iang
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Post by iang on Apr 24, 2021 12:01:01 GMT
I am a would-be Bodhi user, rather than an actual one, and I would be
grateful for help in making that change! I have a Sony Vaio PC which originally ran Win XP, and did so very adequately for many years, until that set-up ceased to be viable as a full, internet-connected option.
A few months ago, I successfully installed Zorin 15 on it, and it ran, but oh so slowly. So I looked around, and it seemed that Bodhi might be the answer. I bought a USB installation stick for Bodhi from a reputable online dealer from whom I have bought several such things
in the past. When I set the Vaio to boot from the USB, a Bodhi options screen comes up, with 7 items, some of which work, but, crucially, the top three, relating to actual installation, do not, or not properly. Clicking on any of them has no immediately-visible effect (selecting other options tends to go to a black screen, then a new screen), but the PC seizes up, so in that sense, there is an effect.
I have been back to the supplier, and his ‘take’ is
“It sounds to me like a hardware compatibility issue may be causing the
problems. As Linux uses auto hardware detection, you do sometimes get a certain OS that may not work or be prevented from booting due to a hardware
conflict.”
As a matter of further comparison, I have, since receiving that, successfully booted the Vaio from an old Xtra-PC stick I have.
So I would be very grateful for any insight / advice / detailed
technical instructions.
Is it possible that a Sony Vaio with its original Bios might have a
‘hardware conflict’ with Bodhi ? Or is it more likely that it is
something in the surrounding ‘bootable’ code of the stick that is
the problem ? Either way, can I install Bodhi on this PC ?
I have been ‘trying quite hard’ to get this to work, and there is
more detail I can give, but I didn’t want to overload this first
post.
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Post by Hippytaff on Apr 24, 2021 15:38:28 GMT
Sorry you’re having issues. Did you make the live usb yourself or did you buy it? I’m a bit confused about that.
Edit - having re-read it appears you bought a live usb. My advice would be either to take it back or put an iso on it yourself. As far as I know Vaios tend to work ok with Linux.
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Post by Hippytaff on Apr 24, 2021 16:00:28 GMT
Also it’s probably best to type directly into the forum. Copy and pasting from a text editor causes format issues. I’ve only just realised that, so no probs. Just a heads up. 🙂
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rrashkin
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Post by rrashkin on Apr 24, 2021 17:26:24 GMT
Hello iang, I am not sure from your post if you have successfully run Bodhi from the installation medium in "live CD" mode. Have you? If so, are there any problems there? Note: that's not an ironclad guarantee that there wouldn't be problems on an installed system but it's indicative data. |
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Post by ylee on Apr 24, 2021 18:57:22 GMT
Also it’s probably best to type directly into the forum. Copy and pasting from a text editor causes format issues. I’ve only just realised that, so no probs. Just a heads up. 🙂 Most web browsers have a Paste as Plain text option which should avoid putting any kind of markup into the post  |
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ahen
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Post by ahen on Apr 24, 2021 21:10:42 GMT
Hi there. It's likely that we'll be able to get you going. What is the exact model of the PC (or is it a laptop? ) please ?
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iang
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Post by iang on Apr 25, 2021 6:34:34 GMT
Good morning to you all, and thank you for your various replies.
To clarify: I bought the installation USB from a supplier who I've bought from before, and whose products have usually worked straightforwardly. And (to complicate matters in a way), as a control, I ran this one in the 'try Bodhi' mode on a different machine (a little Packard Bell Dot S I use as a music controller) and it worked without a hitch.
On the Sony Vaio PCV-2236 (Desktop) which is my target machine for the Bodhi installation, the stick puts up a Bodhi Options screen, with seven options and a countdown to automatic boot.
Taking that last point first, it is an 8 second countdown, and it 'seizes' on the '1 sec' count.
The top three options are
try Bodhi
try Bodhi in safe graphics mode
install Bodhi
Selecting any of those three produces no visible reaction at all, but also seizes the machine entirely - no keyboard input then has any effect whatever. (The options lower down that do work, eg memory test, go immediately to a black screen and then 'do something')
When the options screen first appears, if you're quick, there is a <Tab> option to inspect (and I think edit) the code for the currently highlighted option, and I can report that for all those top 3 Bodhi options, the command starts
casper/vmlinux no prompt file=/cdrom etc
which I find a bit odd (although, as I said, the Packard Bell seemed quite happy with it.) I can transcribe the entire command (about two and a half lines, as I remember) if that would help.
I think the first priority is to get a hypothesis as to what the problem might be, and whether it is more likely to be with the computer or the stick.
I would still much prefer to get this stick to work. And (alternatively)there's not a lot of point in going to the trouble of learning to make my own stick, if it is the machine that is the problem.
Oh, and I have been through Bios looking for any 'Safe Boot' options. The nearest to that is 'Quiet Boot', which I have disabled - and as I said originally, the Xtra-PC stick then worked on that setting.
Sincerely
Ian G.
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Apr 25, 2021 15:40:09 GMT
I have one computer that will not boot bodhi with default BIOS setting. The setting I had to change was (can't remember exactly without rebooting and looking) something like APIC mode or something. I didnt learn this til much later tho, I had found an alternative solution to add NOAPIC (i think it was) kernel paramater in grub config that made it work.
However it my case it affected all linux distro I tried booting, including clonezilla boot iso, etc. So once I saw the bios setting, changing that makes everything work automatically without having to modify grub config... Since you said another linux boots I dunno, unless it used an old or customized kernel already... anyways worth checking for those settings or trying those kinda kernel paramters
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ahen
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Post by ahen on Apr 26, 2021 2:52:56 GMT
Internet searches do indicate that Vaio desktop machines can be problematic. How much RAM is present?
