Maybe try partitioning in linuxmint using cfdisk. Then select something else during the paritioning stage.
1st partition 200M efi system
2nd parition 2G swap
3rd patition linux filesytem

Hi,

and
These are functionally equivalent.

It looks like the command stalled, this could have happened if something is telling the OS that the drive is "busy".
Typically this could mean that one or more partitions are mounted. If it is "some other" mechanism then the easiest way is to mount everything (including the swap partition, with the swapon command) and then unmount (and swapoff).
Not particularly elegant but is a "belt & braces" approach. You then **know** that every partition is unmounted.

Bodge99

Yes, that makes sense.

After wiping the drive squeaky clean, as per the commands above, I tried to install Mint again. No chance, it stalled the same way. So I wiped the drive clean once more and tried to install MX. That went OK, but when it came to booting it got stuck on a black flashing screen with some text. Next step: wipe the drive clean, yet again, and try reinstalling antiX. Lo & behold, the installation went fine, as does booting.

To me that means that there is indeed something wrong with the eMMC drive that blocks installation of other distros. So, I will have to live with the inconvenience and accept to have antiX as the only OS that can be installed.

On that note, I will bow out, thanking you and all the other commenters (fatmac, mrmazda, colorpurple21859, linus72) for your time and dedication to help me. Undoubtedly we shall meet again on this forum.

I tried it, but unfortunately it does not have any effect on my issue. Thanks for the thought anyway :-)

It might be worth reporting this to the Intel driver writers: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailma...info/intel-gfx

Hi,

I **do** understand your frustration. This sort of problem, "installing a distro to my computer" should be a "no-brainer". Don't forget, you have managed to install Mint to your other computer perfectly O.K. so you do have a previous success! The very vast percentage of people will have no problems installing Linux **at all**.

I would say that you have been very unlucky indeed to have hit what seems to you to be an unsolvable problem. Other folk have hit problems with graphics chipsets where the distro kernel doesn't recognise the graphics chipset.. It's quite difficult to install Linux to a system where the screen is totally blank!

Be aware that folk here are trying to help you.. Each person will have their own personal experiences with problems and their own problem solving techniques.
Nothing wrong with any of this at all. The key thing is learning "how to describe problems", giving relevant information and feedback to suggestions. This only comes with experience. What I would say to any new user who wants to learn is **ASK THE QUESTION**, No one was born knowing this stuff and there is no such thing as a silly question at this stage. Answers to questions help with clarity and learning.

As I understand it, You can access and modify your eMMC perfectly fine when booting from an AntiX flashdrive using the installation program.
This is shown from the fact you were able to wipe the eMMC and install a clean version.

O.K. The Mint install doesn't work for you (yet). I'm convinced that this is due to a lack of kernel support for your particular eMMC and/or supporting chipset.

I understand that your Lenovo Yoga 300 has an Intel Celeron N2840 processor?
If so, then this chip is a descendant of the Bay Trail family of processors that were used in earlier low power hardware e.g. tablets.

These processors are in fact SOC's (system on a chip). These differ slightly from earlier processors in that some of the "support chips" are actually built into the processor package. You need to have specific kernel support for these chips as they work slightly differently than previous processors.

This could be the root cause of your problem.. You need a distro with a sufficiently capable kernel for your specific hardware.

Let me do a little research on this... We **WILL** get this sorted!

Bodge99

a few other distros to try for a low resource system not in any particular order. mxlinux, lubuntu, bodhi, lxle, archbang, puppy

Many thanks for your kind words and your encouragement. I am not afraid to ask questions, but you are absolutely right that formulating the question the right way is extremely important. I have experienced that with searches on the net: sometimes I google something and no relevant info comes up, even though I am convinced there must be some. A different formulation of the search term then gives the result. It is the same when dealing with humans. The more precise one is, the better the results.

Ideally I would like to get this sorted because the computer is a useful little tool: small size but not too small, light weight, the drive and/or processor is very snappy, and battery life is impressive, the latter muuuuch better than the Lenovo laptops I have.
Maybe there is no kernel that accommodates this kind of chip issue. But if you do find a distro with one, let me know please.

I tried MX and Lubuntu but could not get them to work. The issue is not really a low resource distro - even Mint could run on it - but it is more a question of the right architecture, so to speak. I think Bodge99 has pin-pointed it well in his last comment above.

