can't understand why now the USB drive unit is not recognized any longer....
Right now when the laptop is switched on I can only see a black screen with a blinking cursos at the very top left corner of the screen. However, when I last turned it on again after a few hours, the (second I guess) thing it did was to search for some Broadcom drivers, a loop of sorts, since it could not find them and started over. After I switched off and on again it didn't do it and started with the blinking cursor ....
But wait....Breaking News! :) .... I managed to make the laptop boot again from the USB drive. I entred the bios again to check if the boot order was correct. I had "Floppy" as the first type of drive to be used (which worked the first time over but now it wasn't any longer) so I changed for Hard drive, which had 2 suboptions, one of them was my usb drive! I put this on top, saved and rebooted and now the linuxlite menu was visible again!

Now that I started the installation again, the installer informs me that linux lite was already installed, and asks me whether I want to install Linux beside Linux lite....weird, or at least don't understand. I thought that the usb drive would let me install only linux lite, so why does it ask to install linux now?? (as a different system I reckon) I chose not to and delete what was there and do a clean install again ...And yes! Eventually it has installed. I was almost going to throw the laptop to the reclying station down the road.....
Thank you all for your advice!!! Especially @brickwizard
 
Only problem is now.... linux doesn't find an internet connection! A message says that the computer isn't connected to internet.
Also I see that it doesn't detect the available networks, so I guess the wifi system is not currently active for some reason.
When I click on the icon on the bottom right, just before the loud speaker icon, a pop up menu appears, showing that
both 'Enable networking' & 'Enable wifi' options are checked. .... hum..
There is an entry named; 'Wifi networks' which appears greyed out and another one named: 'Wifi disabled' also greyed out
Any advice on how to activate it?

By the way: I run the command inxi -N and the result is:
Card 1: Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection driver: ipw2200
Card 2: Broadcom BCM4401 100Base-T driver: b44
 
Last edited:
sinergy said:
By the way: I run the command inxi -N and the result is:
Card 1: Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection driver: ipw2200
Card 2: Broadcom BCM4401 100Base-T driver: b44
Click to expand...
Good morning, well done [so far] your inxi shows both drivers are installed and so the Wi-Fi should be active, my only thought is there may be a hard block on it, on your laptop will be either a dedicated switch for the Wi-Fi to switch it on/off [some call it airline mode] or it could be on one of your F keys, or even a combination of keys, find and switch on and hope it works.
 
G'day all :)

Just a heads up - End of life for Linux Lite 3.8 (and all of the 3.x series) was 1 April 2021, so there is no support for this.

Better think about another distro.

Cheers

Wizard
 
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