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iang
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Post by iang on Apr 26, 2021 5:57:43 GMT
Morning, enigma..and ahen.
I had to look up APIC and NOAPIC.......the terminal date on the Bios is 2002, so I doubt that's the issue, at least from the computer's side. I'm afraid grub.config is above my pay-grade.
I'd need to get into the Vaio to be specific about the RAM, but my memory is 8 GB. I certainly put some more on it years ago, for a memory-hungry music application. But against the more general observation, needs to be set the fact that this machine has installed and run Zorin (albeit too slowly to be really viable as such) and more recently the Xtra-PC (which, again, is not really a running solution, but nonetheless, it did boot it.)
It looks as if you guys are as baffled as I am. Going outside your ground: would any one care to suggest any other 'lite' Linux I might consider ?
Many thanks
Ian G
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ahen
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Post by ahen on Apr 26, 2021 7:39:33 GMT
8G sounds like a very large amount of RAM for an 18 year old machine - are you sure? I'd want full system specifications (which I haven't found) before speculating on alternative distribution s.
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Apr 26, 2021 15:06:30 GMT
Morning, enigma..and ahen. I had to look up APIC and NOAPIC.......the terminal date on the Bios is 2002, so I doubt that's the issue, at least from the computer's side. I'm afraid grub.config is above my pay-grade. I'd need to get into the Vaio to be specific about the RAM, but my memory is 8 GB. I certainly put some more on it years ago, for a memory-hungry music application. But against the more general observation, needs to be set the fact that this machine has installed and run Zorin (albeit too slowly to be really viable as such) and more recently the Xtra-PC (which, again, is not really a running solution, but nonetheless, it did boot it.) It looks as if you guys are as baffled as I am. Going outside your ground: would any one care to suggest any other 'lite' Linux I might consider ? Many thanks Ian G Just making sure, you used the Bodhi Legacy ISO? I'm guessing from 2002 is 32-bit, so you wouldn't be able to boot Bodhi Standard.
If you actually have 8GB memory on 32-bit machine Bodhi's legacy kernel will only support 4GB of it. (Same with windows). But there is a solution for that, install pae kernel (cant do that on windows:)). But anyways first worry about installing Bodhi (or alternative) first!
When you're trying to install the first time, you cannot edit grub.cfg yet cuz you do not have it. You gotta go to grub command line to set paramaters just so you can boot the "try bodhi" or installer. There are other tutorials already explaining this better than I can and I'd have to check one to answer, so let you do that for yourself.
If I'm right, its a linux (kernel) thiing not a bodhi specific thing. I suspect you were using an older kernel or customized kernel with Zorin. So if I'm right, any other distro using modern kernel could be the same. If you're looking for other light distro to try for old machine for new linux user, maybe peppermint OS 10. Or Debian with LXDE. Those are both lxde based which is the next lightest desktop after moksha I know of. And there's always puppy linux if you wanna try something a little different. it uses a super light window manager and they customize their desktop environment very unique and lots of tiny apps.
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iang
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Post by iang on Apr 26, 2021 15:36:23 GMT
Thank you, enigma9o7, for these further comments.
“Just making sure, you used the Bodhi Legacy ISO? I'm guessing from 2002 is 32-bit, so you wouldn't be able to boot Bodhi Standard. “
Certainly the Vaio is 32 bit. The installation stick I’m using is a bought one, so I don’t know the answer as to the exact flavour of Bodhi it is, but it was sold as 32 bit. I need to check that out.
The 4 / 8 thing re RAM doesn’t matter – if I get the machine ‘converted’, its uses won’t be that intensive.
As I said earlier, I think getting into ‘grub’ is a bridge too far for me at the moment.
I’m grateful for your general point about the ‘generation’ of different distros, which I note, and I’m grateful for your suggestions as to other distros to consider.
Thank you for trying to help
Ian G.
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Post by beardyboy40 on Apr 26, 2021 18:19:41 GMT
Hey iang
as a new bodhi user myself (and also not very technical), I would urge you try and stick with it. If you can get it to work, Bodhi is a great option. I suggest you try making a new new usb yourself using the legacy iso. Seriously, it is not difficult. There is the DD command but I find it much easier to use balena-etcher (you could also use rufus if you are using windows make the usb)
If you really can't make Bodhi work for you, my advice would be to use AntiX. It is also a very good and equally lightweight option based on debian stable.
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Apr 26, 2021 19:41:26 GMT
To be clear, I wasn't discouraging you from figuring out Bodhi, I suspect if you try any of those other distro you'll have exact same issue, assuming you do have appropriate version properly written on your usb. I suspect something to do with linux kernel not liking your hardware. It's fairly straightforward to download an iso, then write it to usb flash drive, and try booting it, to see if other distros behave the same on that hardware. But the very first thing I'd do if somebody else made my bodhi iso is make it myself to be sure it wasnt something they did wrong. Since your usb boots live on another PC, that could mean one of two things related to writing the ISO. It could be 64-bit (which you could check by booting live on other machine) and whoever wrote it made a mistake, or perhaps it is 32-bit but the other computer that works supports newer boot method like efi or hybrid-iso, but your old machine needs direct disk images to actually work right. That second problem is common, but in that, after making their menu selection or letting it time out, an immediate error message about initramfs usually appears, which you didn't mention, so it's probably not that. If you've having any difficulty figuring out how to download an iso image, or write it to a usb drive (or dvd-r disc), let us know what OS you are using to write it with and what you've tried so far, so we can let you know any mistakes or further steps needed.
If you're currently succesfully running zorin, it would be interesting and perhaps relevant to know what Linux kernel version you're using with it too.
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