[Sussex] New Ubuntu (11.04) older PC (about 5 y.o.) and how, to get it sorted - possible further issue.......

[john davis]

Hi Steve,

Yes, that's what was being attempted (i.e. a fresh install of the 10.04).

It doesn't seem to matter how I try it, it won't allow the live version to
run from the CD or the direct install from the CD. It doesn't allow us to
get any further than the screen that offers the try and install options. We
select one of them, and the screen goes black for a while before it dumps a
load of startup dialogue, that ends in the "clocksource tsc unstable" error.
I presume that is what I'd get even if it was on a usb stick instead -
though we haven't tried the usb idea, just the CD method.

I'll see if I can work out how to add that line you mentioned and report
back.

Thanks to all for the advice and suggestions thus far.

regards

John D.

On 23 May 2011 07:59, "Stephen Williams" <sdp.williams at btinternet.com>
wrote:
> John,
>
> My suggestion was a completely clean install of 10.04 LTS rather than a
> downgrade of an existing 11.04 installation.
>
> You could try starting the install from USB stick rather than CD-ROM, but
I
> don't expect you to get much further if there are other issues causing
> trouble. You could also try running Ubuntu from CD-ROM or USB stick (i.e.
the
> try Ubuntu option rather than install). If it runs there is an install
option
> from there. If you can run Ubuntu live from CD-ROM or USB stick you should

> also be able to backup any vital data before a clean install of 10.04 LTS.
>
> As to latest kernel and nVidia drivers, I've had this problem with them on
my
> Gentoo installation. It was cured with the addition of:
>
> "vmalloc=256Mb"
>
> to the kernel line of grub.conf. I believe that Ubuntu 11.04 uses grub2,
so
> you may have to add the entry to the appropriate grub config files.
>
> Steve Williams.
>
> On Sunday 22 May 2011 10:22:26 john davis wrote:
>> Wotcha List,
>>
>> Well I read up the link that was posted in reply to my original question,
>> and also Steve Williams suggestion about downgrading it back to 10.04
(the
>> LTS version, which had been working fine before the upgrading malarkey).
>>
>> It doesn't seem to matter much what version I try, I can't install
anything
>> from disk and the package manager doesn't seem to support down grading in
>> any way.
>>
>> I did the download of both the AMD64 and i386 versions of 10.04.2 LTS,
the
>> md5sum's confirmed the downloads as good, and it doesn't matter whether I
>> burn the disks on my PC or my Aunts, when we try to boot the disk(s), we
>> get a basic splash that shows the 2 small icons at the bottom, we then
>> click those (or hit enter), it asks about language support and we just
>> leave that at English, then when it gets to the "what do you want to do"
>> options (try Ubuntu without installing, Install Ubuntu, etc etc) we hit
>> enter on whichever option, the screen goes black and after about 30
>> seconds to a minute, we get a page of startup dialogue that ends with a
>> line that says about "Clocksource tsc unstable" and it won't go any
>> further than that.
>>
>> I've googled to see what that means, and hopefully what I might do about
>> it, but it goes straight over my head. I've tried hitting F6 for the
other
>> options and tried it with no acpi etc etc, but to no avail. Selecting or
>> switching off some of those options hasn't got us anywhere.
>>
>> Whatever the "Clocksource tsc unstable" thing actually alludes to, it
>> doesn't seem to stop us being about to get the PC booted, whether into
>> windows, or into one of the older (previous linux versions, in "grub
>> parlance") kernels. the 11.04 is installed, and working, but not with the
>> actual 11.04 kernel version. With one of the older versions. The latest
>> kernel version is, seemingly, suffering from problems with the nvidia
>> driver. We can't boot into it to get to a CLI interface, as even if we
did,
>> I don't know what to do to get the vesa or whatever generic driver
running
>> to get a GUI, so we can see what's going on and try to install an older
>> version of the nvidia driver to get it working.
>>
>> I can't help wondering if this isn't something to do with the all new,
>> shiny "Unity" desktop ? That will work with her PC, but booted into an
>> older kernel (one from 10.04, as we had the same problems with 10.10).
>>
>> Of course, none of this can be sorted out if I can't get one of the disk
>> copies of 10.04 to install, to revert it back to it's original, working
>> properly, state.
>>
>> Does anyone have any ideas please ?
>>
>> regards
>>
>> John D.
>
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