Failing to install Mint 18.2

[Skybird]

Robbins, or anyone in the knowledge of Linux Mint, does this make sense to you?

Its the last chapter and current status of Linux worries I am fighting against since two days. Long story short: while wanting to create a bootable Mint Live 18.2 USB stick as emergency backup (my existing one still is 17.2) something - cannot define it any closer, I have no idea - went wrong, and so I did it under Windows then, with another stick. Actually there was more misery involved with that, too, but it plays no role here. After that, and one system (the linux notebook) shutdown, and rebooting it hours later, I got greeted with a message that I should put in a valid boot medium. And thats it.

I cannot boot into my notebook's Mint 18.2 anymore. But its even worse.

Getting engaged on the issue - and having lots of words exchanged with the major German forum on Linux Mint - I found, that I also cannot get into the system via Grub Superdisk, or a Linux Live boot medium (DVD, or USB stick) with Mint 18.2. A book installation DVD with 18.1 (an introductory book on Linux that came with one of these DVDs for starters) also does not get me into the notebook, not to mention the installed 18.2.

However, an old DVD with 17.2 can get the notebook booting in 17.2, so does a stick with 17.2.

I' clueless and now out of advise. The experts in that forum are puzzled and slowly become angry that I cast a cloudy shadow in their sunny Linux land. I am also starting to fell getting lead in circles.

I know little about Grub, nothing, to be more true; the option where you can let Grub analyse what OS options are present, lists Linux Mint 18.2, and that then can only refer to the installation on the HD. Choosing that leads to a long wait, and then the demand for a root password - which i never have heard of before and thus never have set. I tried my account logins, but to no success.

This is queer. The notebook came with 18.1 preinstalled, I wanted preinstallation so that the shop had to demonstrate and give guarantee for comple component compatability with Linux. But I am unable to and totally locked out when wanting to install Mint 18.2. I cannot do it, it is impossible apparently. I can install 17.2, assuming that the installation button on the Linux Live setup desktop does work and is not causing more, new mess.

Any ideas? The major German Linux Mint forum seems to have no advice left. Im getting a little bit desperate.

Currently having reactivated my tower'S second HD with my old testing installation for 17.2. The 18.2 boot media I mentioned, work on this tower PC, flawlessly. The boot it in 18.2 Live.

An Installation DVD for W7 also works in the notebook, gets launched, loads stuff and then ask for permission to proceed (which I of course denied, it was just a test). 17.2 seems to run fine as well. But not 18.2. No way to reinstall it.

Somebody needs to get me out of this, I know no way out anymore. So far I lost many hours, many words, and two USB sticks that got destroyed in the processes in the past 48 hours. I'm already lucky that I did a data backup just in time. Just in time. Many new photos I just had done.

P.S. I assume that the media, the notebook and the tower technically are fine, are not broken. No hints for that at least nmone that I could identify as hints for technical flaws.

[Skybird]

A German made me testing booting with Live media for Mint 18.0 and KDE neo, I think he wanted to see whether it is about differences in the Kernels. Both attempts failed, freezed in the middle of nowhere. He said it could be just before the GUI gets loaded, how he comes to that theory I don'T know, the screen does not show whether or not the GUI was about to load or not, it all just freezes. mI just mention it as an additional observations. I have a relatvely new ans strong notebook - but can only load/install a Mint of the past...? It has still support until April 2019, okay, but still... I asked in the biggest German forum for this OS. Nobody has a clue. And I started to feel seriously pissed. Not becasue of the people, but the totally locked situation, no step forward or backwards.

[propbeanie]

When you load the 17.2, can you "see" the 18.2 hard drive in the same machine OK? Can you navigate through the folders?

[Skybird]

Yes, I even saved some photo files of recent date that so far had not been included in regular backups.

[Skybird]

Live Ubuntu 16.04.3 medium also freezes during installation attempt. Just tried.

Live Mint 17.2 still works.

Mail from the shop, they are clueless.

Throwing the whole thing out of the window sounds like a reasonable alternative now.

I quit in the German Mint forum, they have started to become angry that I throw a shadow in sunny Linux land. Will try an international forum, but with no real hope left anymore.

So langsam geht mir die ganze Computerei einfach nur noch auf die Nerven.

[ExFishermanBob]

Can I understand more clearly:

You create a bootable USB stick, boot to 18.2, but there is a failure during 18.2 installation.

