64 bit mint 10 won't install

oldator

I recently upgraded one of my computers to an AMD quad core, 3.0 ghz, 600 watt power supply, 16 gig of ram, an MSI 760GM. 64 bit mobo. and 500 gig HD. I downloaded the 64 bit rc version of Mint 11, and it would start to install and about 3/4 done would freeze. I then tried Mint 10 64 bit, and it barely got started before freezing. 32 bit installed without a hitch. First time I've tried 64 bit software, but I wasn't expecting this. Am I missing something?

Goineasy9

What does barely got it to start mean? Can you tell us what the sequence of events leading up to the failure are?

oldator

"barely started", means it started to install, and it froze, stopped. No cursor, no keyboard. The live CD booted up fine. I was trying to install alongside PCLinuxOS, on a 500 gig HD.

Goineasy9

Did you get up to the grub screen? Did you see anything before the blank screen? What was the last thing you saw before the screen went blank? When a computer boots up, one sees all the bios stuff that one normally sees when the computer starts, then the grub screen comes up and asks you which kernel or which distro you wish to boot into. They key to finding out what is wrong is to see where it stops booting. If you see nothing at all, it would be a hardware problem. If you see the grub screen, then it turns black, you may have chosen the wrong place to put you bootloader when doing the install of Mint. We need more info.

oldator

I booted the live CD, selected to install. Selected to install alongside other OS. Selected all the other options, and the install started. The blue progress bar went about 1/2 inch, and ALL motion stopped. The screen did not blank, or change color, everything stayed, but no cursor movement, ctrl-alt-delete did not work, arrow keys did not work, nothing on keyboard was active. I turned the switch off, on back of computer, and rebooted. I have the 32 bit, of mint 10, installed on another system alongside, XP, Ububtu, and Peppermint One. I have had as many as five OS's on the other system, with no problems.

Goineasy9

Well, since you've done this before and are used to multiple builds on one box I won't ask the simple questions. What I would say is that trying to install any rc (release candidate) version of a distro can be problematic, that's why it's a release candidate and not their actual release. Why it stops installing is something that should be asked of and/or reported to the Mint devs.

oldator

I've ran into problems with betas before, so I figured I would wait until the final release is out and try again. This was my first experience with 64 bit ,and I thought maybe there was something I needed to do to get it set for 64 bit. But, when the live CD loaded and ran well I assumed it was A-ok.

marc

oldator wrote:

I've ran into problems with betas before, so I figured I would wait until the final release is out and try again. This was my first experience with 64 bit ,and I thought maybe there was something I needed to do to get it set for 64 bit. But, when the live CD loaded and ran well I assumed it was A-ok.

You most probably have hit a bug of some kind

Goineasy9

You don't have to set anything to install the 64 bit, you just need to have downloaded the iso that was meant for 64 bit. And, as marc said, you probably hit a bug with the rc release. Even with the Fedora release days away, the iso that will be used for the release blows up if you try to verify the iso with the md5sum while in the installer. There's really no work around for this sort of thing, one just waits for the new release then tries again.

marc

Goineasy9 wrote:

There's really no work around for this sort of thing, one just waits for the new release then tries again.

The workaround would be to notify the distro of your problem with their bug tracking system.

Sometimes the solution is really simple and they'll find it in just a few minutes

Regards

saqman2060

You are not using the stable release are you? Perhaps your LiveCD has a problem. However that are two places to look, check your file system. Sometime a bad filesystem can halt the installation of a new Os because it can not determine where to put the system files. Also is your hardware fully detected. If any hardware is not properly detected/accessed the system will halt.

oldator

Since posting this, the final version has been released, and I have downloaded, and tried to install 13 different DVD's of Linux Mint 11. I have downloaded from different repositories, used different machines, different brands of media, and get the same end result. Failure to install. I have come to the conclusion that it is the machine. However, I did manage to install a CD, with the LXDE window manager, 32 bit. Most of the other distros will not show 16 gig of ram, but this one does. I would have preferred the 64 bit, but will settle with the 32. Mint is the BEST distro I have used since PCLOS. I am fixin to upgrade my main machine with a quad core processor, and 16 gig of ram, so I know I can install the lXDE version of Mint 11. I have several 500 gig spare HD's which I used to test various distros, and so far Mint has been the only 64 bit that won't install. Thanks to all who responded.

RSims

Do you have the same issues with Ubuntu? I would try Kubuntu 11.10 64 bit, that's what I run and it's been flawless on my laptop. My desktop does have issues with it however but that graphics card has issues after every new distribution comes out. 11.04 64 bit kubuntu is running flawlessly on my desktop however.


From what I understand mint is a spin off of ubuntu, but I believe it's possible the exact changes mint has made may be part of your specific problem. It's worth investigating and trying out.

oldator

Actually I have installed several 64 bit distros on this machine with no problems. I have 4 spare 500 gig HD's that I use for testing other distros. I had Kubuntu installed on another machine, but aspps kept moving around on the task bar, and some apps would be removed. Seems like after a kernel update, there would be problems. I had 8 entries on grub with different kernel versions, so I removed Kubuntu. Thanks for your suggestions though, I appreciate the feedback.

RSims

odd...

saqman2060

This is why it is recommended to use 32bit systems. The 64bits are not that stable. You can install them on some machines but not all. Check the distros hardware support list to see what is supported.