Okay, I am going to load some of those screen shots right now. The error messages are different depending on which distro I try to run. Mandriva and Mint mostly complained about squashfs errors and spawned them in mass until cutting it off and becoming entirely non-responsive. I don't have pictures of that yet, but it is pretty much exactly how I described. It alternated between 3 different errors, something about a "bread error" and squashfs errors about "sbin/getty/blah blah blah... file not found".

However, Ubuntu loads normal until the part where it goes through a check list of tasks to load the kernel saying "ok" next to each one, then gets to loading drivers, hesitates, does NOT say "ok" and spits back the "abnormal exit" errors you are about to see along with all the other gibberish.

Here they are:
http://s952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/dreamscaper555/

It is really rather random that this desktop doesn't work with linux. I have loaded it onto at least 4 other Desktops with almost no issues whatsoever. Everything autodetected like a charm, even the printers. My laptop on the other hand was very tricky. I had to install alsa utils to get the sound to work, port a windows driver over to linux for my wireless card to work, and the onboard vid card required a proprietary driver that had to be downloaded as well. As bad as all that was, it was nothing compared to this. I have been at it for four days and most people when I explain it just scratch their heads. I am glad I tried this forum or I would be totally S.O.L.

So thanks for the help!

Wow.. those pictures are crazy! I've never seen something like it, and the really crummy thing is, none of the errors really say anything at all about ACPI or hardware at all; it's all about not being able to do (or use) tools, code, scripts, etc., which are built into the CD.

To expand upon that: the squashfs errors kinda make sense, relative to my above statements; if the Squashfs filesystem was not being properly initiated (established) then:

1) the OS would not be able to expand itself INTO that filesystem, and proceed from there.
2) Instead of #1 working, it seems to be *thinking* that it has created the filesystem, then *trying to extract itself* into the filesystem (which isn't there)...
3) and finally, it's trying to continue to execute its remaining boot sequence scripts & binaries, but they aren't anywhere to be executed FROM.

In simple terms: The OS & related software isn't being extracted anywhere successfully, so when it tries to continue, there's nothing to continue with. Then it goes to hell in a basket.

Please tell us again, which version of Ubuntu do you have? I only have ONE version here, and it's like 6.xx or 7.xx so this might be irrelevant, but I'd be willing to boot the LiveCD and examine what options there are there for booting safely, to see if there's anything I believe might help. It isn't looking promising though (because you probably have already tried everything there is in there, and also because my Ubuntu is rather older than yours).

And did you try disabling the VGA in the BIOS?? And while you're at it, disable EVERYTHING in the BIOS except what you absolutely need, and that which cannot be disabled, and try again.

I also suggest taking a long browse through the file "kernel-parameters.txt" which is in the /Documentation folder of any kernel source archive, and see if there's any parameters in there that might help in this case.

PS - Also, there's no reason at this point in time, to NOT update your BIOS. The latest one I noticed on the 'net was something like 4.01 or so, so if yours is older, updating it is a good idea.

Sasha

You could try installing debian instead of ubuntu. I know debian lenny is more stable than ubuntu (or so that's the theory) It just doesn't have as much of the bleeding edge working for hardware... (that could be established later) right now I just want to see if we can get any linux working or installed. Anything running is a plus

Yes, another vote from me on that.

Also, something that is NOT a live CD might be an idea; that would move us away from the weirdness of squashfs and that sort of thing.

I'd suggest something that's designed to INSTALL, but not to be run live..

Sasha


PS - If I recall correctly, someone managed to get SuSE installed on one of these machines.

Okay, I just updated the bios. Now both the live cd and especially the HDD install boot faster. The hang time for the side to side splash bar went way down, and when it starts loading the os, it gets to the part where it gets stuck much faster.

But it still gets stuck. Only now, the errors are slightly different. I took some screen shots of mint, and the new errors which I am about to add to the photobucket album.

Now when it stalls it gets to the loading drivers part as always, then gives an error message, and then when I hit ctrl+alt+del it gives me a bunch of errors telling me my memory is bad which I really don't get. But it is pretty obviously telling me that.

Why would my memory be totally fine when I run windows but be "bad" when I run linux. I have used belarc advisor to pull all the hardware profiles and I know from past experience that it tells you if some of the memory has gone bad. I downloaded that memcheck program and will burn it to CD and check the memory. But honestly, I would be pretty surprised if it told me my memory is bad.

Regarding turning off the onboard card, I have two options regarding that. 1.Onboard or 2. PCI. It was already on PCI. I also tried the nomsi and booting in safe graphics mode. At least updating the bios appears to have done something helpful. I am not really sure what though.

Regarding what version of Ubuntu I am using, it is the latest. However, I have a mint 5 cd that uses one of the older Ubuntu's (either breasy or gutsy I think) and it gives me most of the same errors as the later ones. In fact, I would say that they are possibly identical, the main difference being whether it decides to stall when loading squashfs or the drivers, and whether it gives abnormal exit errors, or squashfs errors.

At this point though, I don't care what goes on there as long as it is linux and will run Open ERP without errors. Debian sounds interesting anyway, I think I will download that and rip the iso image. Any suggestions as to the version I should get?

added two new pics to the album with the crash errors. One is using Mint7 before the bios update, the other is using ubuntu 9.04 after the bios update and ctrl+alt+del where it tells me my memory is corrupted (maybe I should vote it out of office?).

I am going to download and burn debian right now.

http://s952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/dreamscaper555/

What about that SUSE...

