Linux crashes when i try to install

I downloaded Zorin OS lite on my USB. I plug it in my old laptop (hp G62) and i booted it. Once i get to the desktop screen freezes. I tried it with also Linux Mint but it froze without getting to the desktop. What is the solution for it? I also have Windows 10 on my drive.

Edit: It has i5 M460 and 2x2 1067 MHz ram. No GPU

Originally Posted by Talfa I downloaded Zorin OS lite on my USB. I plug it in my old laptop (hp G62) and i booted it. Once i get to the desktop screen freezes. I tried it with also Linux Mint but it froze without getting to the desktop. What is the solution for it? I also have Windows 10 on my drive.

Which hp G62, with which processor (most came with an i3), what clock speed, how much ram, anything else that you can tell us?

I have never had a problem loading Linux on a laptop equipped with an Intel or AMD X86_64 compatible processor, but a couple would only load very restricted subset of distributions.
I usually test load live imaged from my Ventoy thumb drives. Fast and easy.

BTW: your title says "crashes", and that may or may not be the case. What you describe is a GUI freeze, and we have not verified if the OS itself does freeze.

You might try ALT-F1 and ALT-F2 and see if you can get to a TTY session. IF you can, then Linux is not frozen just the desktop is.

Just for testing you might try TINYCORE Linux and see what happens.

Hello & Welcome to LQ, Talfa

The HP G62 is a very old machine (2010?) and had basically NO RAM. So,

• Mint didn't work because it expects UEFI and that hadn't been invented yet.
• Zorin I don't know, but your low ram could have stopped that also.

The problem is made worse because desktops have loads of video ram now, and you have basically none. So your video will use normal ram instead, but you haven't got any of that, either.

Use a lightweight OS. I'm told AntiX is good https://antixlinux.com/

People will no doubt suggest others. Once you get in, make a swap partition, which uses the disk as memory. Linux is actually very economical with memory.

Specs online indicate that probably came with 2G ram, and it supports up to 8G ram.
There were different HP G62 models, and we still do not know which one the OP has.

Unless someone took the ram out (in which case it should not boot) or the ram is faulty/failing I doubt that is the problem. Failing ram would cause ANYTHING to freeze up! I would love to see if something like TinyCORE Linux, AntiX, or Puppy runs properly on it. IF not, it might need a good cleaning and serious troubleshooting to find the issue.

When NEW that was a pretty pedestrian laptop and never very impressive. It is probably not worth the time to troubleshoot unless you LIKE such troubleshooting. I do, but not everyone does.

Net trying to pick, but one of the few nuggets of info was that the bought for him, so I went supposing it came with the standard 2G at the time. I bought a laptop in 2008 and upped the spec to 3G. You didn't need any more then, for everyday stuff, really.

If it had the Northbridge/Southbridge design, that could have been 768(?)Mhz, instead of the usual 667Mhz. But it's better than a Raspberry Pi.

Originally Posted by wpeckham Which hp G62, with which processor (most came with an i3), what clock speed, how much ram, anything else that you can tell us? I have never had a problem loading Linux on a laptop equipped with an Intel or AMD X86_64 compatible processor, but a couple would only load very restricted subset of distributions. I usually test load live imaged from my Ventoy thumb drives. Fast and easy. BTW: your title says "crashes", and that may or may not be the case. What you describe is a GUI freeze, and we have not verified if the OS itself does freeze. You might try ALT-F1 and ALT-F2 and see if you can get to a TTY session. IF you can, then Linux is not frozen just the desktop is. Just for testing you might try TINYCORE Linux and see what happens.

Oh it has i5 M460 and 2x2 gb 1067 MHz ram. No GPU, i use integrated

I will try that TTY session soon. Thanks for information.

Originally Posted by wpeckham Specs online indicate that probably came with 2G ram, and it supports up to 8G ram. There were different HP G62 models, and we still do not know which one the OP has. Unless someone took the ram out (in which case it should not boot) or the ram is faulty/failing I doubt that is the problem. Failing ram would cause ANYTHING to freeze up! I would love to see if something like TinyCORE Linux, AntiX, or Puppy runs properly on it. IF not, it might need a good cleaning and serious troubleshooting to find the issue. When NEW that was a pretty pedestrian laptop and never very impressive. It is probably not worth the time to troubleshoot unless you LIKE such troubleshooting. I do, but not everyone does.

Sorry for not giving the specs of my model. It has i5 M460 2.53 GHz. 2x2gb 1067 MHz ram. integrated graphics.

I don't think there is a problem with my ram. My friend with 32 GB ddr5 ram tried dualboot but he got similiar things.

That is not the base model of the lower rated in that series, it is actually pretty nice for a G62! While it may be a bit of a dog by modern standards, that model should run somewhat faster than the base G62 with only 2G ram on an i3.

I do not think you would get as far as a desktop, frozen or not, if the BIOS settings were not allowing that boot. I do not have one handy to check what settings there are, but if it will boot from USB then I would prep a Ventoy device and try some of the lighter distributions in live mode. Just prep a thumb drive with Ventoy (back it up if something is on it, Ventoy overwrites and repartitions) and simply copy the ISO files of interest onto it.

With the INTEL video system there should be no driver issues. I would run live or persistent off of USB and not try to set up multiboot on the hard drive.

I seem to remember a different thread here on LQ where someone set up Xbuntu or Kbuntu on one of those, but I would not do that if Mint failed.
Aside from the minimal ones already mentioned some others that might serve well are MintDE (which is Debian based rather than Ubuntu, that might make the difference), Manjaro with KDE/Plasma or XFCE, or Q4OS with Trinity. I would stay away from Gnome as it is a bit heavy for that machine.

Running live sessions from a USB device will avoid changing or corrupting that Windows install on the hard drive. You might want to preserve that as the HP firmware updates are primarily Windows based.