I have had a similar problem, when I downloaded the installation ISO, but the download was corrupted (damaged). It appeared to install correctly, but booting produced an 'insert bootable disc' error message.

Re-downloading the ISO and verifying the checksum allowed me to proceed and install successfully (on 4 machines and a virtual box image so far), including on machines that previously ran 17.3 or 18.1.

Note: the above were Cinnamon installs, not KDE, but that should not matter.

https://linuxmint.com/verify.php

[Skybird]

Game over.

In the past half an hour it has all come together. I had to note that the nVidia drivers could not be chnaged, leaving me with software rendering. I managed to shoot down what had remained of the UEFI, it seems, so that I cannot use the disk drive and the USB ports anymore. The UEFI can be entered, but nothign what I knew about BIOS helps me there to get things back on track. Running a Linux Mint update to get from 17.2 to 17.3, ended in a reboot at the end of the inmstallation - but booting into a Linux fallback procedure, or so they called it: in other words, the Linux installation does not work anymore, too. Wowh, Linux, UEFI, and this box have brought me down - I give up. Three days and two nights is enough.

The strange thing is - I still have the strong feelign that the hardware is okay. Its UEFI and Linux who did the bad, and worstened it.

I am now so much pissed that I think it is not even worth it for me to call for the warranty, I just want to get rid of it, so I will probably declare it as broken and sell it as such as fast as possible. I currently use my dual boot tower PC, and I stick with this one now as long as it lives. After that, another dual boot tower PC again. If any PC at all.

The alternative is - a cheap Chromebook, if that exists. Privacy can be forgotten of course, you are a naked star on the traffic crossroad with this thing, but security holes they use to close faster than anyone else. Then having all private files (texts, photos) only on USB sticks or external drives, not on the machine, handling them only offline and separated from the web, and online not doing anything of personal/privacy relevance, so that it does not matter how much they snoop into the machine to learn about the user. Maybe I then can even print photos again without needing to port them on a stick from Linux to Windows before getting acceptable results.

The most unwelcomed conclusion: I am left behind by the changes in computer technology, I do not understand enough of it anymore, and my old knowledge plays no role any longer. I just do not know this new stuff any more, and I find it extremely difficult to get into it, once you need to face a level below the shiny surface. And I start to wonder whether it really is worth it anyway. I read three books on Linux over the past 18 months - and it helped me nothing.

A tech crisis like this one I have never experienced in my Windows years, I must admit.

End of lament.

[Rockin Robbins]

Regardless of the exact nature of the problem the computer manufacturer is most likely to be able to help you.

[BarracudaUAK]

Sorry I'm late to the game here, been busy with RL....


UEFI could be causing all of the grief here.
Since I'm not familiar with your Notebook, just a few things I would check.

In the Bios on my Gigabyte mother board, I can set (most of them individually) each "part" (usb, etc.) to be either "Legacy" or "UEFI".

If I turn UEFI "off", but leave something such as usb set to "UEFI only", then I won't have my usb until I turn it to "Legacy", or one of the "either/or" settings. (UEFI/Legacy, or Legacy/UEFI, sets the 'primary'.)


IF UEFI is on, and the boot UEFI "key" (in the OS) isn't correct, it will "break" on boot.

Can you install 17.2 and do a "system upgrade" to 18.2?

I don't mean use the "software updater" program.

The program for Fedora that allows me to upgrade from, for example, F25 to F26 is command line only. As it is a rather long and drawn-out process. (The upgrade, not typing the command.)


This may be the way the Manufacturer did it. Installed 17, then upgraded it after install to 18.

I've done it before when Fedora had issues recognizing my RAID in a previous version.


I'll see if I can find any info on MINT 18.2 having issues with UEFI.

Lastly, hardware issues will show up in MANY ways that don't appear to be hardware.
I'm not saying it is the hardware, but I've been in the same situation.
ALL the evidence pointed at something else. Which is exactly why I started swapping parts.

Barracuda


EDIT: Bit short on time here, but I did find this after a quick search....

https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...-amd64-package

I thought I would post it here just in case you did run across a similar error during your attempts.
I'll keep looking later when I have a bit more time.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by BarracudaUAK

Sorry I'm late to the game here, been busy with RL....


UEFI could be causing all of the grief here.
Since I'm not familiar with your Notebook, just a few things I would check.

