Having managed to install Gutsy (fb=false in the boot menu) I have now failed 31 times to boot. I know this because there was a forced system check, which happens in Ubuntu when you’ve booted 31 times.
I’ve tried everything I know, but it still goes to a black screen ending in *Starting Bluetooth services. I know, or think I know, how to disable bluetooth when, if ever I get to the desktop. But I’ve no idea how to otherwise. I tried in text mode (delete ‘splash’ from boot menu) but while I was able to
sudo vim /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
I couldn’t save it.
Something tells me it will be another 31 times before I get it right. Maybe it’s one of the signs of madness.
update: BootOptions is a useful tutorial
Philip,
fb=false is to disable the framebuffer, which I wonder why you should disable…
On Santa Rosa Gutsy loads just fine! Maybe you should try once more, also with the Alternate CD (it doesn’t provide you with a live environment but has better support for some hardware).
As far as bluetooth on my laptop this wasn’t included (again, shame on HP) however removing/blacklisting the device driver should at least be a workaround.
You should definitely boot in failsafe mode (removing splash only removes the boot logo! but still you would be in runleve 5) so that being in runlevel 1 you should be able to take full control of your machine as root.
Remember that to be able to save a text file with vim you should press ESC and then write down ZZ (two capital Z) – weird indeed. I would suggest you to simply use nano as follows “sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist”.
I still have some doubts the bluetooth is responsable for that freeze, to be sure you should switch among the various consolles after the system has freezed to see what is there written into each one. To do this type ALT+F1 ALT+F2 ALT+F3 etc at least until F7 (Fn are the function keys). Usually the active ones are F1 F5 and F6.
Hope this helps, tell me if there are any news by dropping me a note.
Cheers
“I did try checking the CD for errors on each occasion: it checked it as ok once but on another occasion it went into text mode, ending up with a line on Bluetooth. Actually, it has ended up on that line on a few occasions.
I hope to have time to get back to it over the weekend.”
sorry Philip, but the cd check should NEVER fail, if so there are some problems either with the image you burned (but md5 is ok) or with the cd medium you use. Is it a RW? if so some sectors may be just woren out. Try with a CD-R. Also I would suggest you to use the DVD version of Ubuntu and would give a try to a current Hardy Snapshot. I know this would be almost an harakiri since it is far unstable, but on the other hand you could see if the bluetooth issue has been fixed. You know, your laptop is very recent and Gutsy has been into feature freeze for a while now.
to sum up try:
1) upgrade your BIOS from Vista (a new version has been released recently)
2) downloading another image and burn it with a CD-R medium (or at least a new CD-RW or at least not the same cd-rw!!)
3) downloading the Hardy alpha 1 snapshot http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/
cheers
That’s a lot for an old guy like me to absorb, but your going to such trouble is much appreciated!
There are a long list of complaints about Gutsy and HP atr
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=582220&highlight=apci
but maybe I’ve been misled with my particular problem.
I’m not sure that I’m going to download an alpha OS. Despite the grey geek nickname, I just want to get back to my work as a writer. But otherwise I’ll digest all you suggest. It’s people like you who help me persist. Thanks again.
ps to aldeby
re fb=false, I found that solution for install failure at
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/147250
I’m sorry if I wrote down too much, I hope you wouldn’t give up trying!
Sometimes computers behave in a really weired way, they seem to have a soul… These days I was fighting with my desktop computer after a major hardware upgrade. While my linux partition booted without issues, my windows xp was firmly convinced not to boot, whatsoever! Not even a boot error, simply nothing: the system stuck, that’s all.
Well, I eventually realized my windows partition wasn’t set “active” and thus windows refused to boot!!
(another reason to leave M$)
Concerning the fb=false you provided me the launchpad bug report, I’m glad that trick worked for you, however you should have noticed that the person reporting those problems had a pavilion with AMD platform, which is substantially different from Intel. When you look for other peoples advices pay attention if they own an Intel or AMD platform, the latter have a worse support for linux these days.