nickdc
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Post by nickdc on Jan 24, 2024 14:04:20 GMT
Hi, I'm completely new to Bodhi, but not to Linux. Really keen to install Bodhi on an old Sony vaio laptop (PCG-4Q1M), but need help installing. Bodhi 7 installer is on a USB stick and Bodhi runs fine from there (and it looks wonderful!). But when I try to install, it tells me: "This computer currently has no detected operating systems. What would you like to do?" What I definitely don't want to do is overwrite the Windows 7 installation that I'm currently using to write and send this request for help! How do I get the installer to see the Windows OS? I suspect the problem is due to previous operations: originally the laptop had Windows Vista, which when I took it over I upgraded to Windows 7; then I shrank the main Windows partition to make space for Lubuntu (18? - the laptop only comes into use on sporadic occasions); now I want to use it for a project which will need more Linux space, so the other day I shrank the main Windows partition further, deleted the Lubuntu partition and created a new partition comprising the one which had held Lubuntu and the unallocated space freed by shrinking Windows. What I'd overlooked was how this would affect booting (ie I'm at the limits of my linux knowledge and wasn't clear where the essential boot files reside - perhaps I wiped them!) and I consequently couldn't boot into Windows. I was able to restore it without reinstalling using the original Windows CD, and that's where I am now: Windows working fine on its partition, an empty (ext4) partition beside it, waiting for Bodhi, and wondering how I can get Bodhi onto it and set up grub with dual booting without wiping Windows. (And hoping this all makes sense!) PS. I have an image of the installer window on "Manual", showing the drive and its partitions, but perhaps because I'm new here I don't have a button for attachments.
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Post by thewaiter on Jan 24, 2024 17:13:55 GMT
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nickdc
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Post by nickdc on Jan 24, 2024 20:29:58 GMT
Thanks for the link, and please accept my apologies: I read through the installation guidance and must have not realised the significance of that note, which would have answered my question.
However, even had I done so, I'd still have had to ask for further help as I get an error after running the grub-mkconfig command:
</usr/sbin/grub-probe: error : failed to get canonical path of '/cow'.> How should I deal with that?
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Jan 24, 2024 21:27:23 GMT
I was under the impression you were having issues during installation of Bodhi. Enabling OS-Prober is something you do after Bodhi installion to get Windows into your boot menu. It is not something to do on live iso...
Make sure you have done a FULL shutdown on Windows. By default it hibernates when you tell it shutdown. I think they call it quickboot or something? Otherwise bodhi installer can't see the windows partition correctly as its somehow locked.
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nickdc
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Post by nickdc on Jan 24, 2024 21:54:42 GMT
Aha! Thanks. Yes, I was trying it on live media. But I'm out of my depth trying to install manually - I can identify the right partition to install Bodhi to, but I'm unclear re mount points, boot flags etc. can you point me to a step by step guide? I'll have another go tomorrow, making sure Windows has truly shut down.
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Post by Hippytaff on Jan 24, 2024 23:17:17 GMT
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nickdc
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Post by nickdc on Jan 25, 2024 10:30:27 GMT
Thank you, that guide is helpful. There's plenty of info around about minimum requirements for Bodhi, but I haven't found any recommendations on apportioning space to /boot, /home and /swap (and some say swap isn't really necessary). I've got 2gb of ram and about 60gb available for Bodhi in total. What would be a wise allocation?
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nickdc
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Post by nickdc on Jan 25, 2024 14:04:12 GMT
After further reading I followed advice to just install to the one partition, flagging it as root. That led to another problem: the installer couldn't find an EFI partition. Further reading suggested I check whether this laptop uses BIOS or UEFI. Seems it uses BIOS (it's pretty old now) so I followed advice to go ahead anyway. Everything ran smoothly until the last stages of the installation when I got a fatal error -unable to install grub - and installer crashed. "Unable to install Grub in /dev/sda..... This is a fatal error."
Back to square one. The harder it gets the more determined I am to make it work - drives my partner crazy!
The only thing I was unsure about was the kind of partition to make in the unallocated space where I wanted to install. The highlighted option was "Logical", but I changed that to "Primary" - could that have caused the problem? I doubt it, but thought I should mention it.
Another thing I wondered about was whether to install a legacy version of Bodhi. Perhaps the latest is a step too far for this laptop?
Any thoughts and suggestions greatly appreciated.
PS Adding to my difficulty atm is that there's been a problem with our landline for several days, so I'm having to get net access via 4G and WiFi enabled devices. Everything is so sloooow!
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nickdc
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Post by nickdc on Jan 26, 2024 21:23:07 GMT
Success at last! I'm using Bodhi now and it's revitalised this ancient laptop. The key was discovering that this is a pre-UEFI laptop, and all I had to do was open up the contents of the live USB installer drive and delete the EFI folder. It was post No.2 here unix.stackexchange.com/questions/158076/installing-linux-without-uefi that gave me the solution. In my case there wasn't a separate EFI partition on the pen drive installer, just a folder, and after removing that folder the installation went with out a hitch. I'm now really enjoying Bodhi and looking forward to learning more about what it can do. |
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Post by Hippytaff on Jan 26, 2024 22:01:18 GMT
Excellent troubleshooting skills. Thanks for documenting the journey here. It will come in handy!
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Jan 26, 2024 22:27:28 GMT
Yes that is awesome, I hadn't heard of doing that. I have installed on non-eufi systems but it went thru, albiet with a warning about no no uefi or something that I just skip thru, but only tried when it was full drive installation, not dual boot with windows.
So after you did that nickdc, did the installer give you the option to "install bodhi alongside windows" automatically? Or did you still have to go thru the manual partition config (which is totally understandable to not be easy for someone who has never had to deal with that before.) I wonder if there is a way we could have the installer detect if the system has UEFI, and if not, delete that folder ourselves as a startup script on the live iso, so that it makes installation easier in the future for people in your situation.... I bet you did have to enable os prober after install to get Windows into your grub menu tho, cuz its the UEFI users that may not need that as they may have a boot menu from their bios, is the way I understood it. If that's the case as I suspect, maybe we could make it even easier by doing that automatically on the non-UEFI systems that have a windows partition too! Of course this idea is is proposing more work for already busy ylee , but would certainly be useful for our upcoming legacy release, as legacy (32-bit) machines are far less likely to have UEFI than newer machines. |
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nickdc
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Post by nickdc on Jan 27, 2024 11:02:21 GMT
It was a bit more complicated than that, as it detected the aborted previous Bodhi installation. So it told me there were other systems and offered to install alongside them. But I wanted to replace the aborted Bodhi (possibly with greater expertise I could have simply repaired/innstalled grub at that point) so I opted for the manual partitioning. That enabled me to delete the Bodhi partition back to unallocated space (little green cross next to the <change> button, going from memory), then install Bodhi properly to that space. I don't think I even had to create a new partition - I think the installer took care of that. I may have had to choose root </> as the mount point from the drop-down menu. All went smoothly after that.
That would be a great idea. Also worth mentioning here that some older laptops running early Windows (7/8) have motherboards that can use UEFI even though Windows is installed to use BIOS. Best way to check if mbo is UEFI capable or only BIOS (as mine here is) is to go into the BIOS settings on startup and it should be clear.
Actually I didn't! I was expecting to, and the first thing I checked after the installation completed was to power down completely, then see what happened on starting up again. And from the get-go I was presented with the familiar grub menu, Bodhi at the top, Win 7 at the bottom. It even offered the Windows recovery partition, which seems to have survived through all this machine's many incarnations! Pretty cool!
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