In the Bios on my Gigabyte mother board, I can set (most of them individually) each "part" (usb, etc.) to be either "Legacy" or "UEFI".

If I turn UEFI "off", but leave something such as usb set to "UEFI only", then I won't have my usb until I turn it to "Legacy", or one of the "either/or" settings. (UEFI/Legacy, or Legacy/UEFI, sets the 'primary'.)


IF UEFI is on, and the boot UEFI "key" (in the OS) isn't correct, it will "break" on boot.

Can you install 17.2 and do a "system upgrade" to 18.2?

I don't mean use the "software updater" program.

The program for Fedora that allows me to upgrade from, for example, F25 to F26 is command line only. As it is a rather long and drawn-out process. (The upgrade, not typing the command.)


This may be the way the Manufacturer did it. Installed 17, then upgraded it after install to 18.

I've done it before when Fedora had issues recognizing my RAID in a previous version.


I'll see if I can find any info on MINT 18.2 having issues with UEFI.

Lastly, hardware issues will show up in MANY ways that don't appear to be hardware.
I'm not saying it is the hardware, but I've been in the same situation.
ALL the evidence pointed at something else. Which is exactly why I started swapping parts.

Barracuda


EDIT: Bit short on time here, but I did find this after a quick search....

https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...-amd64-package

I thought I would post it here just in case you did run across a similar error during your attempts.
I'll keep looking later when I have a bit more time.

I think the hardware does not get recognised correctly, it probbaly is alright (no broken matter), but configruation is messed up on a level maybe below UEFI.

One day later I managed to play around in the UEFI by just trying random option settings, until one combination allowed installation of 17.2, and upgrading to 17.3, also suddenly the drives were listed in the UEFI again wher ebefore they were not . However, the nVidia graphics board does not get recognised, I am on intel graphics and software rendering mode 800x600. Switching to nVidia driver sends the noteobook into recovery mode next time it gets booted. Also, the touch pad does not work, cannot be activated.

Mint does not allow - as far as I know - to upgrade form 17 to 18 on the fly. I think that was cnaged from 18 on, but not 17. I am on 17.3, and cannot get 18 installed. The boot media still do not succeeed in ionstallation - maybe because the installaon runs into configuration problems and cannot access some hardware - the graphics board for example.

I was found by some bad personal news this week, then the notebook anger, and the main PC I use (dual boot) also starts to shake and became instable. I am currently in wait-and-do-nothing mode, I am exhausted a bit, and frustrated, and a bit locked in place. Lousy week this is. One day when my batteries have recharged a bit again, I probably give the notebook into repair at some locla shop, I do not want it to travel back and forth via mail to benefit from the warranty, the telephone talk I had with them did not give me the impression they understood what I described, and the ASUS support I tried was a lesson that I will keep on mind and take as an argument to never buy something of Asus again. It really is all coming together down on me this week. And its like I always said: Linux is nice as long as it just runs fine and you do not need to go deeper beyond the surface the normal average3 software user skims on. But once problems arise, and you are no well-versed Linux insider, you are lost and forsaken by the heavens. There must be a reason why Linux fails to reach the private user market almost completely - since 20 years. I predict this will not be any different in another 10, 15, 20 years. And although Microsoft lost customers in the past 2 years - it was not Linux collecting these migrants, they went elsewhere instead. Linux market shares shrunk during these two years, from I think around 1.8 or even 1.9, to 1.4 now. Also, look at where Linux is dominant, or major player: that is server farms for example. Companies., on server farms it can have markets have shares varying between 40 and 70% or so. All these have in common that they are maintained by professional experts, people who know Linux for their profession. The private user market seems to be b almost non-existent.

Add to all this the outlook of that maybe W7 cannot be installed on new hardware as well, I have seen more and more reports of people being blocked form that no matter which clever tricks they tried. Then I looks W7 as the only basis I really do know well as well - being faced with W10 then, where my W7 knowledge now is of as much use as under Linux.

Really, I currently have enough of it all so very much.

I'm really grumpy these days. And all this mess only because I wanted to create a Linux Live stick. Have done that several times under Windows, never a problem. First time done under Linux, and an atom bomb goes off.

My specs, btw:
Asus N752VX, i7-6700HQ, 12GB, intel HD530, nVidia GTX950M, SSD 256GB, HD 1TB

[Skybird]

SALUTAT VICTOR !

