Ubuntu 12.04 repeatedly fails to boot up since this morning on my 2004 Compaq Presario computer but luckily the companion O.S. Linux Mint on the same machine works. There is plenty of hard-drive spare room and RAM. Can someone tell me how to debug this problem?

Thanks very much.

Julianvb

Check your logs for hints : /var/log

You can get an idea of what the problem is there.

with hardware this old, you have to be careful what distro you install. be glad mint works. hopefully mate, not cinnamon.
be careful with sytem updates - after all, mint is based on ubuntu, too.

ceyx and ondoho,

Thanks for your good advice. I've been running Ubuntu 12.04 and Mint 11 fine until now on this 2004 Compaq after replacing the original 80Gb hard drive early this year. I'll look into /var/log for clues to the machine's sudden new symptoms. I agree with you that I should be happy with the status quo in order not to overstretch the hardware. I did recently play with /etc/default/grub in order to boot up in text mode, but I've since then undone the change.

Julianvb

I've had that happen on Arch linux and I found out it was because systemd corrupted the install if it doesnt shutdown properly. I heard ubuntu switched to systemd so that may be what happened.

^good point.

...but basically, there's 2 ways to go here:

1) try to solve your problem with ubuntu, until you get the next problem caused by ubuntu not supporting old hardware
2) go to distrowatch.com and search for distros specifically for old computers, and install one. and if you get problems with that, at least i am much more motivated to help.

it's a problem with ubuntus development - they favor current hardware support, and seem to be slowly moving away from PCs towards mobile devices.

darthaxul and dondoho,

Thanks again. I'll definitely put your valuable suggestions to use.

Last night I was able to get into Ubuntu 12.04 using the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS CD to run boot-repair. Two months ago I had luck repairing the system with reboot-pair but not this time even though the program indicated it had fixed the boot problem. Now when I boot up Ubuntu 12.04, I see the "Ubuntu 12.04" graphic screen briefly and then the system immediately shuts down. If I boot up Ubuntu 12.04 in text mode first and type startx, Ubuntu shuts down immediately also.

Boot-repair advises the user to indicate http://paste.ubuntu.com/8119073 to boot.repair@gmail.com in case of further boot problems. I think I'll follow the program's advice.

Julianloui