MB: Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Mem: 2G


Either the media (CD, DVD, USB, SDCARD) refuses to boot, or it loads and presents the menu eg. Kodibuntu x64, and reboots immediately after selecting a menu choice. Or says "Welcome to GRUB!" and just locks up.

I *can* install Recalbox, Geexbox, Lakka all in x64 flavours but they aren't enough OS for my needs on this HTPC.

Anyone know what is happening here?

What storage devices do you have, connected to which interfaces? What gfxcard do you have? What are you using to create installation media? Have you tried booting any of the senior major distros' recent installation media, e.g. Fedora, Debian, openSUSE, Ubuntu, Arch, CentOS?

A motherboard that old might be subject to failed electrolytic capacitors. Badcaps.net explains about this problem.

A BIOS setting might be involved if you have a mix of PATA and SATA storage devices. You might try doing a BIOS reset, then setting the clock and booting without making any further BIOS adjustments. ISTR the NForce 4 chipset not having particularly good support by FOSS.

2G of RAM could be borderline or insufficient for an installation program. For something that old you should be able to increase RAM to 4G for nominal cost. Another workaround for possibly inadequate RAM to install would be to pre-partition and format the installation target with a swap partition, which would be available at installer startup.

Bad downloads(?). Did you check them(?). That's the usual problem when some downloads work & others don't.

Yeah, but no. I've learned that one over the years too! lol

I have magazine cover discs and burns i've used before

I think it could be because it's an older BIOS-based board with no UEFI. Maybe most Linux boots are confused by it?

Currently running Rawbuntu in x64, so I know it works.

1x ADATA SATA SSD, 1x SATA BDROM, 1x ATI HD5690 GFX

It had Win XP x64 on it, and runs Rawbuntu, Kodibuntu LinHES, Recalbox, geexbox, all x64, with no problem. IT just getting to the stage where I can start the installation that's the issue.

Doesn't matter if I boot from Disc, SD, or USB. Most distros just refuse to boot, lock up, or crash after selecting any option from the boot menu. :-/

I think you're distro-hopping instead of standing still and slugging it out with one of them. If you do that, you'll find out what's up with them all, in all likelihood. I await error messages, but going on what I have, I'd suspect your install media. I'd also suspect your patience. Install dvds can be VERY, VERY slow.

Well yes, I am distro hopping. I needed to find one that will do what I want for this machine. Slow is fine, but when there's zero activity on the drive lights after 15 mins, I tend to give it up. :-/

Anyway, i've settled on Manjaro XFCE and will create a new user that just boots straight into Kodi.Job done. Though i'm still wondering what the problem was in the first place!

You'll never know because you never stopped to find out. Mark this solved and carry on. It's better to fix stuff than run away. That way you learn.

lol. It's not solved though, and I still want to know. I've had this issue before on previous machines, but I don't know enough about the boot processes to work out what is going on. Even though i've settled on what seems to be the best solution for using the machine, There's nothing to stop me tinkering with it, and just booting from other media isn't going to affect the permanent installation.

Only thing I can think of is that most x64 systems expect a UEFI, or some sort of other hardware support, that just doesn't exist on older boards?

But there's only so much time I can spend on nailing this. Too many other people and machines to care for.

UEFI might be a reason to stop if your board is expecting it, and your distro hasn't got it. If your board doesn't have it, great. Everything's happy.

If you must know, install a bummer, and we'll fight the errors. 20G will be plenty for a / partition for a barebones install.

The board has no idea about UEFI, it's too old. I can't install most things because I can't even get to the stage where I can access the menus from the booted medium, or if i can, the system just reboots.

I'd like to compare the stuff that boots with the stuff that doesn't, but i've no idea what to look at, or where.

If it will run a distro, check what drivers are being loaded, (write them down), then when you try another distro, check that those drivers are available in it, if they are, then it should boot - I'm suspecting graphics card problems, lack of drivers.

Edit: I'll always suggest taking a look at AntiX &/or MX Linux.

This is before the distro starts. eg. when you would normally get the option to start a live session, start in safe mode, text install, or install the system etc. I wouldn't imagine there would be any drivers loaded, and if, i still wouldn't know where to look. Thanks though!

I'd be cleaning the dvd up, polishing the lens, or transferring the iso to a usb stick.

Some computers will always have issues with linux. Unless you can make some set of go no-go's then we can only guess. Almost no computer is tested at factory on linux so we have a disadvantage from day one.

If you do get some version of grub to work it may be possible to then get some distro to work. So far as I can tell your report seems to suggest a failure at boot. After post and before OS boots and you report grub issue. (well, really could be syslinux,isolinux)

Find some distro that boots to grub or just start with supergub