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Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's

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  Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> - 2012-04-23 08:22 -0700
    Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's J G Miller <miller@yoyo.ORG> - 2012-04-23 17:18 +0000
      Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> - 2012-04-23 10:51 -0700
        Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's Tauno Voipio <tauno.voipio@notused.fi.invalid> - 2012-04-23 21:11 +0300
          Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's J G Miller <miller@yoyo.ORG> - 2012-04-23 18:30 +0000
            Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> - 2012-04-23 13:08 -0700
              Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's "David W. Hodgins" <dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org> - 2012-04-24 01:46 -0400
                Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> - 2012-04-24 12:06 -0700
                  Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2012-04-24 20:39 +0100
                  Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's "David W. Hodgins" <dwhodgins@nomail.afraid.org> - 2012-04-24 18:45 -0400
                    Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> - 2012-04-25 09:56 -0700
                    Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> - 2012-04-25 11:56 -0700
    Re: Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> - 2012-05-02 12:40 -0700

#2689 — Problems installing Linux distributions from Live CD's

I've tried without success to install LiveCD/DVD's for Kubuntu and Fedora with no luck. My computer either claims there's an error when it starts to read in the CD (or DVD), or it finishes reading the media and then hangs.  In all instances, my other computers have had no problems running those same Live CD/DVD media. 

The fact that there are occasional read errors strongly suggests that there's a problem with the DVD drive, but I've had no problems reading from that drive when either Linux or Windows is running.  

I was just able to re-install Windows 2000 from that same drive without a hitch, which further suggests that the drive hardware is kinda flaky, but I wonder if there's another possible explanation.  The computer in question is about 10 years old, but its BIOS has never been update. Clearly, the BIOS is involved, to some extent, in reading the software from the Live CD.  Does anyone know how if it's at all likely that a flaky BIOS could be the source of these problems? Upgrading the BIOS is not a task I look forward to.

The DVD drive in question is a LiteOn iHAP322 .


Jeff

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#2690

On Monday, April 23rd, 2012, at 08:22:42h -0700, Jeff Rosen wrote:

> The fact that there are occasional read errors strongly suggests
> that there's a problem with the DVD drive

Or the burnt CD or is it DVD?

Did you do a checksum after downloading and after burning?

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#2691

On Monday, April 23, 2012 10:18:13 AM UTC-7, J G Miller wrote:
> On Monday, April 23rd, 2012, at 08:22:42h -0700, Jeff Rosen wrote:
> 
> > The fact that there are occasional read errors strongly suggests
> > that there's a problem with the DVD drive
> 
> Or the burnt CD or is it DVD?
> 
> Did you do a checksum after downloading and after burning


The answer to your first question is both. I've burned Live installations into both CD's and DVD's, and both sets have failed to boot.

With regard to your second question, I've been able to boot off Live CD's and DVD's on my other two computers, so the media themselves are not the problem, but I've never actually looked at the checksum.

Jeff

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#2692

On 23.4.12 8:51 , Jeff Rosen wrote:
> On Monday, April 23, 2012 10:18:13 AM UTC-7, J G Miller wrote:
>> On Monday, April 23rd, 2012, at 08:22:42h -0700, Jeff Rosen wrote:
>>
>>> The fact that there are occasional read errors strongly suggests
>>> that there's a problem with the DVD drive
>>
>> Or the burnt CD or is it DVD?
>>
>> Did you do a checksum after downloading and after burning
>
>
> The answer to your first question is both. I've burned Live installations into both CD's and DVD's, and both sets have failed to boot.
>
> With regard to your second question, I've been able to boot off Live CD's and DVD's on my other two computers, so the media themselves are not the problem, but I've never actually looked at the checksum.
>
> Jeff


If your CD/DVD drive is not a standard IDE unit, the
intermediate loader on the CD/DVD image may have problems
using it.

-- 

Tauno Voipio

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#2693

On Monday, April 23rd, 2012, at 21:11:41h +0300, Tauno Voipio wrote:

> If your CD/DVD drive is not a standard IDE unit

The LiteOn iHAP322 has an EIDE PATA interface.

This brings to memory something which is a little vague in my recollection
but could be related to the problem.

On modern motherboards and related BIOS which are primarily SATA,
is there not a setting in the BIOS as to the way the IDE port
should be made available (SATA emulation or something, and or possibly
something related to RAID sorry to be vague) and this setting
could be confusing the intermediate loader?

I recall that this setting has to be done once correctly for
Windoze because the Windoze installation casts that in stone,
whereas for GNU/Linux it can be changed in the BIOS and GNU/Linux
will still work afterwards ...

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#2694

On Monday, April 23, 2012 11:30:17 AM UTC-7, J G Miller wrote:
> On Monday, April 23rd, 2012, at 21:11:41h +0300, Tauno Voipio wrote:
> 
> > If your CD/DVD drive is not a standard IDE unit
> 
> The LiteOn iHAP322 has an EIDE PATA interface.
> 
> This brings to memory something which is a little vague in my recollection
> but could be related to the problem.
> 
> On modern motherboards and related BIOS which are primarily SATA,
> is there not a setting in the BIOS as to the way the IDE port
> should be made available (SATA emulation or something, and or possibly
> something related to RAID sorry to be vague) and this setting
> could be confusing the intermediate loader?
> 
> I recall that this setting has to be done once correctly for
> Windoze because the Windoze installation casts that in stone,
> whereas for GNU/Linux it can be changed in the BIOS and GNU/Linux
> will still work afterwards ...

