Debian 5.02 (Lenny) installation doesn't detect CD-ROM

[TechShui]

Hello everybody,

I'm new to Linux, but anything is better than Windows these days. So I just downloaded the Lenny torrent to try a clean install, it took me a little over an hour and a half, plus 20 minutes to burn.

It booted, and I chose "Graphical Install", put the language and region, and then it come to a screen that looks like this

Detect and mount CD-ROM

[::::: Detecting hardware to find CD-ROM drives :::::]
Detecting hardware please wait...

After about one minute, the bar showing "Detecting hardware" disappears, and It just hangs at this point, with only "Detect and Mount CD-ROM" displayed in bold.

I can move the mouse pointer around the screen, and hear the CD drive spinning, but nothing happens, I left it alone for 30 minutes to see if it would do anything, but that's it, so I had to hold the power button for 5 secs. and turn off the machine.

I'm trying to install on an ancient Dell Latitude CPx laptop, 650Mhz, 256MB RAM, Intel 440BX chipset. And as far as I know, there's no hardware issues with it.

[rokytnji]

Give this a whirl instead and just download http or ftp.
Main Page - antiX

[rokytnji]

It is based on Debian Squeeze

[reed9]

I would also recommend Antix for an older machine.

Regarding the Debian disc, it's possible it's a bad burn. Or the download was corrupt. Did you do a checksum on the iso?

I recall a while ago installing Debian Lenny and having trouble with the graphical installer - though that was before the release. The text based installer worked for me though, you might also try that.

[jonantice]

I've had similar problems with Debian and the solution was to usually try to find something with a newer kernel. Instead of Lenny try Squeeze or, especially since you're new to Linux try Ubuntu.

[TechShui]

I would also recommend Antix for an older machine.

Regarding the Debian disc, it's possible it's a bad burn. Or the download was corrupt. Did you do a checksum on the iso?

I recall a while ago installing Debian Lenny and having trouble with the graphical installer - though that was before the release. The text based installer worked for me though, you might also try that.

Yeah, it's starting to look more like a bad burn, I tried it in a different laptop, and the same thing happened.

How do I use the checksum? I used Vuze (bittorrent client) to download the ISO file of Disc 1, and as far I know, Vuze automatically checks the pieces, and the file(s) as whole, to make sure they're not corrupt. Do you mean verify the CD after I burnt it? Because I didn't think of that... Now it seems like a good idea, LOL.

I'm trying the text based installer now, it took a long time to load the kernel, but now I'm at a blue screen and it detected the CD-ROM drive!

Then it says detecting USB storage and devices...

Now it's just blank, a blue screen with a white bar at the bottom, no text anymore. The CD is spinning and the HDD LED indicator is solid (not blinking). Oh, man. I guess it was a bad burn after all... I'll leave it a while longer, but it's been hanging for 5 minutes already.

Could it be the HDD causing it to hang?

I've had similar problems with Debian and the solution was to usually try to find something with a newer kernel. Instead of Lenny try Squeeze or, especially since you're new to Linux try Ubuntu.

I think I might try AntiX first, because I've heard Ubuntu, even though it's easier to use, is more RAM-intensive than Debian, is this true? What are the minimum SysReq for running Ubuntu?

[rokytnji]

How do I use the checksum?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

What are the minimum SysReq for running Ubuntu

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...emRequirements

[TechShui]

I downloaded AntiX, ran winMd5sum to make sure it wasn't corrupt, burned on low speed (4x) to avoid errors.

I tried it Live first, and it hangs right after loading the kernel (again, before the CD-ROM)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz  vga=normal quiet nosplash drvr=vesa aufs lean Xtralean
	[Linux-bzimage, setup=0x2c00, size=0x241930]
initrd /boot/initrd.gz
	[Linux-initrd @ 0xfd83000, 0x258660 bytes]

Total Memory available: 254468kB, Memory free: 230736kB
_

It stays like this for about 12 minutes -- I counted. And then it proceeds to load the CD-ROM, USB, and other devices, and finally the Desktop and GUI. (AntiX has awesome wallpaper, btw)

I rebooted to see if it would take just as long, and so far 30 minutes and still no GUI, so it's actually taking longer!

Maybe if I'd waited more than 30 mins for the Debian/Lenny installer, it would've eventually loaded the devices? But it's unreasonable to wait that long, I'm starting to doubt my Lenny CD was a bad burn, I used the same Sony CD-RW drive (and the same speed of 4x) to burn Damn Small Linux, Lenny, and now AntiX.

DSL boots in 30 seconds, so why are the other 2 distros lagging so much? Is it because they're bigger? Maybe my CD-ROM drive is faulty, but I've never had a problem with it before. And a Google search shows this glitch happening on Ubuntu installs as well, so I don't really want to waste another CD-R on that.

[rokytnji]

DSL boots in 30 seconds, so why are the other 2 distros lagging so much? Is it because they're bigger?

No. Because they are working harder and trying to get everything to work as far as hardware. They are bigger because they come with more tools to get hardware working. Damn Small Linux expects you to have the knowledge that when a certain piece of hardware isn't detected or working that you will have the skillset to enable it.

It stays like this for about 12 minutes -- I counted. And then it proceeds to load the CD-ROM, USB, and other devices, and finally the Desktop and GUI. (AntiX has awesome wallpaper, btw)

I rebooted to see if it would take just as long, and so far 30 minutes and still no GUI, so it's actually taking longer

Something is wrong here. I have some exotic Laptops (Amrel)

That are 500 hz cpu and 128mb of ram and they don't take as long to boot live and boot a lot faster after install. I can't figure why you are having such problems.

You might have to settle for Puppy 3.01, Slitaz, or some other small linux distro. Sometimes hardware requires making tough choices when trying to use Linux.

[TechShui]

Can I compile a custom kernel with my chipset (Intel 440BX) so that the installer doesn't have to "guess" what chipset is in the hardware, because that seems to be where it gets stuck.

Hmm, I just pulled out the HDD caddy and turned the laptop back on with the AntiX CD inside and it's still hanging, but I noticed a lot of options on the Boot menu that I haven't tried...

I tried AntiX=vesa

kernel /boot/vmlinuz  vga=normal quiet nosplash drvr=vesa aufs lean Xtralean
	[Linux-bzimage, setup=0x2c00, size=0x241930]
initrd /boot/initrd.gz
	[Linux-initrd @ 0xfd83000, 0x258660 bytes]

Total Memory available: 254468kB, Memory free: 230736kB
_

The screen shows the same as before, except without the "lean" and "Xtralean" switches. It hanged here for about 30 minutes, then I ran out of patience and turned it off.

UPDATE:
Actually, I just found out the laptop's overheating, so all these times that I've been letting it hang, I could've already fried the CPU!

I installed Windows XP to see if I could run some diagnostics, I ran i8kfanGUI and it showed the temperature idling around 145° F (57° C) and that's how I found out it's overheating.

Under a 100% load it's much worse, for example when watching a YouTube video, in less than a minute it's already up to 197° F (93° C). Which is enough to seriously damage the CPU. The fan, -- even on max speed -- barely brings it down one degree.

I'm not sure if all that overloading I did to it has caused this, or if it's the other way around? And by that , I mean the overheating caused Linux to hang in the first place?