Netbook / Installation USB fails to start on my ASUS EEE 301

[steve7233]

I can't get the live USB stick to boot. The light on the USB stick is flashing so it is reading it. I get a blank screen with a flashing underscore in the top left corner of the netbook's display. Do I need to give it a startup switch? Do I need a driver? I have the disk that came with the netbook if I need something. I haven't connected the ethernet yet. Just checking if it will still load Kubuntu. It looks like I got Kubuntu 16.x on the netbook. I forgot what I did as I have not used it in about 3 to 4 years.

[claydoh]

Specs? is it one of these : https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16834220880R
19.04 is 64 bit only, and the netbook is 32 bit. It simply won't run on it. You need a 32 bit OS, which for *buntus will be 18.04 based ones.

For this vintage system, you may need a non-live text-based installer, especially if you don't have at least the 2gb ram. The live installer needs that much ram to be able to load . Also, even with 2gb , Plasma will take more gpu and cpu horsepower to run than this single-core netbook can probably give.

Even Lubuntu do not have the low-spec text based installer for 19.04, but their 18.04 version still has the 32-bit 'Alternate' installer, and I recommend this one as a good choice for the Acer.. There are other lightweight distros for old systems that will be more useful.
Here is a good list of alternatives to consider:
https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

[steve7233]

Specs? is it one of these : https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16834220880R
19.04 is 64 bit only, and the netbook is 32 bit. It simply won't run on it. You need a 32 bit OS, which for *buntus will be 18.04 based ones.

For this vintage system, you may need a non-live text-based installer, especially if you don't have at least the 2gb ram. The live installer needs that much ram to be able to load . Also, even with 2gb , Plasma will take more gpu and cpu horsepower to run than this single-core netbook can probably give.

Even Lubuntu do not have the low-spec text based installer for 19.04, but their 18.04 version still has the 32-bit 'Alternate' installer, and I recommend this one as a good choice for the Acer.. There are other lightweight distros for old systems that will be more useful.
Here is a good list of alternatives to consider:
https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

Its a litttle older than the one you linked to. It's the 901 not 301. I remembered wrong. https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/Eee_PC_901/
I think I prosably need the nomodset command? How do I do that with casper?

[claydoh]

You still need to have a 32 bit install iso, and Lubuntu 18.04 Alternate iso would be my recommendation.

[steve7233]

You still need to have a 32 bit install iso, and Lubuntu 18.04 Alternate iso would be my recommendation.

It looks like Kubuntu-Netbook 9.10 "Karmic Kola" Release i386 (20091028.4) Is installed on it now. I know it's too old to risk on the internet. I will download something appropriate and updated as I can and then write it to one of my USB sticks and install that after I find an ethernet cable for it so I can use the internet safley.

[steve7233]

The Linux operating system that came with this is 64bit. I suspect it can run 64bit fine as long as a light wm is used. This thing has over 20 Gigs of HD storage but if I remember a slightly slow GPU and not much RAM so a light wm and so forth is probably good else it will be a bit sluggish on the desktop.

[steve7233]

I asked for 'ktorrent version of Lbuntu' and all it listed was Ktorrent itself. 'Real helpful Google'.

Edit:It looks like the latest version of Lbuntu dosn't have a torrent version. -Why not?-. I will download it and then see if I can figure out to use Ktorrent to make a torrent.

[claydoh]

The Linux operating system that came with this is 64bit. I suspect it can run 64bit fine as long as a light wm is used. This thing has over 20 Gigs of HD storage but if I remember a slightly slow GPU and not much RAM so a light wm and so forth is probably good else it will be a bit sluggish on the desktop.

Your cpu is definitely not 64 bit
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us...3-mhz-fsb.html

[jlittle]

I asked for 'ktorrent version of Lbuntu' and all it listed was Ktorrent itself.

The "k" through google off; better would have been google for "lubuntu torrent".

Edit:It looks like the latest version of Lbuntu dosn't have a torrent version.

Have a look at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/disco/release
The iso came down for me in 3 minutes, 279 seeders.

[steve7233]

Attempted to install Lubuntu 18.04 32-bit. Got all the way to installing GRUB2 and it failed. I tried twice:

The 'grub-pc' package failed to install into /target/. Without the GRUB boot loader, the installed system will not boot.

Also when It tried to detect my keyboard it got it wrong, so I had to select it manualy. Probably ASUS's own creation. I just choose a standard US keyboard. How do I fix the GRUB failed install?

[jlittle]

How do I fix the GRUB failed install?

Maybe you could:

• Boot from a super grub2 stick. The iso is only a 20 MB download. Handy to have anyway, it aspires to boot on any pc.
• Boot from the install media, try the OS, install grub-pc if it's not there, then run sudo grub-install --target=i386-pc.

Once in, running grub-install in a terminal window would at least shine some light.

[claydoh]

Sometimes this can be from a bad disk, a bad iso, and from not having a network connection during the install, or it runs out of ram. These are common *buntu installer issues people seem to have.
If it is a live installer, try connecting before you begin from a live desktop session, and make sure you UNcheck any option to download updates in the background (this uses ram, which you do not have much of)
Also, I do still recommend the Alternate text based installer iso , as the live installer does everything in ram, and if you only have 1gb, this error could be one of the side effects of running out of it.

[steve7233]

Rats it appears that my USB persistence live USB creator doesn't work with Lbuntu 18.04. I'll have to use muon to try something else.

[steve7233]

I tried installing it using the text editor and it boots now. The installer still couldn't detect my keyboard properly but it let me select one from the list. I choose a generic US keyboard to be safe.