The problem is happening in a Live CD, which gets booted under BIOS --- it's a Windows PC (actually, it's a dual-boot machine) but the OS can't possibly be the cause of the problem because neither OS has been loaded.  Further, getting confused by SATA can't be an issue because this is an OLD computer dating from 2000.  The motherboard is an ASUS A7V, which is setup only for PATA, and the drive in question is a PATA drive.

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#2695

On Mon, 23 Apr 2012 16:08:56 -0400, Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> wrote:

> The problem is happening in a Live CD, which gets booted under BIOS --- it's a Windows PC (actually, it's a dual-boot machine) but the OS can't possibly be the cause of the problem because neither OS has been loaded.  Further, getting confused by SATA can't be an issue because this is an OLD computer dating from 2000.  The motherboard is an ASUS A7V, which is setup only for PATA, and the drive in question is a PATA drive.

The bios is only used to load the kernel.  Once it's running it will
use the appropriate module to work with the hard drive controller
directly, bypassing the bios.

If you're using a newer livecd that uses systemd, I expect one of the
following boot time options will fix the problem ...

rdloaddriver=ata_piix rdloaddriver=pata_amd rdloaddriver=pata_via

The problem is caused by the pata_acpi being loaded before the ata
driver required for the controller in use.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

-- 
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

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#2696

If this is true, it sounds like I really can't work with the LiveCD in its current form: I have to modify it so that it uses the proper driver. But if so, isn't this a bug? Shouldn't the LiveCD be able to detect if the CDROM is PATA and load the appropriate driver? 

In short, it seems I've got two alternatives: re-do the LiveCD software, or upgrade the PC's CD/DVD to SATA.

Jeff

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#2697

Jeff Rosen wrote:
> If this is true, it sounds like I really can't work with the LiveCD in its current form: I have to modify it so that it uses the proper driver. But if so, isn't this a bug? Shouldn't the LiveCD be able to detect if the CDROM is PATA and load the appropriate driver? 
> 

some can but its less a bug that a feature that's not been included

> In short, it seems I've got two alternatives: re-do the LiveCD software, or upgrade the PC's CD/DVD to SATA.
> 

I think that's a fair summary, yes

And fix your newsreader to not send 200 character lines

> Jeff


-- 
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

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#2698

On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:06:56 -0400, Jeff Rosen <jeff.c.rosen@gmail.com> wrote:

> If this is true, it sounds like I really can't work with the LiveCD in its current form: I have to modify it so that it uses the proper driver. But if so, isn't this a bug? Shouldn't the LiveCD be able to detect if the CDROM is PATA and load the appropriate driver?
>
> In short, it seems I've got two alternatives: re-do the LiveCD software, or upgrade the PC's CD/DVD to SATA.

I'm on the qa team for Mageia linux.  We just ran into this problem
in the development for Mageia 2.  It's currently a work in progress
to fix the problem, both by our own developers, and the upstream
counterparts.  If you'd like to see the details, take a look at
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4997

The other option, assuming the live cd uses grub, is to determine
which option is needed for your hardware, and add the kernel option
at boot time.  Annoying to have to due for every boot though.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

-- 
Change nomail.afraid.org to ody.ca to reply by email.
(nomail.afraid.org has been set up specifically for
use in usenet. Feel free to use it yourself.)

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#2700

Update:

I was able to boot up the LiveCD rendition of Knoppix 5, but the more recent
Knoppix 6.7 complained that it couldn't decipher the graphics card; I'm not
sure if this is an entirely new problem, or a manifestation of the old one.
Also, I've tried an archival DVD (not a LiveDVD) of Fedora 5, which bombed,
complaining it couldn't recognize the DVD drive.  So, the problem probably
involves my DVD hardware.  One reason why I didn't consider the PATA
architecture of the DVD drive that as a potential cause at the outset, and why
I'm still not absolutely certain that it's the real problem, is that it seems
an issue someone would have brought up a long time ago on either the Fedora or
Kubuntu mailing lists, yet I can' find any mention of it on either.

Jeff

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#2701

FYI David Hodgins:

I downloaded a LiveCD for the Mageia distribution, and that also bombed.  In particular, it appeared that the CD got read in, as signified by all the ovals just beneath the Mageia emblem getting filled in, whereupon the system hung.

Jeff

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#2711

By way of an update, I purchased a new DVD drive, but of an interesting type:
it's a SATA drive with an PATA interface, so it "looks" like a PATA drive to
the operating system.  I've had NO problems reading LiveCD's with that, and the
drive is listed in the OS (Linux or Windows, the computer is dual-boot) as a
PATA drive.  This makes me think that, contrary to David's comments, the
LiveCD's are pefectly capable of reading PATA drives.  To "ice the cake," I'm
going to borrow or purchase an inexpensive true-PATA drive and see what
happens.  I'll keep the thread posted on what happens, but right now, my sense
is that weird problem I've experienced of a DVD drive working fine with
installed OS' but not with LiveCD's or LiveDVD's seems at least partially like
a weird hardware feature, although I suppose it's possible that, some 
PATA drives could work better with a LiveCD/DVD-resident SATA driver than
others, and the fact that I'm working with a SATA drive with a PATA adapter
could be a partial reason why that seems to be the case.

Jeff

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