Is Linux incompatible with the Intel Celeron CPU?
 

Hi everyone,

Is there some problem with the Celeron's architecture that makes it incompatible with some Linux distros and if so, which distros are Celeron-friendly?

Thanks,

CC.

Well, Linux is definitely compatible with pretty much every processor you will ever see. BSD is even more so, it's compatible with even those that you will never see.

P.S. You're right, your nickname that you've given yourself is quite appropriate. Perhaps you should read up a bit on computers and Linux. The RUTE is a good resource:
http://rute.2038bug.com/rute.html.gz

clueless may think he is clueless, but we don't need to agree with him.....just because he asks a question that seems clueless...;)

Seriously, clueless, why would you suspect that Linux would not work on Celeron? Did you try an installation and have trouble?

[QUOTE=pixellany;3097725]clueless may think he is clueless, but we don't need to agree with him.....just because he asks a question that seems clueless...;)

Seriously, clueless, why would you suspect that Linux would not work on Celeron? Did you try an installation and have trouble?


Yes, I'm afraid so. I refer you to an earlier thread of mine entitled: "Linux won't recognize hard drive!" where it appears (from the follow-ups) that the Celeron architecture is indeed the problem!

CC.

From the followups to your message one can conclude that some distros have problems with the SIS IDE, not the Celeron processor...

I empathize with your frustration....

One thing that will avoid confusion in the future: Keep it all in one thread.

Meanwhile, what does Uncle Google say about Uncle Theodore's postulate?

With the best will in the world and no disrespect intended, if you experts were to speak in plain *English* once in a while it might go some way to providing genuine assistance for the Clueless Classes (of which I for one am a prominent member).

Did you give Ubuntu a go? That seems to be the final suggestion in you original thread for a distro with the necessary module included

Hardware compatibility is different from one Linux distribution to another,but the problem,as much as I know,was never in the processor,ussualy it's related to grafic cards or drives.The problem with processor may ocurre if you are using x86_64 distribution version,when you should be using x86_32 or viceversa.I have Intel Celeron 2,4 GHz processor and these are distributions I have used so far with no problem:Ubuntu 7.10,Slackware current,Debian GNU/Linux-Etch 4.0r3,Mandriva Linux 2008.0-One,Knoppix 5.1.1,dyne:bolic(latest version),PCLinuxOS 2007,Sabayon Linux 3,4,Gentoo 2007,Absolute Linux 12.0.1 b8,Parsix GNU/Linux1.0r0,openSuse 10.3,Damm small Linux 4.2.1,Backtrack 3 and of course Fedora 8(PCBSD too,it's not a Linux distro,but you may want to check it out,it's cool).So,you may try one of these and you will have no problems concerning your Intel Celeron processor,but as I said you may have problems with other hardware components,so my advice to you is to always post as much as possible informations you can about the problem you want to resolve. ;)

Hi there,

I have tried Ubuntu 7.1 earlier today and it crashed big time during installation. The screen became all corrupted with multicoloured streaks, so I couln't even see where exactly the problem arose. So here's the summary so far:

Ubuntu 7.1: crashed spectacularly during installation.

Slax live CD: runs fine - but doesn't recognise hard drive.

Fedora 8: self-aborts during installation (not sure why as message flashes too briefly to read)

OpenSuse 10.2: won't install because it tells me there's no hard drive.

Mandriva live CD: won't even boot!

Looks like I'm running out of options, guys. :-(

CC.

Have you tried text based installations (usually an option at the start of the process)

+1

Also check your BIOS settings on the hard drives. I haven't searched for your other thread to see if you've gone this route, but there once was a setting in the BIOS for "Legacy mode" when it came to mixed SATA & PATA mobo's. Once upon a time (maybe 4 years ago?) I *had* to use legacy mode to install Linux, now you can't use it. Maybe something along these lines is the problem?

Regardless... if you're getting corrupt display on text-only install, something else is the matter - something hardware related, and almost definitely not the processor architecture, but the processor itself is always a suspect (though not a very likely one)

How old is the computer and when was it last cleaned?

When was the CD drive last cleaned?

Celeron is a broad term. I doubt that it's the processor, I've run Linux on the Celeron A (P2 based), Celeron M (Centrino, Pentium M), Celeron D (Pentium D based), and Celeron (P4 based) without issues. I would check to see if your IDE controller is supported.

Ok, thanks everyone for your suggestions. In answer to the various points, let me try to answer them all in this one post:

No, I have never tried text-based install and am totally unfamiliar with it.

The BIOS is very elementary and doesn't provide for a PATA option.

The laptop in question is brand new and a current model.

It uses the Celeron M series processor.

A CD came with this laptop that has various drivers on it, apparently. But how one could install them when the HDD isn't even recognised is beyond me.

