Acer eMachines EZ1601all-in-one desktop

gordonngai · 11-10-2009, 11:41 PM

Hi,
Have anyone been able to install any Linux system in the Acer EZ1601? I have try many distro all return error message except Ubuntu 9.10 live CD. It works perfectly under live CD environment with auto detection of the wifi card. However after dual XP installation (without any error message), when I select Ubuntu, it comes back with the error message "initrd file too big".
I felt that if it can run a live CD, there must be a way to install a linux system. I don't like the feeling that a manufactuer can somehow produce a computer that can only run Microsoft OS. Can anyone help to break this? Thanks.
Regards,
Gordon

jstephens84 · 11-11-2009, 07:55 AM

try booting your from cd again. Once you get to a desktop open up a terminal and mount root.

Code:

sudo mkdir /mnt/root
sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sda1 /mnt/root
ls -alh /boot

sub ext4 for your filesystem if you did not take the defaults. post the size of your initrd file. also can you tell if it has a .gz at the end?

gordonngai · 11-12-2009, 12:44 AM

drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 60 2009-10-28 21:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 32 root root 300 2009-11-12 18:30 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 615K 2009-10-16 18:03 abi-2.6.31-14-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 109K 2009-10-16 18:03 config-2.6.31-14-generic
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 2009-11-12 18:32 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 126K 2009-10-23 16:11 memtest86+.bin
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.6M 2009-10-16 18:03 System.map-2.6.31-14-generic
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.2K 2009-10-16 18:06 vmcoreinfo-2.6.31-14-generic

My ext4 is not in sda1 but in sda5 within the extended partition sda4.
When I run the live CD, file manager does not reconize the extended partition. Gpart can identify it. When I go to the file system and mnt and then root. I can find a file call initrd.img. The property says:
name : initrd.img
Type : link to Gzip archive (application/x-gzip)
Link target: boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-14-generic
size : 7.3MB

What should I do next?

gordonngai · 11-18-2009, 03:49 PM

I finally fix the problem by going to BIOS to change the system ram setting. The default "enable" will turn off the system Ram which causes the problem. Once you change it to "disable" everything works fine.