Hi,

I've had a quick look at the AntiX Kernel source and kernel configs.
The installed version in my Virtualbox installation is 4.9.160-antix-amd64-smp
It looks like I was correct in my assumptions here. This appears to be a modified kernel.
It appears that they have started with a "plain vanilla" 4.9 kernel and added local modifications to it.

Re: The best way to proceed:
As I see it, you have a few possible ways to continue from here..

Try other distro's and hope that you find one that works. Essentially a "trial & error" exercise. (you have essentially started this way.)

Modify a live Linux iso to run from the latest stable kernel. Possible, but a slightly technical process.. I've done this a couple of times but I wouldn't really recommend this to a new starter.

Install a distro to an external USB device, upgrade the kernel to the latest version and then boot the Lenovo from this.

I think the this one has merit..

You could install Mint to an external device.. after all, you are familiar with Mint. Now update the installation, install ukuu and then upgrade the kernel to the latest available. You can do all of this from your Mint machine.

This would be the easiest way for you to get an installation on something portable with the latest kernel for testing purposes.

If you would like to try this, then I'll talk you through every step. This would be an easy process for you to do with a little hand holding from me..

Bodge99.

what do you mean by couldn't get them to work? They wouldn't install partitioning problems, boot problems, video/screen problems, other?
did they encounter all the same problem or something different?

Maybe try something that isn't debian/ubuntu based, maybe one of the fedora spins. https://spins.fedoraproject.org/

In the original installation I had a much more recent kernel, as this inxi -Fxz except shows:
You may be right about that but I do not have the possibility to go through such a process for an extended period of time. Yes, I could be lucky and hit the winning number the 1st time round, but that is highly unlikely. An extended period is more likely.

A bleeding edge kernel may well fix the problem, but there is also a chance that other problems could/will occur, they might not be evident immediately, and may only arise after a certain time.

Perhaps I am being too negative by seeing too many (potential) problems, but this is likely to become so involved, with new problems getting interlaced with each other and causing other ones, that I do not have the motivation to go through that.

And we are now touching on one of the problems Linux has: usability. With many distros one has to be prepared to dive deep into the technical side in order to get a working system. Until a couple of years ago Windows did not have that problem, it worked out of the box.

Now, I know there are distros that work out of the box too, such as Ubuntu and Mint (there are some more), but this situation with antiX is the deep-dive-required situation. I know it is probably primarily the tablet that is the cause, nevertheless I am faced with it. So we'll try to live with the inconvenience, until it becomes unbearable/unworkable, if it does.

colorpurple21859:

Hi, my understanding of the problem is that the distro's tried (apart from AntiX) don't see the eMMC storage. I'm convinced that this is caused by these distro's having older install kernels (perhaps with required options disabled).

If this is actually the case then it's a question of finding the earliest standard kernel that has enough support for the SOC and/or eMMC chipset.

Bodge99

My understanding is the op installed antix without problems originally then due to touchpad problems, decided to replace antix with linux mint.
That is when the problems began, I suspect that linuxmint is too heavy for system and have to run with compatibity-mode/nomodeset due to graphics issues. It also didn't help that the op is/was mixing legacy/efi booting on a gpt disk,
Then the op decided to reinstall antix and has been having problems ever since.

My suggestion of trying of fedora was to get away from debian based distros and specifically try one of the lighter fedora spins such as xfce, lxde, or lxqt.

Is this assumption correct, or did I totally miss the boat on this one?

colourpurple21859:

Hi, I can't get to the root of the AntiX problem as the OP wants to "move on" to another distro. The Mint installer/distro kernel won't see the eMMC and therefore cannot be installed.

Yes, you are correct re. the legacy/efi "mixup".

Your suggestion of trying Fedora is perfectly valid. The only way to see if this specific kernel issue will occur here is to try it.

I think that the OP is "running out of steam". I do understand this.

I personally enjoy solving this sort of problem. Anyone saying "this cannot be done" spurs my interest. I don't like being defeated. That's just me though..

Recent "successes" include:

Installing 64bit Linux on a system with a 32bit UEFI (64bit cpu).
Installing and running windows 8.1 & 10 on a tablet sdcard (where the firmware doesn't see the sd card slot at boot time.).
Modifying a 32bit UEFI firmware (no legacy options, 64bit cpu) to allow XP and windows 2000 to run on a tablet with all drivers back ported.
O.K. this was of no use whatsoever but I did it as an exercise, just for fun.

Ho hum, It's my Son's Birthday today, so time for the "fizzy pop (minimum 14% ethanol, other libations are available...)"!

Bodge99.