{"id":3563,"date":"2011-06-08T15:26:53","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T14:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkingrandomly.com\/?p=3563"},"modified":"2011-06-09T11:12:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-09T10:12:49","slug":"linux-mint-installation-woes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/?p=3563","title":{"rendered":"Linux Mint Installation Woes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been a user of Ubuntu Linux for years but the recent emphasis on their new Unity interface has put me off somewhat. \u00a0I tried to like it but failed. \u00a0So, I figured that it was time for a switch to a different distribution.<\/p>\n

I asked around on Twitter and got suggestions such as Slackware<\/a>, Debian<\/a> and Linux Mint<\/a>. \u00a0I’ve used both Slackware and Debian in the past but, while they might be fine for servers or workstations, I prefer something more shiny for my personal laptop.<\/p>\n

I could also have stuck with Ubuntu and simply installed GNOME using synaptic but I like to use the desktop that is officially supported by the distribution.<\/p>\n

So, I went with Linux Mint. \u00a0It isn’t going well so far!<\/p>\n

I had no DVDs in the house so I downloaded the CD version, burned it to a blank CD and rebooted only to be rewarded with<\/p>\n

Can not mount \/dev\/loop0 (\/cdrom\/casper\/filesystem.squashfs) on \/\/filesystem.squashfs<\/pre>\n
I checked the md5sum of the .iso file and it was fine. I burned to a different CD and tried again. Same error.<\/p>\n
I was in no mood for a trawl of the forums so I simply figured that maybe something was wrong with the CD version of the distribution – at least as far as my machine was concerned. So, I started downloading the DVD version and treated my greyhound to a walk to the local computer shop to buy a stack of DVDs.<\/p>\n
When I got back I checked the .md5 sum of the DVD image, burned it to disk and…got the same error. A trawl of the forums suggests that many people have seen this error but no reliable solution has been found.<\/p>\n
Not good for me or Linux Mint but at least Desmond (below) got an extra walk!<\/p>\n
\"Desmond<\/p>\n
Update 1<\/strong> I created a bootable USB memory stick from the DVD .iso to elimiate any problems with my burning software\/hardware. Still get the same error message. MD5 checksum of the .iso file is what it should be:<\/p>\n
md5sum .\/linuxmint-11-gnome-dvd-64bit.iso\r\n773b6cdfe44b91bc44448fa7b34bffa8  .\/linuxmint-11-gnome-dvd-64bit.iso<\/pre>\n
My machine is a Dell XPS M1330 which has been running Ubuntu for almost 3 years.<\/p>\n
Update 2:<\/strong> Seems that this bug is not confined to Mint. Ubuntu users are reporting it too. No fix yet though
\nhttps:\/\/bugs.launchpad.net\/ubuntu\/+bug\/636711<\/a><\/p>\n
Update 3:<\/strong> There is DEFINITELY nothing wrong with the installation media. \u00a0Both USB memory stick and DVD versions boot on my wife’s (much newer)HP laptop with no problem. \u00a0So, the issue seems to be related to my particular hardware. \u00a0This is like the good old days of Linux where installation was actually difficult. \u00a0Good times!<\/p>\n
Update 4:<\/strong> After much mucking around I finally gave up on a direct install of Mint 11.\u00a0 The installer is simply broken for certain hardware configurations as far as I can tell.\u00a0 Installed Mint 10 from the same pen drive that failed for Mint 11 without a hitch.<\/p>\n
Update 5:<\/strong> As soon as the Mint 10 install completed, I did an apt-get dist-upgrade<\/strong> to try to get to Mint 11 that way. The Mint developers recommend against doing dist-upgrades but I don’t seem to have a choice since the Mint 11 installer won’t work on my machine. After a few minutes I get this error<\/p>\n
dpkg: error processing python2.7-minimal (--configure):\r\n subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 3\r\nErrors were encountered while processing:\r\n python2.7-minimal<\/pre>\n
This is mentioned in this bug report<\/a>.\u00a0 I get over that (by following the instructions in #9 of the bug report) and later get this error<\/p>\n
p: cannot stat `\/usr\/lib\/pango\/1.6.0\/module-files.d\/libpango1.0-0.modules': No such file or directory\r\ncp: cannot stat `\/usr\/lib\/pango\/1.6.0\/modules\/pango-basic-fc.so': No such file or directory\r\nE: \/usr\/share\/initramfs-tools\/hooks\/plymouth failed with return 1.\r\nupdate-initramfs: failed for \/boot\/initrd.img-2.6.35-22-generic\r\ndpkg: error processing initramfs-tools (--configure):\r\n subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1\r\nErrors were encountered while processing:\r\n initramfs-tools<\/pre>\n
I fixed this with<\/p>\n
sudo ln -s x86_64-linux-gnu\/pango \/usr\/lib\/pango<\/pre>\n
Trying the apt-get dist-upgrade again leads to<\/p>\n
The following packages have unmet dependencies:\r\n python-couchdb : Breaks: desktopcouch (< 1.0) but 0.6.9b-0ubuntu1 is to be installed\r\n python-desktopcouch-records : Conflicts: desktopcouch (< 1.0.7-0ubuntu2) but 0.6.9b-0ubuntu1 is to be installed<\/pre>\n
Which, thanks to this forum post<\/a>, I get rid of by doing<\/p>\n
sudo dpkg --configure -a\r\nsudo apt-get remove python-desktopcouch-records desktopcouch evolution-couchdb python-desktopcouch<\/pre>\n
A few more packages get installed before it stops again with the error message<\/p>\n
Unpacking replacement xserver-xorg-video-tseng ...\r\nProcessing triggers for man-db ...\r\nProcessing triggers for ureadahead ...\r\nErrors were encountered while processing:\r\n \/var\/cache\/apt\/archives\/xserver-xorg-core_2%3a1.10.1-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb\r\nE: Sub-process \/usr\/bin\/dpkg returned an error code (1)<\/pre>\n
I get past this by doing<\/p>\n
sudo apt-get -f install<\/pre>\n
Then I try apt-get upgrade<\/strong> and apt-get dist-update<\/strong> again…possibly twice and I’m pretty much done it seems.<\/p>\n
Update 6:<\/strong> On the train to work this morning I thought I’d boot into my shiny new Mint system. However I was faced with nothing but a blank screen.\u00a0 I rebooted and removed quiet <\/strong>and splash<\/strong> from the grub options to allow me to see what was going on. The boot sequence was getting stuck on something like checking battery state<\/strong>. Up until now I had only been using Mint while connected to the Mains. Well, this was the final straw for me.\u00a0 As soon as I got into work I shoved in a Ubuntu 11.04 live disk which installed in the time it took me to drink a cup of coffee. I’ve got GNOME running and am now happy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My Linux Mint adventure is over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been a user of Ubuntu Linux for years but the recent emphasis on their new Unity interface has put me off somewhat. \u00a0I tried to like it but failed. \u00a0So, I figured that it was time for a switch to a different distribution. I asked around on Twitter and got suggestions such as Slackware, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux","category-walking-randomly"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3swhs-Vt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3568,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions\/3568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingrandomly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}