Next thing I shall try is formatting the HDD (using Partition Magic) as FAT32 and see if that makes a difference. Someone suggested it as a response to a similar problem on someone else's threat so I'll try it. Let you know how I get on in due course....
CC.

Try gparted

http://gparted.sourceforge.net

or pmagic

http://partedmagic.com/wiki/PartedMagic.php

To partition your drive there are more linux user friendly.

Ok, an update: I have reformatted the 80 Gb c:/ drive as FAT32; the whole of it.

Ubuntu now goes further and into Demo mode, but still won't install to the hard disk and won't state what the problem is.

Fedora 8. Goes into the set-up but stalls at this point:

"Installation requires partitioning your hard drive. By default, a partitioning layout is chosen which is reasonable for most users. You can chose to use this or create your own."

[I go with the default and click 'next']

It does appear to recognise the hard drive at this point, as it appears ticked in the dialoge box as 76317 Mb ATA ST...... etc.

Next, this warning comes up:
"You have chosen to remove all Linux partitions (and all data from them) on the following drives: /dev/sda - are you sure you want to do this?

[click 'yes']

Response: "Error partitioning - could not allocate requested partitions: could not allocate partitions as primary partitions. Not enough space left to create partition for /boot."

[click on OK (the only option)

Response: "The following errors occurred with your partitioning: You have not defined a root partition (/), which is required for the installation of Fedora to continue. This can happen if there is not enough space on your hard drive(s) for the installation. Press OK to choose a different partitioning option." At which point I go back to the first screen.

Any ideas?

I've just noticed this edition is Fedora "for i386". Is that okay with the Celeron M?

Thanks again.

CC.

If you can get to a command prompt (I believe that Fedora offers a rescue cd option on boot) you could try partitioning the drive using cfdisk or fdisk. That will leave you with at least one linux partition and the cd should be able to work on it.

Yes,that's.ok.I think your problem is very simple;you don't know what root partition is,you don't know how to create one,you don't know what swap is,you don't know what GRUB is,you don't know what MBR is and you don't know what ext2 or 3 or 4 or raiserfs is.If that is correct,let us know,so we can help you.:cool:

This is for a text base install of ubuntu, it may be worth a go.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/

Less than 50% (see above).

THanks for your input anyway.

CC.

Hello Clueless,

Well, it appears there are some who want you to know how much they know, but won't accept that sometimes a step by guide is what some of us need.
I won't try to confuse the issue, but I will tell you that when Fedora complains that you did not assign a root partition is simply as you to place which partition the system (root) files will be written to. In your case, you simply enter a "/" (without the quotes). / in Linux means the root partition (top of the file tree, because linux treats EVERYTHING as a file, even hardware). If you decide to try Fedora again, try assigning this (/) when it asks, since you will only have one large partition on the disk. You adjust that later once you get your operating system installed and are able to learn a little more about Linux.

I might also add that one LiveCD that is extremely easy to install right from the desktop of the LiveCD is PCLinuxOS. It will graphically handle everything for you. Very good at HW recognition and setup. Give it a try if you can.

Hope this helps

Bob

Did I see this correctly that you formatted it all to fat32? reformat to ext3 and try again.

Of course, Fat32 is a windows thing. You may as well strip the drive of all partitions and do the partitioning while you are installing. Linux can read from / write to FAT but it won't install on it (with a few rare exceptions).

have you enabled your primary partition to boot? Use 'fsdisk' and change the first partition to 'boot'.

OK, I noticed your problem with Fedora. You select the option to remove all partitions, rather then just Linux partitions. That should do the trick.

I guess that was about me.When did I said that? :rolleyes:
Did I confused anybody? :scratch: I think that you don't understand what getting relevant informations to make it easier for all of us,means.

OP,If you don't want to use entire hard disk,and my advice to you is;don't use entire HD,then follow this steps;
Choose manual(or custom) configuration when asked about partitioning,then create new partition and enter / as a mount point(you will be asked to do so).About swap,you must create swap partiotion too,about 1,5xRAM space will be OK.Format both partitions; / as ext3 and swap as swap.MBR is relevant if you want to dual boot,or have 3 or 4 OS-s.If so,install Windows first,if you want to have them,then Linux boot manager(GRUB)on the MBR and if you want to have other Linux systems,install their boot manager on the root(/) partition and add them to the primary Linux grub.menu.lst file which you can find in /boot/grub.

Ok, here's the latest update:

I reformatted the whole hard drive as ext3 and carried out the other suggestions from
Bob and AlanRI with the result that the computer HAS finally recognised the HDD! That's the good news. It went into installation vigorously writing lots of data to the hard disk. This went on for about 20 minutes to the point where the progress report said: "568 of 1103 packages completed" - and the installation just hung. Mouse pointer still moves, but that's all. :-(

What's the problem, do you think? I checked the installation disk media with the start-up option and it reported no errors.

CC.

