Ubuntu

Will not install

Asked by Napolian

I have been trying to install Ubuntu onto an old computer I was given. I have tried installing 8.1 8.04 ,and because it was an old computer I even tried installing 7.1 I have tried every installation option available to me, but the best I can come up with is a picture of a crane, which I can only assume is the desktop background, and some times, on rare occasions an error box reading: "There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon" According to this message this will cause my themes sounds and background settings not to work. Needless to say this causes nothing to work and only furthers my frusteration, any advice would be appreciated.

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arochester (arochester) said : 		#1

How much RAM do you have?

How big is your hard drive?

Are you trying to install from the Desktop (LiveCD) disk or the Alternate disk?

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Napolian (acowboydesperado) said : 		#2

It has:
256k of RAM
128mb of memory
76gb HD

I burned the cd's myself but have checked them for integrity, and they have no problems.(at least that ubuntu can find)

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nhasian (nhasian) said : 		#3

if it only has 128 MB of memory then it doesnt meet the minimum requirements for Ubuntu 8.10.

xubuntu needs 128 MB RAM to run the Live CD or 192 MB RAM to install.

also it would help to know how fast your CPU is. also how much ram do you really have 128MB or 256MB? even if you cant run ubuntu we could recommend some linux distros that work with older computers.

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Napolian (acowboydesperado) said : 		#4

The processor is a intel Pentium III says the speed is 500E Mhz

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Wim (launchpad-xs4all) said : 		#5

Napolian,

I gather old PC's (96 Mb memory; 133 MHz Pentium-2), put Xubuntu-06.06.1 LTS on them
and give them away to people not being able to buy a PC...

Xubuntu uses the XFCE desktop, that asks less powerfull hardware to run on (compared with Ubuntu)

Newer versions (X-08.04.1 LTS, X-08.10) have more facilities, so they demand more memory etc.

My advice to you: download Xubuntu-06.06. LTS; even with 64 Mb internal memory it can be installed, but:
less memory = more TIME !

Does this help you?
And let us know how it runs on your machine.

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Tom (tom6) said : 		#6

There are even smaller distros such as Wolvix, Puppy and SliTaz that might be interesting to explore. See the DistroWatch page on Wolvix
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix

Generally its better to go for a smaller distro rather than an older one. Often the smaller distros are quite up-to-date with drivers/wifi etc but just may lack some of the functionality of bloated distros. Usually it's possible to endlessly reconfigure them - add new desktop image, new file-browser, OpenOffice etc etc until you have a decently large system full fo all the things you like but noine of the extras. Wolvix and SliTaz would seem better for this as Puppy is compressed.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

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Napolian (acowboydesperado) said : 		#7

Still learning, but I got puppy installed and working thanks for your help guys.