This was a hard and long fight, and I cannot say to have won it all by myself, but random chance and luck helped me out - in the form of a group of students of the local university's medical department, outside the building for statistical data processing. I ran into them yesterday morning while stopping on my bicycle at a red traffic light, and overheard a conversation of four students, discussing the pro and con of Linux on the university'S computer network. I grinned wide on some problems mentioned, since they mirrored my own problems. It was about installation issues they have had for some database stuff, and that Linux is vulnerable to installation issues - an argument two guys made and the other two vehemently objecting.

Thy saw me grinning (somewhat bitterly grinning,I asuppose), and eye contact lead to a humours greeting and words flying back and forth, and I took the opportunity and reported my issues of not being able to istall Linux ISO, from stick or DVD, in normal or compatability mode.

These guys decided to become serious on the matter and turned out becoming truly helpful, and yesterday and today we traded emails on our varying results with downloading several ISOs of 18.0 and 18.2, and trying to install them on four different systems. If I counted it right, we had three different sources, 4 different burning devices and four different systems: 3 PCs and my notebook.

The results of trying to install from these DVDs - one dozen! - is not really a compliment for the reliability of Linux Mint 18. All DVDs refused to boot into Linux Live mode when choosing the option for normal boot. 9 of 12 DVDs refused to boot into Linux Live when booting via the compatability mode option.

My problem of the past ten days? I happen to have none of the winning discs. One guy gave me his burned 18.2 disc, and from this I could finally boot into Linux Live and then reinstall my notebook from scratch. No brokenb hardware at all there, it all works. I also found that the shop did no good job on default configuration, the second drive now is recognised (mounted) by default, some months ago it gave me a fight for getting it mounted and accessible.

The system works smooth now, tomorrow I will do some options tuning and shuffling back some data from the backup sticks.

What is to be learned from this: it is often said, and even is written in my now two books on Linux Mint, that usually installation in normal boot mode would work, and compatability mode only is occasionally needed to secure booting. My troubles of the past ten days or so need to conclude this: you must ALWAYS boot in compatability mode, and even then you run a lottery regarding the disc you use, the source you downloaded from, the burner, the system you boot on.

And this: although we all tried, nobody of us was able to get any USB stick working for booting into Live installation, on any system, with different processors. Not 18.0. Not 18.2.

The combination of used ISO, Mint version (kernel!), and processors, are underestimate din importance, I would say. That is no explanation, I lack the knowledge to explain what happened in the past days, and my long days of failure. I just report the observed empirical facts.

Also noticable from my own observation: 17.2 installs flawlessly, in normal and compatability mode.

I think Mint 18 has some serious issue there.

The good news is: this battle is over, and it was finally won.

The bad news is: my main PC is breaking down, I ice it since two weeks, it becomes instable and sometimes just switches itself off. I tried some days ago to install W7 on the Skylake notebook I use (back then it was Linux-broken), and finally seemed to manage it after having formed a bootable stick with W7 and SP1 and via tool added USB3 support to it, so that it can boot through the various setup screens. However, installation failed, I got no working W7 installation. It seems my plan to use W7 also on newer hardware once I need to replace my game system, is nill and void. I know have the choice between becoming a Spartan ( using only AC on console, and nothing else anymore), or becoming a heretic and traitor (subjugating to W10 as game launching platform). Linux just does not cut it for simulations and gamings, although the situation has improved, but it still does not cut it: I do not want to play the stuff avalabole unde rKinux, I want to paly the stuff I want to play and which mostly is not available under Linux, or makes no sense to run in VM.

And so once again the grumpy Skybird is not happy.

Tomorrow I wll meet three of four young men in their student homes, maybe some friends of theirs and girls as well, and do a big Wok cooking session, something I am really good in. I owe them something. And its been a long while since I last time cooked in a student's kitchen. 25 years or so... All costs for meat and veggies are on me.

[BarracudaUAK]

Good to know you got it installed and working.


A corrupted download, or a "bad burn" on a DVD can ruin the install.
I've had that problem before.

It may be that MINT 18 has some issues, or it may be that the mirror was corrupt...

Starting as of Fedora 22 (?) and up to Fedora 25, the installer does not "see" my RAID "drives". They show up, but are shown as "0 bytes".

It takes a bit of maneuvering but I can get them to be "seen" properly for install.

The Devs are aware, and I've been tracking the bug report since I installed F23. (25 now.)

Some times they do take a step back...


---
Booting into Safe/Compatability mode...

