Trying to load Cinammon mint on Dimension 8300 shows first small grey retangle with gibberish in the upper left hand corner (looks like the same messages you normally get with a kernal loaded but gibberish) then suddenly wonderful picture saying complete logging in in 30 secs hangs for about 10 seconds until 29 seconds shows up. It repeates the 10 seconds delay for each countdown until finally logs in automatically (since I am using a live CD) but then from perfect picture and text it changes to complete grey background and very small grey task bar along the bottom.
Anyone else seen this.

P.S. Same live CD works perfectly on my home built machine.

I think it is a hardware issue with the Dimension 8300. It has 1 GB of memory.

is this a very OLD 32 bit dell that has Windows XP on it ?
if so the 64 bit mint will not install

I tried to install the 32 bit not 64 bit Cinnamon. The issue seems to be the GeForce4 NVIDIA graphics card. I have had some success with XFCE desktop install but it is not utilizing the graphics card. I tried installing an old NVIDI driver for the GeForce4 but the shell script stops working with an error message about headers that I don't remember.
If anyone knows how to modify the kernel 3.16.0-38 generic #52-14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP to add the NVIDIA driver. I would greatly appreciate the knowledge.
Thanks.

BAD NEWS

you will basically NOT get the current mint to run with that antique card
it uses the 96 driver
but the 96 driver is UNSUPPORTED
and REQUIRES the OLD!!! xorg 1.12 or 1.13 version

you NEED to use a LEGACY support Operating system
for your 14 YEAR OLD graphics card


i have a Gforce2 on a old box
and use Scientific Linux 6.7 BUT!!!!!! i have to DOWNGRADE!!!! XORG to the OLD and UNSUPPORTED version in 6.3

RHEL 5.11 or CentOS 5.11 WILL support that antique Gforce4 card

or

remove the card and do not use ANY 3d at all

i know for a fact the RHEL 5.11 ( or Cent) will run on that card
Debian 7.8 will be to new
the old and unsupported debain 6 will run on that card

Thanks, I'll have to move to something else. I have 3 of the Dimension 8300's given to me to possibly use with tutoring school kids.

theopope, according to this page those dell towers have NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200.
not sure if this is the same card you & john vv talk about.

in any case, it doesn't look like it has any additional onboard graphics.

is it possible to physically remove that card and replace it with a different one?
you can get very simple nvidia cards (new) for about 20, maybe even less.

if that is not an option, imho debian 6 (squeeze) is the best alternative to install, e.g. this one:
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ar...-i386-CD-1.iso