I'm trying to install the Sherline distribution of Ubuntu for EMC2 on an old Toshiba Tecra 8000 that's been running the original EMC. The installer has been telling me:

Installing system .... 15% .... Detecting file systems ....

for four hours now. The CD is accessed periodically but I'm beginning to loose faith. I know it's a slow computer, and I guess it's reformatting the partition, but this seems over the top for a very small hard drive.

Any suggestions?

I would try installing Xubuntu or doing an alternative install without a gui and then adding LXDE. Make sure you use 8.04LTS versions of the install CD (or since it's an old machine you could use the 6.06 version). Then try installing EMC2 from scratch by following this.

have you tried choosing the option to check disk for defects on the menu screen of the cd? ALso try and boot from the live cd itself.

"I would try installing Xubuntu or doing an alternative install without a gui and then adding LXDE."

That's over my head right now, though I'm waiting on the download of the 6.06 software.

I did check for defects and it found one -- twice. So I copied the CD on another computer and it reported no errors. I tried to install from it but it is intolerably slow. I waited 10 minutes after choosing "English" as the language and it still wasn't ready to accept my time zone. And yet the computer ran WIndows 98 and the previous EMC without problems.

The computer runs the "live CD", though it's very slow to boot that as well.

The Toshiba can only hold 256K of RAM. It's a dead-end.

I have a more modern Dell laptop that runs Win95. I can get a second hard drive for it and swap drives or set up for dual boot.

Thanks for helping.