Kubuntu install problem

[photoman]

Hi gang,

I just "installed" Kubuntu on my Dell laptop. The desktop shows a smaller window that shows "Desktop" as the window name and in that little window are two icons. One is "About Kubuntu" and the other one is "Install". Well, I thought I had already installed the OS to the entire hard drive (as per the selection during boot-up and installation). When I click on the "Install" icon, it does something but then stops as if it senses I already installed the OS. That's all well and good. However, when I reboot, the computer goes immediately to a black screen and says that no bootable device was found. I am also unable to eject the CD by either the "eject" option or by pressing the eject button on the CD/DVD player. I don't know what the problem is. Any suggesions??

Thanks for your help.

[yancek]

You don't give much information about your computer so it's hard to diagnose. Since it's a laptop, I will assume one hard drive? Are there any other operating systems on the dirve and if so, what are they? What is your partition structure? How many, what's on them?

I've never used Kubuntu but what you describe, having an install icon on the desktop, is usually the case after you load the CD into RAM?

Did you download the CD you are using to install or purchase it? If you downloaded, did you run the md5 checksum as suggested on the web site? Might be a bad download or a bad burn.

Use a paper clip to insert in the small hole on the front of your drive if you can't get it open. If you are able to get the Live CD running run the command from a terminal: sudo fdisk -l and post the output here.

[photoman]

Info about the computer: It's a Dell C840 laptop. It runs at 2.4 GHz. It's an older model and only has something like 256MB of RAM. Yes, one hard drive; 60 GB. The install is from a purchased CD and I set it up to use the entire hard drive; no other OSes on the system. As for the CD/DVD drive not opening, it opened once I instructed the system to shut down.

Oh, wait...update. I rebooted with the CD and decided to run the memory test on my computer. I already see that I have five memory errors; same bit for all bit patterns. That's not a good sign.

As for partitioning, I didn't select a manual install so I'm guessing it partitioned as it saw fit. That being said, it seems to me that I read in the Ubuntu magazine that it's best to set up three partitions; one for the OS (6-8 GB), another one about twice that size for swap space, and a third one for the /home directory. Since I'm not super familiar with Linux, does that sound about right or would you suggest something different for partition sizes?

That's the current config. If you need more specific information, I can get it.

Thanks a bunch!

[D-cat]

Yes, you'll need to replace the RAM.

Anyway, the manual partition with a separate home (which is not a bad idea for allowing future upgrades with less danger of killing your personal data) works a little different than you described.

/ (root) 10-20 GB depending on what you intend to install and how you will use it.
swap Twice your RAM, but not more than 2GB.
/home The rest of it.

If you installed on bad RAM, the risk of corruption is high; after replacing your RAM, you should re-install from scratch.

[photoman]

Thanks. I'll definitely be checking into getting new RAM. I'd like to make this Dell into my Linux box but it ain't happening at the moment. The memory errors just keep coming so it's time for some TLC.

[devils casper]

Lets check the Partition Structure of your Hard disk first.
Open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[photoman]

Lets check the Partition Structure of your Hard disk first.
Open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

Ok...here is the output from the fdisk.

Device Boot Start End Blocks ID System
/dev/sda1 1 6992 56163208+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 6993 7296 2441880 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 6993 7296 2441848+ 82 Linux Swap/Solaris


Sorry for the lack of order in the chart. It lost it's formatting when I posted it. Hopefully you can still decipher it.

[photoman]

Interesting. Just for grins and giggles I tried installed Xubuntu as I did with Kubuntu and Xubuntu works flawlessly. However, the memory errors are still present when I do the memory check. I'm confused but I did manage to find two new DIMMs online for about $23.00 for 1 GB worth of RAM. I haven't got it yet but I wonder why Xubuntu works and Kubuntu works from CD but won't install.

And now with Xubuntu, I can't get the wireless network to work but it works fine with Kubuntu. That sucks.

[D-cat]

Xubuntu is a lighter distro, it may have simply not run into the RAM errors in a fatal way. Either way though, installation on bad RAM will likely result in a bad install, even if it seems to work fine for a while. You're okay to work booted with the live CD's, but avoid saving anything to the hard drive. While most things may be okay, some things some where will pass through the bad areas of RAM and thus will be saved as corrupted copies.

[MikeTbob]

swap Twice your RAM, but not more than 2GB.

I wouldn't recommend using more than 500 MB of Swap if you have 1GB or more of RAM, it just seems like a waste to me. It'll never use all that swap. Of course this is personal opinion and not a fact.
I have 2GB RAM and right now, with multiple "memory heavy" programs running:
EDIT: Of course this all changes drastically if you use hibernate functions.

# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2072580 1560540 512040 0 521140 622476
-/+ buffers/cache: 416924 1655656
Swap: 265032 188 264844