Somewhere there should be someone who got some SUSE to work on this dumb Compaq. What about trying to install openSUSE 11.1 from a DVD to see how far you get?

Sure, why not. I'll burn me a debian and a suse and see what happens. I'll probably end up sticking with whatever distro works with my computer since they went the extra mile to make their OS compatible with my machine and that deserves a reward. Hopefully it is something that supports a K desktop environment. That is what I am most familiar with. I can't really say unpacking tarballs was ever too pleasant either, so something that has a package manager hopefully too. I know Suse does, but I am not too sure about debian though. I think that distro is more old school. If I was more proficient at Unix, I'd probably like that.

Anyways though, I have run that memory test via memcheck86 and it came up clean. I think it is safe to say that all the hardware is functioning properly. It's those dang drivers I am sure, and the solution may end up being porting over the windows driver. It worked for the wireless card on my laptop, maybe it can work for an MSI mobo, which is undoubtably the culprit. After looking at the stats, that mobo is totally whack anyway. Why does it have such a strong chipset and only 100 MHZ FSB? That seems kind of scammy to me, since I have had machines with much weaker chipsets that had 500 MHZ FSB. If this doesn't work out I may swap for a mobo that matches my chipset but runs linux and has like a 900 FSB or something.

Yeah I just suggested debian because it's my favorite flavor... Honestly if you can afford to make "coasters", really discs are getting cheap, then download different varieties. It shouldn't take you more than 20 min to install... You could download different flavors easily overnight depending on your internet. openSUSE might be worth a look as well. But yeah the important thing I want to get at is just something that runs. Live CDs run different than actual hdd installers, might have better luck... =)

Does it matter that I already did get ubuntu 9.04 installed on my HDD using the alternate install disk? It just does the same thing when I boot from grub. Although, I don't think there were any squashfx errors. Just a whole bunch of those abnormal exit errors. If I remember correctly, booting from HDD gives the most of those over any of the live CD's.

At this point, I am just keeping my fingers crossed that some of the other distros have a different driver hanging about that works with my mobo. It has to be the mobo. Why else would the kernel think my memory is bad when the huge, thorough memory check I just did from a boot disjk picked up zilch. Not even one error. That seems more like a communications problem between the drives, processor, and memory which would be expected if there were no driver installed that correctly operated the mobo. Am I right? That is just a guess based on the things that I know about hardware.

I think it's functioning properly too -- at least, 'properly' in the sense that it's MS FQHL certified

Which 'drivers' are you referring to? The IDE/Chipset driver(s)?

The mobo is an MSI, yes, but it isn't (as you probably know) one that's listed or discussed anywhere on MSI's website, because it's "made for HP" -- but don't let this mobo turn you off of MSI boards; they are IMO excellent, when purchased under 'normal' circumstances. I'm running my 2nd one currently, because I was very happy with my 1st MSI. I'm even happier with this one and Linux support for the onboard hardware is *very* good (as you have discovered, lol )

Definitely 'scammy' -- there's proprietary/FQHL crap for ya!

Sasha

Yes and no, I said to do debian because it's more stable than Ubuntu... Ubuntu uses a lot of new software, some of us like to call it "bleeding edge", it's a good distro because of what it all supports... but the downfall is sometimes it can be unstable. There is always a price for new hardware support, even if this is old hardware, the software is still new/dev. =P

Yes, I tend to agree. There **are** a few (very few) mobos that need firmware installed before the IDE/chipset can operate. In the few threads I have seen on LQ and elsewhee, where a user has had one of these whacko boards, a stupid procedure was required before installing a Linux: it involved getting chipset driver (firmware), putting them onto a floppy, and somehow (I don't remember the procedure) getting either the Linux to install/use the floppied firmware at the beginning, to kick the chipset into action, or to install the firmware directly from the floppy, similarly to installing a BIOS.

IIRC, the last thread I knew of that was like this, involved a then brand-new Gigabyte mobo. It needed chipset firmware before the board was useful.

Sasha

Yeah, I know MSI isn't normally too bad if you build your own. I used to do that back in the day, but I found that ASUS was always a blessing to work with. I don't hear many people talk about them these days though.

I am pretty irritated with the manufacturer of this board though. First off, since it is an MSI, and it supports a semi-decent chipset most people who have average to slightly above average knowledge of hardware could be suckered into thinking that is a good mobo and therefore good computer. The only thing that could tip you off that it is a shitty mobo is the 100 FSB which I can guarantee is not mentioned anywhere on the computer or the box, and a sales clerk sure as hell wouldn't know what the FSB was either. So that seems blatently deceptive to me.

I guess I don't have too much room to complain though since the computer WAS just given to me, and I just upgraded the drives and ram with what I had lying around. All the same though, I will be miffed if I have to go buy a new mobo and case to run my linux accounting software on my supposedly free office computer.

Well, you shouldn't need to but a new case, if anything -- just a mobo (and you can mail me that shitty one )

FWIW, had I been offered that machine for free (or was about to purchase it used, let's say), I would have felt confident about it having known it had an MSI board inside it. Then I'd be in your boat now.

Also, I have generally found that a lot of branded machines (HP, Dell, whatever) seem to come with Asus boards in them (though my Firewall machine, whose original brand I can't recall as I've swapped the case, and which is assembled from donated parts, includes a QDI/Intel 440LX board, which I had never heard of before that machine. The newest BIOS is from 2000/01)

IIRC, "QDI" is from something Chinese, and stands for "Quality, Design, Innovation"