Hello everybody,

I have installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 16 32-bit on an older computer, which worked fine, but when I tried to install linuxint-17-cinnamon-dvd-32bit.iso it didn't work.
Hopefully the following information will help to solve this problem.

When I used Mint 16 I always got the following message:
"Running in software rendering mode
Cinnamon is currently running without video hardware acceleration ..."

During installation of Mint 17 I got the following message:
"Asking for cache data failed ... Assuming drive cache: write through"
The last message I get during installation was "detecting hardware".
After that the screen was black.
When I start the laptop now it asks several times to log in text mode.
It does accept my installation account and password than, but I don't know what sort of command I should give now to get the system running in normal mode.

I assume Mint 16 can still be used for some time, but if possible I would like to use LTS version Mint 17 (because it is for somebody else, who is not a computer expert).
Thank you for your help in advance.

With kind regards,
Theo van Nee

Do you really need to use the Cinnamon version? If not download and install the MATE version because it is much lighter (Cinnamon is a highly modified Gnome 3 while MATE is a modified and updated fork of Gnome 2.32).

Thanks for replying.
I will try out Mate 17.

... Well, I just tried out linuxmint-17-mate-dvd-32bit.iso, but am getting the same problem.
After logging in the OS stays in text mode and I don't know what sort of commands I should give.
Do you have other suggestions?
Otherwise I have to go back to linuxmint-16

I had a similar experience testing Mint 17 for my review. There's a problem with some video and it's with the display manager. When you've logged in at the command line, try
sudo apt-get remove mdm
sudo apt-get install lightdm
and re-boot. That might fix it.

PS I should have said that if you're facing a message about the xserver crashing, you can get back to the log-in screen with Ctrl-Alt-F1. You can re-boot with
sudo telinit 6

I entered the commands:
"sudo apt-get remove mdm
sudo apt-get install lightdm"
After that I still got an error message with the suggestion: you still could try sudo apt-get update (or similar), which I did.
However this didn´t solve the problem.

What was the error message?

After "sudo apt-get install lightdm" I got the following reply:

Could not resolve 'archive ubuntu.com'
E: failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/poo...untu1_i386.deb
Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fixmlsngn?

(last characters on line 2 and 3 I am not sure about - missing on the picture I took of my screen)

After "sudo apt-get update" I got a whole list with entries like "failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com...", "...canonical.com" etc.
The list is so long that it is of the screen before I can record it.
Does this help?

It would appear that that one repo is not resolving.

I'll bet on apt-get --fix-broken.

See man 8 apt-get for an explanation.

You might also try apt-get clean, then retry the install and let us know what happened.

Have you checked to see if network is up?
Try

Thanks frankbell,
But as Newbie I don't know anything about command shells.
And where can I find "man apt-get".
Could you perhaps suggest a beginner's workshop for the command shell or a users guide?
I would like to get to know a bit more about it.

Thanks also for your suggestion, EDDY.
I have tried it, but after a long time waiting I only got the following replies repeatingly:
"Asking for cache data failed
Assuming drive cache: write through".

Click on the terminal icon in the lower left of the Desktop. Type: man apt-get

In this case, it's man 8 apt-get. It's far more detailed than man apt-get. There are several sections of man(ual) pages. Unless you specify otherwise, the basic man command just looks in section 1.

(Grin) See man man for details.

The man pages are great references, once you get the hang of reading them--they are not necessarily reader-friendly--and you really should do so, as you may be able to answer many questions quickly, without waiting for a response from a forum or the results of web search. Do not think of them as tutorials--they are definitely designed as reference tools, not training tools.

McGill University has a pretty good guide about how to use them.

Man pages are also available on the web. Man pages tend to be useful for people who already know the command and only need tips or help remember.

If your laptop is fully supported, you should download and test you iso. Then burn to high quality disc and use the very slowest speed in burning. If your system isn't fully supported then we may have ways around it.

Because I have to return the laptop to the owner tomorrow, I don't have time enough to figure everything out now.
I am afraid I have to install Mint 16 again and try Mint 17 some time later, when I am more skilled in Linux myself.
Anyway, thanks everybody for helping so far and I will read and try your suggestions some time later.
Kind regards,
Theo

Why not just install 16 & upgrade to 17