Unable to install Debian on asusa7n8x MB
 

My first charge into the forum is because the problem I have seems to be from years back! Something about not being able to find proper hard drive driver to continue. Hard to believe with an older MB and a Western Digital drive. I am using the latest 32 bit network install iso.
If anyone has any advice, please post it. In the meanwhile I am going to be digging around the forum & elsewhere. BTW, coming this way from Raspberry Pi success and computer experience dating back to relay logic. Not that it makes any difference though... 73 John W8CCW

Hi,

welcome to the forum. Do you have a question?

Cheers,

Evo2.

Welcome to LQ.
As far as hdd driver they should load by default, Even the install disk has them just to install the OS.
What OS are you trying to install?

Perhaps it is my configuration or the 32 bit install. While waiting I downloaded and installed Mint.Nadia on a different 120G HDD. It seemed to work pretty well until I removed the CD (following instructions). The HDD would not boot on the restart. I reinstalled it again very carefully. I noted that it offered to install a second copy along side the first copy. I elected to do a complete install and only have one OS on the HDD. All went well but the "busy cursor" is still running after an uptime (terminal) of an hour + 26 minutes. If I interrupt it I am unlikely to have a bootable disk. According to the system monitor CPU, Memory & Swap and network are all running at a very low rate. All of the listed processes say "sleeping" The machine has 2.0 GB memory and the Processor is an AMD Athlon XP 3000+. Is there any way I can nudge this machine to a normal completion so it will be a bootable configuration? BTW, The disk utility MHDD on the Linux Rescue disk had no problems with the disk...
de John, W8CCW

Then you need to install graphics driver.

Hi,
This might sound like a stupid question, but presumably you changed the boot device (or boot device order) to boot the installer from the CD. Is the hdd still in the list of boot devices?

ok, so far so good.

I'm not sure if I understand the current situation: are you saying that this 2nd install attempt has hung (I'm not familiar with the Mint installer)?

Evo2.

The question is not at all stupid! I have been expecting to find that I did something like that! Yes, the installer just hung there and left the system in a live mode. I was able to look around a bit with a terminal and the file manager. I was hoping to find a log file but so far, no joy. I just ran the Boot rescue disk and it found nothing to change. It looks like this install simply failed. The other fellow suggested a different Video driver. I don't yet know how to do that with Linux. The Video card is an ATI but I will have to pull it to find its specs. The machine was pretty exotic in its day, perhaps too much to expect Linux to support it.
Bedtime now, I will return to it tomorrow...
Thanks, 73 de W8CCW John

Hi,

ok, I'm now somewhat fuzzy on what has actually happened, and can't really help unless I understand the situation. This is my understanding (I've guessed at some parts):

You tried to install twice, both times by booting a live Mint cd and getting a desktop, and then selecting "install" from a menu.

The first install seemed to proceed cleanly, and you were instructed to reboot the system. So, you rebooted the system but the newly installed operating system did not boot. You confirmed that the bios really was set to boot off the hdd. Question: when this failed to boot, what did you see? Were there any error messages on screen. At this point you decided to try to install again.

You again booted to the live Mint cd and again got a desktop, and selected "install" from a menu. The installation procedure started and you were asked questions, etc, and chose to do a fresh install instead of installing along side the 1st attempted install. Then at some point the install appeared to hang (1.5 hours when you posted). This is your current situation.

So, is the above an accurate summary of what happened? Or have I misunderstood or missed something?

Evo2.

PS. I suspect EDDY1 has a very different interpretation of your situation, because I don't see what any of this has to do with a graphics driver.

My bad on that 1, I must've been reading another post that had radeon graphics card then, got here & posted.
Anyway the OP installed to another hdd & installed grub to sda
Now is stuck with blinking curser.
If the mint installer is like the Debian installer try Ctrl+Alt+F4 to get to the installers message terminal & see what it says.

RE:EVO2...
I think that is correct. There was an ICON on the desktop to install Mint, I started with that. I have tried to install several Distro's with some kind of error each time. This time I was especially comfortable with the Live operation and out of ideas. After reading the responses here I googled "Linux hardware incompatibility" and got quit a few hits on the ATI Wonder (9600) Video Adapter. I should at least give another video card a chance or investigate "Linux Drivers". At some point I should give this up as not worth the effort and move on to a different system. I have a more recent MB that I can build up pretty quick. The one that is not working out needs to remain available indefinitely in case it is needed to maintain an old project. If there any pointers as to where to start on the drivers, please share.

EDDY1: Sometimes a tech with experience can smell a bug. This probably will be a video card problem...
Since I came into this to learn and I am doing that, things are working out very well.
Thanks, 73 de W8CCW John

Both, the ASUS A7N8X and the Radeon 9600 (which is the base for the All-in-Wonder 9600) should be supported fine be somewhat recent Linux versions. In this case I would recommend to use a distribution that uses a text-based installer or has one available, like Debian or Slackware, this way you will get a much better understanding at which point exactly the install hangs and maybe even get error messages that tell you what exactly is going wrong.
While it may be possible I doubt that this is a hardware incompatibility or a wrong driver.

Thank you for that 1, but, sometimes I can or may be wrong, I think this is the case at present time.

Hi,
Well, I really don't know what he problem is, but I think TobiSGD is giving good advice in trying a text based installer. Personally I recommend Debian since that is what I'm most familiar with and the current stable release is quite new. But there are also many Slackware users here at LQ, that could help you out if you choose to go that route.

Cheers,

Evo2.

A little frustrated today.... There have been enough crashes that I have rendered several HDD's useless. I think that I will get another machine together and make a fresh start on hardware. Attempting repair on HDD's with software has not been successful for quite some time for me. Too much of the low level stuff unreachable now days. I will be back in a few days with an update & progress report.
To work with the HDD today I have been using a live Knoppix system. It has the best screensaver I have EVER seen!
73, de John W8CCW

FWIW, no installer will damage a harddisk, so are you sure that this is the case here?