Hi Clueless,

That has happened to me before and it has always been because of something wrong with the CD (i.e. bad burn, scratch, or just dirty.) However, if that is not the problem, this could be a difficult one to track down. Try it again after making sure the cd/dvd is ok, md5 sum is checked properly and the drive is clean. If it does the same thing at the same spot in the installation, then it is probably some piece of software it is trying to install. This has also happened to me before with Fedora and I solved it by inastalling a minimal amount of software in the initial install and then added what I wanted later. I know it's a pain, but you might also just try to do another burn with brand new cd/dvd.

Hope this helps

Bob

[QUOTE=BobNutfield;3101860]Hi Clueless,

That has happened to me before and it has always been because of something wrong with the CD (i.e. bad burn, scratch, or just dirty.) However, if that is not the problem, this could be a difficult one to track down. Try it again after making sure the cd/dvd is ok, md5 sum is checked properly and the drive is clean. If it does the same thing at the same spot in the installation, then it is probably some piece of software it is trying to install. This has also happened to me before with Fedora and I solved it by inastalling a minimal amount of software in the initial install and then added what I wanted later. I know it's a pain, but you might also just try to do another burn with brand new cd/dvd.

Hope this helps

So do I!
Thanks, Bob. I'll give your suggestions a try and see what transpires.

One other thing I've noticed very early into the boot sequence is line of text saying "Cannot control address line A20" - it's only there for a flash and then the rest of the boot report fills the screen. I just wondered if that message means anything to anyone and whether it might be part of the problem.

CC.

Very odd, your PC appears to have travelled back in time. I just plugged that error into Google and all the responses are coming back from around 2001 and discussing Dos errors! Do you have a Dos partition (possibly a recovery partition) on the PC?

Clueless,

From what I have been able to learn, "CANNOT CONTROL ADDRESS LINE A20" refers to high memory access and the only thing I could find related to Linux had to do with the 2.4 kernel. I don't know, but certainly if the software is having difficulty with memory in your machine, it certainly could be a problem.

I am not a programmer and that is a programmer level problem. Over my head, but hopefully a programmer will see the post and address it for you.

All the best with it

Bob

Nope! It's all clean ext.3 now.

But I know the feeling of going backwards in (useful) time - since I bought my first computer I think it was.

Okay, thanks, Bob. THe message doesn't refer to any specific device, which isn't very helpful to say the least.

Update: have tried cleaning install DVD and drive but installation still freezes at exact same point - "installing Arabic language pack..." which doesn't seem like the most likely point for an install to fail to my way of thinking. Yet there we have it!

However, installation DVD was burned by a third party (internet cafe job) and I have no knowledge of their burner, their experience, and the media they use, so it could be a problem with the install disk for any number of reasons. But having said that, as I've said earlier, the checksum test comes out clean.

Keep thinking, guys!

CC.

I do believe the A20 error had to do with a keyboard error in the days of Dos.
From what I have read it seems that you need a new DVD or a Live cd and that would probably take care of your problem.

Do you really want the international language support packages? They comprise a boatload of packages and I have always left them out of my install. Try without those packages and see what happens.

Bob

As Homer Simpson once said: "D'oh!" Why didn't I think of that myself??
Thanks, Bob. I'll report back in due course. Great idea!

CC.

Well it WAS a great idea, but the computer thought differently. On selecting "custom installation" I got a "unhandled exception error" stating the problem was probably a bug that should be reported to such and such a web address. So I regret to say still no joy at this end. Perhaps this piece of hardware is just jinxed. :-(

Anyone got any other suggestions as to how I can install Fedora 8 or something comparable on this infernal laptop?

Have you tried any of the install options? Things like nopaic nolapic acpi=off? Those are frequently crucial in getting any distro to install on a laptop. Fedora has an F key (F6 I believe) to set such options.

Another good suggestion! Yes, I will try it. Additionally, there is a 'text-based install' option (whatever that is) and I'm wondering if that might be of any use too?

CC.

It might be. I have some experience with the text installer working while the GUI version did not but that was Debian, not Fedora. However, the text version is there mainly as an alternative for people who do not have RAM enough to run the GUI installer.

Finally installed!!

I'm finally flying with Fedora! After the umpteenth re-try, it's all gone in and appears to be working fine. Obviously there'll need to be a few tweaks, but the main thing is it's now up and running, thank God. I believe it was a bug in the early part of the set-up but won't elaborate unless anyone's desperate to know as I can't wait to put the installation experience behind me, to be quite honest.

Initial impressions: what a lot of applications and accessories! I'd expected a simple OS with maybe Open Office and a handful of tools, but this is pretty impressively stacked-out with LOADS of useful stuff. A lot of hard work by a lot of good people, clearly.

Thanks to all who helped me work through this problem. I'll be posting again for further advice on tweaking and whatnot.

Thanks again,

CC.

Congrats Completely Clueless. You will find that even the smallest install comes packed with loads of software, far more than on a proprietary OS :)