I've had to do that on most of my Fedora installs simply because I've usually got a video card within 3 generations of "new".

For example, when I built this FX-8350, I had (2) R7-370X. R9 380/R9 390 was the "Top" card. So I had, what I refer to as a "mid-grade front-line" Card.
I.e. the "new" but not the "best" version.

Now I'm running a R9 380. AMD has released the RX 400 series, the RX 500 series (a revision of the 400s), and most recently the RX Vega.
So I'm now "3 generations" "behind".

Only in the last few years with AMDs big push for Linux open-source drivers, has this changed.

When I installed Fedora 25 most recently to reconfigure my RAID 0, to a RAID 10, I did not have to use "compatability mode" because the drivers were there. And they worked.

Compatibility Mode simply switches to "VESA" mode.
VESA is a 486 era standard. But newer cards understand it, and it is considered a "software rendering mode" which is why it "works".

Just in case you are not familiar with VESA...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_...ds_Association

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VESA_Local_Bus


Sorry this is a bit all over the place, I'm doing laundry as I type this...

-----

As Far as your games not running on Linux... not everything does, right now.
But if something doesn't work, and I can't get it to work, I give it time.

As it stands, most of the games that would not work on Linux about 3 years ago, didn't work on WIndows XP either. Now many of them do.

I'm closer to running EVERYTHING that I have, than I have been in years.

As a percentage of games that I have, I'm running a greater percentage than I have been since I switched from Win98 to WinXp.

So all I can suggest is, in order of least complexity:

1: Give it time.
2: Try using "Winetricks" to install what the game needs to work. i.e. Dotnetfx, DirectX, etc.
3: If the Wine you have access to is "too old" to run the program, try enabling a "testing" repo.
4: Try a a bit more "cutting edge" distro.
For example: RHEL, Debian/Ubuntu and (I think) MINT usually have "stable" versions.
That takes a year to "update" to all of the new stuff. New stable versions release every year.
WINEHQ releases a new "Testing/Staging" version every 2 weeks.
Fedora is usually 1-2 weeks behind the release on WINEHQ.
Simply because, most of the time, it is "tested" by Fedrora for a week before it is put in the update repo.
ARCH rolls even faster than Fedora.


Again, all easy compared to what you have just done to get your OS running again!
---
And lastly, you have just succeeded with your most recent post, of doing what most computer (and Linux) users do.

You had a problem, you looked for a solution. You found info and help in an unlikely area, and you then proceeded to troubleshoot -with other users- until you found the solution.

The difference? You did it in a new environment. You are getting there Skybird.
It just takes time to "shift-gears" mentally.

You have just gone through one of many. "It doesn't boot", next is "It won't run game XYZ with WINE"...

I'm Sure there will be more.
(And I need to get MINT on a VM so I'll be able to be more help if you ask those questions here!)

Do you remember the first question you had about your DOS/Windows PC???

I forget what mine was, I think it was how do I make a boot disk...? 3.5" floppy era.
Hmm, Maybe that is the safest way to store my data? Nobody can get to it!!!



Barrauda

[Skybird]

The stunning thing is how many of those DVDs failed to install. We downloaded on four different machines with 4 different burners and CPUs in four different places and all the b urning done by four different people, and two versions of 18 were done - and all DVDs failed in normal mode and three quarters failed in compatability mode.

Thats is more than just a curious singular event. Its a pattern.

On games under Linux, some unexpected titles like ArmA 3 and Subnautica, are running under Linux, but then most of the games I play and that really consume my time, are simulators like Assetto Corsa or Steel Beasts or FSX with many and complex addons, and many of these thigns need special hardware (wheels, pedals, HOTAS) and drivers. That alltogether is no ground Linux can present as its shinign side. Its not for that. And driver support for such hardware is a mess, I learned. These programs also are so demanding on hardware that keeping all that - and controllers and drivers - in a VM, is not working well, if at all.

Chess also is a sad sight under Linux. There are chess programs, yes. But none that compares to the interfaces and capabilties of Arena GUI, Fritz GUI or Chessbase database, not to mention the many top engines you have under Windows and Android.

Yes, Android is better equipped with chess software, than Linux. Its surprising a bit, at least for me it was.

And then there is VR. I am tempted to try AC and RR in VR. In my AC forum they all say its a blast in VR.

Boy, all that poor money of mine. I would treat it so badly if I really go that way...