Hey everyone,

I just finished building a new box with the following specs:
- Intel core 2 Duo
- EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR Socket T (LGA 775) NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard
- 2 Gig Ram, 300 Gig hard drive, CD/DVD-RW and video card.

Other than the chip & motherboard, nothing fancy at all. I've tried installing Ubuntu version 6.06, 6.10 and Feisty Fawn. All three attempts have failed at different stages of the install. I've tried numerous install options: NOAPIC, generic IDE, PS2 keyboard instead of USB keyboard, etc.

Any ideas? I really, -really- don't want to have to buy a copy of Windows, but I'm running out of patience trying to get Linux installed on this configuration. Perhaps my hardware is too new for Linux? Maybe I should use Windows for now and switch to Linux sometime in '07 when a compatible distro comes available?

Thanks!
-Michael

Welcome to LQ. It would be helpful if you provide more detail about where in the process the installation failed, and/or any relevant error messages.

Just as a basic guess, do you have disk space available to install Linux into? In other words, I see you have a 300G drive, but if all the space has already been allocated to Windows or others in use, that would be an obvious issue. Have you tried using the "cfdisk" or "fdisk" command to examine or repartition your drive?

This is the first install of an operating system; I have not previously installed windows.

When I try to install Feisty Fawn, I get to the point (step 2 of 6) where I can select my city and change the system time. Whenever I try to change the time, it hangs.

If I choose to not change the city/time, then I can get to the next step: the keyboard layout step (step 3 of 6). Once I click on forward the screen freaks out. I get a screen full of white noise and the install hangs.

If I try to install 6.06 or 6.10, I do not even make it this far.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Michael

Hey,


I see your problem and feel your pain, but it should be possible to install this. My first question to this is, do you absolutly need to install that distro of linux?

Seccond i have installed linux on more then 1 core 2 duo using slackware with out any problems.

How far do you make it in Ubuntu?

A few suggestions (if possible):

- Ubuntu should be able to boot like a LiveCD before you install, IIRC. Does this happen?
- If Ubuntu doesn't boot, try a LiveCD like Knoppix.
- I've had a similar issue with erratic install problems being a bad IDE cable. Try changing (unlikely the problem).
- Try another recent distribution, like Fedora Core 6. You may also want to try a "text" install of Fedora using some of the various boot options.

- May be that the 680i is so new that some distros can't handle it all the way yet. See: http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?s...&mode=threaded

or

http://www.phoronix.net/forums/showthread.php?t=359

You can likely definately *make it work* - but it's probably a matter of how much time/effort you want to put into it. I think there's a generic nVidia driver out there, if you can trick Ubuntu into seeing that during the install - you may have some luck.

If you specifically want Ubuntu on your system why not post your question on the Ubuntu forum? They have nice folks there as well who I'm sure would be willing to help. Your chances are probably better that someone there has tried to do exactly what you're doing (and encountered the same issues).

I'm not married to the idea of installing Ubuntu; I just wanted to give it a solid try first. What other distros have people had success with?

To be more specific about my problem, the most luck I've had is with Feisty Fawn. After step 3 where you specify the type of keyboard, my screen just freaks out and the install hangs.

I can successfully boot from the LiveCD. I realize now that I have not updated my BIOS, so I should probably do that first thing.

Thanks for giving me hope that I don't have to abandon Linux. Instead, this is giving me the change to learn more about the workings of Linux, which is a good (though frustrating) thing.

-Michael

I recently installed Freespire on a friend's PC (IBM PIII) after trying Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS. Freespire was the only one of the three that would install without hanging during the install process. Linux distro's vary widely in hardware compatiblity.

I've also had success with Fedora where RedHat (CentOS) failed.

These days all major distro's are good however. Weak distro's don't survive at the top.

It looks like ffedora core 6 will work. Check the evga linux forum.

http://www.evga.com/community/messag...sp?FORUM_ID=13

I would still like to know how the sound is on this board and if it works under linux

I recently tested Suse, Fedora Core 6 and Mandriva 2007 on similar hardware.
Fedors 6 and Mandriva only had to edit the network connection
[ I use static ip, not the default dhcp ] and everything worked out of the box.

Suse locked up at the boot after install.

I would check that any distro you are planning on installing is x86_64 so it will run both 32bit and 64 bit.
[ Suse 10.1 is 32 bit only on the dvd I have, hense the lockup booting a dual core 64 bit system with it. ]

Hi! I've got similar problem. I've got laptop with Core Duo (only). But I can't install a lot of distros, too, even usinf failsafe, acpi=off and so on...

Ubuntu 6.06, Arch Linux 0.8 and DreamLinux 2.1, Gentoo 2006.1 work fine
Ubuntu 6.10, Ubuntu 7.04, OpenSuse 10.2, DreamLinux 2.2 ME doesn't work at all...

In fact for example I started Ubuntu 7.04 with succes, but after going to Gnome everything freezes and I have to hard-reset the laptop...