Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

[AzAv8r]

I have tried to boot 9.04 on this Acer desktop (ultra-small-form-factor) unsuccessfully. Shortly after starting to boot (whether to try from CD or to install), a message briefly flashes:
softreset failed [device not ready] prefaced by a number, something like at2.4xxxxx. The message is very brief, then the Kubuntu cylon greeting flashes and the disks starts seeking at about a 2 second rate. Forever. The last version of Kubuntu I tried (6?) booted fine.

Any suggestions welcome.

Thanks!
Jon

[lmilano]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

The hardware seems pretty standard, it should work just fine, did you look at FAQ #1 here?
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3099811.0

[AzAv8r]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

Thanks. I should have mentioned - I first put the ISO on a thumb drive, and experienced the same problem. So I don't think it's related to the CD drive.

I didn't verify the image after downloading (shame on me) - I'll do that. Maybe try some of the laptop boot options.

Jon

[lmilano]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

AH, yes, if the ISO is ok, then I would probably either poke around a bit with the BIOS and see if that helps, and/or using the usual tricks (I think you can pass these at boot time in the live cd):

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...nux/+bug/47933

[AzAv8r]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

Update:
Turns out I didn't wait long enough. After about 3 minutes the Cylon visor disappeared and the screen went blank, disk still seeking at about 2s intervals. After another minute I was at a shell prompt:
(initramfs)

The original error message was visible, but may be unrelated to the booting problems. The only log file I could find to examine was "casper.log". The last line in this file was "Unable to find a medium containing a live file system."

I did verify the checksum on the ISO, and as I indicated earlier, I also tried to boot from the same ISO off of a thumb drive getting the same symptoms.

[lmilano]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

Arrrrggg. So, did you try the things I suggested above?

[AzAv8r]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

I did play with kernel boot options, no change in behavior. Didn't change any bios parameters.

BUT, did decide to burn a new CD. Hmmm. This one almost worked - still had the "softreset failed" message, but the boot continued. So although the CD and thumb drive behaviors were the same, the source defects must be different. I think the casper filesystem is different between the two - maybe the thumb drive version had a compatibility problem, and the CD version was just corrupted on the disk.

Unfortunately, about the time KDM started the screen went blank. I remember seeing something in the faq about that, so I'll go back and peruse that.

Thanks,
Jon

[lmilano]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

ah, yes, i think there is a bug with usb devices, whereas in the middle of the boot it freezes, but if you remove and reinsert the pendrive it picks it up again. It seems to be the kernel try to read info from the drive (after the initial processing from initramfs). If you disconnect and reconnect, it recognizes the drive. It is useful to remove the "splash" option from the boot options for this, so you see when it hangs and try at that point (not before) ...

Hope you can get this running, it seems like some sweet hardware to have Kubuntu running on ... otherwise you can try the ubuntu netbook remix usb image, put it on the usb drive, install and then install kubuntu-desktop and be done

[AzAv8r]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

The plot thickens...

Decided to run a sanity check by using the same CD to boot on another AMD 64 PC in the house (the main family machine, vs. my toy). The CD booted fine, with no problems. So it doesn't seem to be a download problem, nor a CD burn problem.

So I went back to the problem machine, and ran a number of trials.
- The default boot (install or "with no changes") seems to complete the startup, but the display goes blank. (There is a caveat - see below.)
- Selecting the option "Safe Graphics Mode" (F4), then either of the above options results in a rboot of the machine, in VERY short order (say, 3 to 5 seconds). I guess I should suppress the "quiet" option to localize this, if possible.
- If, after reboot, I try the normal option (not "Safe Graphics Mode" - in other words, no change under F4), the machine also reboots. If I shut it down for several seconds (say, 5 or more), then restart, it will once again complete the Linux startup (either Install or No Changes), but with the display going blank.

I was starting to think the problem was a dirty CD drive or perhaps a bad connection to the drive. But this repeatability (and the ability to clear a problem with an extended power-down) suggests to me the problem is that a driver is not handling some hardware device properly.

When I have some time, I'll repeat the above with the "quiet" option suppressed.

Best regards,
Jon

[lmilano]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

Yes, it is sounding more like a software bug, and unless you find the trick in google (someone found the magic boot params to get you though) it can be very frustrating. An alternative is to try something like the minimal install cd.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...tion/MinimalCD

If it gets you though, then all you need is to install kubuntu-desktop and off you go.

[AzAv8r]

Re: Cannot boot 9.04 Acer Veriton L410-UD4201P (AMD 64)

Thanks. I'll try that Minimal CD. More later...

Jon