Grub freezes (at the countdown menu!)

[pclyne]

Hiya,

6.10 on an 'elder' pc (celeron 500 with 196Mb).

Managed to get Kubuntu to install (twice now on the same machine in case the first time was due to a bad install), but each time I reboot Grub comes up with the "press ESC within 2 seconds message" and freezes.

I can boot from a live CD (albiet slowly) and also from the alternate install CD.

I _suspect_ it's something to do with hdd parameters, but It locks during the menu countdown - surely we have already accessed the hdd and 'passed' and during the countdown we are not doing any hdd 'stuff'

I've run Memtest (a lot) and can find no dodgy memory.

Is there a way of 'testing' a particular hdd parameter configuration from the alternate boot CD's shell option?

Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks in advance

[arochester]

Re: Grub freezes (at the countdown menu!)

The recommended RAM for Kubuntu is 256k.

Either try to increase the amount of RAM you have. (I have found ebay a useful source of used memory.)

Or try Xubuntu. This doesn't have the KDE desktop. It's Xface. Being a lighter distro it only needs 128k.

LiveCDs will always run slower than a Hard Drive install.

[pclyne]

Re: Grub freezes (at the countdown menu!)

The recommended RAM for Kubuntu is 256k.

Agreed about the 256memory, but during the grub boot countdown? surely we cant be using 256 Meg for the first boot menu (even before it has decided to load the rest of the operating system)

Or try Xubuntu.

I've got a Xubuntu torrent spooling right now - will give it a try soon (but again, I think the problem I'm seeing is related to something before the rest of the system loads)

LiveCDs will always run slower than a Hard Drive install.

And yes I realise the LiveCDs will run slower - I just mentioned it in case there is some clue in there for the more knowledgeable than me..

Thanks for your input though.

[pclyne]

Re: Grub freezes (at the countdown menu!)


Today I powered-up again, to see if i could solve the problem.

Problem gone.

Multiple re-boots and the problem has non manifested again (multiple re-boots last time and the problem was still there).

I'd still like to know what was stopping me, but for the moment I'm happy again.

Thanks to those who helped.

Cheers