win xp

gaming_guy

mikey72 wrote: »

I thought I'd give linux a go.
1100 Duron processor, 256 mb memory, been running 98 with no problems, won't boot on ubuntu, and won't boot on puppylinux. (kernel panic, not syncing, attempted to kill init)
I'll give xubuntu a go now.
But windows is still winning.

if ubuntu doesn't work, then xubuntu (and other variants) wont as they all use ubuntu as the base OS.

Debian and Damn Small Linux might be worth a try.

mikey72

gaming_guy wrote: »

if ubuntu doesn't work, then xubuntu (and other variants) wont as they all use ubuntu as the base OS.

Debian and Damn Small Linux might be worth a try.

xubuntu is supposed to be ok with less memory. But having said that, the downloads aren't working at the moment, they keep crashing halfway through. On my third mirror site now.

gaming_guy

mikey72 wrote: »

xubuntu is supposed to be ok with less memory. But having said that, the downloads aren't working at the moment, they keep crashing halfway through. On my third mirror site now.

by won't boot ubuntu, do you mean kernel panic or just no graphical display (ie just like the command prompt)?

mikey72

I get the little symbol for a while, then everything stops and goes black, hitting the "enter" key I get a repeat of
stdin: I/O error halfway down the monitor
Busybox built in shell (ash)
Enter help for a list of commands
(initranfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system
(initranfs)

gaming_guy

try booting off the CD and after you select the language, press f6 and play about with the options there (space to select, esc to exit).

i have an old laptop that doesn't like the ACPI option enabled and fails to boot the live cd with it installed.

mikey72

Xunbuntu fails as well, buffer I/O errors.
F6 doesn't make any difference.
Looks like windows is the winner.

Donnie

mikey72 wrote: »

I thought I'd give linux a go.
1100 Duron processor, 256 mb memory, been running 98 with no problems, won't boot on ubuntu, and won't boot on puppylinux. (kernel panic, not syncing, attempted to kill init)
I'll give xubuntu a go now.
But windows is still winning.

Definitely something wrong there.
I had Xubuntu running on exactly the same CPU and RAM. Puppy Linux runs quickly on such a system. Xubuntu less so, but definitely installs and runs.

Do your CDs work on your other machines as Live CDs?

spud17

I'm pretty sure that there is a BIOS cutoff date of, IIRC 2000, for Ubuntu and its variants.

I've run into similar problems before.

OP has had Win98 running, so suggests old BIOS.

But I would have expected Puppy to run.

Just had a very quick look and found this thread, although there are better ones around.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=384619

mikey72

Well, I've reset the bios to boot from the hard drive, and windows will only boot in safe mode, it locks in normal mode. So maybe the pc has decided to commit suicide, hopefully not at the thought of Linux.
Maybe it's the motherboard or the processor, memory test in Ubuntu ckecks ok.

Donnie

mikey72 wrote: »

Well, I've reset the bios to boot from the hard drive, and windows will only boot in safe mode, it locks in normal mode. So maybe the pc has decided to commit suicide, hopefully not at the thought of Linux.
Maybe it's the motherboard or the processor, memory test in Ubuntu ckecks ok.

Don't trust the memory tests.... I did the same, but my memory was kaput. Since the live CD runs in memory, it stands to reason that if it doesn't work there may well be a problem with the RAM...though not necessarily so.