Keyboard and Mouse lockup

"The solution for him was to add some boot options into GRUB, but how can I do this on a LiveCD?"

See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions (specifically https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions#Changing%20the%20CD's%20Default%20Boot%20Options).

If you need additional help with this problem, please provide a link to the information you have found (which provides that possible solution).

Hi Eliah,

Thanks for the pointer.
Have added:
irqpoll
i8024.reset
i8024.nomx=1

These were the apparent cure for someone else with same problem, MB, CPU & RAM.
However, they have fail to work for me. Tried all combinations of the 3 and still the mouse and keyboard lock up.

Thanks

Martin

Please provide a link to the information you have found (which provided that possible solution, which you just found not to work).

The link you ask for is https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/122118

In the meantime, I have also tried LinuxMint V10 (64 bit) and Ubuntu v10 and again, both have the same problem.

I am pretty impressed by the new layout of Ubuntu v11.04, but do not want to install it and suffer this problem. It will make it unusable.

Thanks for any help

Martin

I've asked actionparsnip in https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+question/122118 if he has any ideas for your similar problem. Meanwhile, it occurs to me that perhaps your PS/2 keyboard is just broken, in such a way that it works some of the time, but unreliably. Unlike USB keyboards, once a PS/2 keyboard is disconnected (which includes by internal problems with the keyboard, not just physical disconnection from the PS/2 port), on many machines it cannot be reconnected effectively without shutting down the machine. Have you tried another keyboard?

My keyboard and mouse work fine under windows. Never had a problem and I use the computer sometimes 24 hours a day.
The mouse is actually USB but plugged in to the Mouse PS2 port by an adapter. Again, never been a problem.
However, when the lock-up occurs, I can unplug this same mouse and put it directly to a USB port, where I re-gain mouse function.
This proves that it is the PS2 ports that are the problem.

Also, don't know how it could be BIOS other than something in Ubuntu boot that is altering something. Power saving perhaps!

I currently have my Bios set up so I can boot my computer just by hitting the space bar rather than have to reach down to the power button. This works perfectly and never a problem.

But, after the keyboard has stopped working on Ubuntu, I have to power the computer off by holding the power button down for 5 seconds, or plug the mouse to USB and then shut down Ubuntu. Either way, I cannot re-start the computer with the keyboard space bar and have to kill the power to the computer to allow it to re-set itself back to normal, where it function without problems.

I have noticed that there is still power to the mouse and keyboard when they lock up. If I have the caps lock or num lock on then the LED remains on, confirming there is power. Pressing num-lock or caps-lock do nothing though. Similar with the mouse, the LED on the underside of the mouse glows brightly when I move the mouse indicating there is power. (This is not the tracking LED but just a fancy illumination).

So, I wonder if there is a clock signal to both keyboard and mouse which just stops. This in theory would halt any function. I don't know the workings of mice and keyboards as I assumed the keyboard would have its own clock, but maybe it is taken from the PS2 port. I'm probably barking up the wrong tree, but just a thought and no idea how to rectify the problem anyway.

I haven't tried any Linux distros further back than V10, but I do have Mint v7, v8, & v9, so will give them a go too.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

Quick update.

Tried Mint V9 and lock up occurs just the same.
Now running V8 and all is well so far. Been up and running for 30 minutes and no sign of a lock-up of keyboard or mouse.
(Mint is essentially Ubuntu)

So, what has change between these versions, any ideas please?

Thanks

Martin

"So, what has change between these versions, any ideas please?"

See http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_helena_whatsnew.php and http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_isadora_whatsnew.php. The kernel (linux) version is likely to be the relevant factor. You can test that by upgrading your Linux Mint 8 system to Linux Mint 9, and then trying the new Linux Mint 9 system (which, if it's like Ubuntu in this regard, should still have the old kernel from Linux Mint 8) with the new kernel (introduced in the upgrade) and the old kernel (from the Linux Mint 8 system).

Are you willing to perform such testing? If so, then since the results could be quite useful, I'll wait for you to perform it before grasping at other straws.

I have installed Ubuntu 11.04 using the WUBI installer, and of course it still locks up the keyboard and mouse however, the boot options suggested in question 122118 do now appear to work. The problem now being editing Grub to get them in permenantly.

Unfortunately following the answer in question 122118 using gksudo gedit to edit grub results in errors when saving the file.
I can edit the file, but when saving, it comes up with multiple (about 4) errors indicating the file could not be found. A bit confusing as how can it not be found if I have opened it and just saving it back after editing.

I will give full account later, but I have to be running Ubuntu but time to play is limited during the week days.

Regarding your suggestion of installing Mint 8 then upgrade to Mint 9, I would like to give it a try but not sure how to go about it.
Installing Mint 8 should be no problem, but upgrading? Would this not just overwrite the old kernal with the new one?

Thanks

using gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub, I edit the file to include irqpoll etc but when saving the file I get the following list of errors.....
Any ideas where I am going wrong?

(gedit:1621): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to store changes into `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: Failed to create file '/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.GZ3PWV': No such file or directory

(gedit:1621): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to set the permissions of `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: No such file or directory

(gedit:1621): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to store changes into `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: Failed to create file '/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.EQV8VV': No such file or directory

(gedit:1621): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to set the permissions of `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: No such file or directory

(gedit:1621): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to store changes into `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: Failed to create file '/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel.1NMRWV': No such file or directory

(gedit:1621): Gtk-WARNING **: Attempting to set the permissions of `/root/.local/share/recently-used.xbel', but failed: No such file or directory
main@ubuntu:~$

Hi,

Just another update.
Managed now to add "irqpoll" to the Grub loader.
It seems to be working, but need a longer test.
Will keep you updated.
Still not sure why I get all those errors noted in my last post!

I'm glad your problem seems to be solved. Please post again if it turns out to persist. Once you have found to your satisfaction that it is no longer occurring, you can mark this question as Solved.

To answer your side questions:

If Mint is like Ubuntu in the way new kernels are installed, then the old kernels are retained. You can manually remove them. This is so that if the newer kernel doesn't work, you can go back to an older kernel. This works the same way with kernels from previous releases as it does with previous kernels from the same release, though provided that the latest kernel in the previous release is working properly, there is rarely any reason to retain *multiple* kernels from a previous release. You can remove extra kernels either before or after upgrading to the new release, just as you can remove excess kernels within the same release.

Now, I have never used Linux Mint, but assuming it's like Ubuntu in this regard, that would work.

In any case, both versions 8 and 9 of Linux Mint are quite old, so you really might not want to use either of them (except for testing purposes, like determining if this problem is localized to the kernel), and a kernel old enough not to have the problem would likely be old enough to be unsupported (which is bad, because it means there are no updated packages for it made available when security vulnerabilities and serious stability vulnerabilities are discovered and patch upstream).

But I have not actually gone and checked what releases of Linux Mint are supported. In Ubuntu, the only kernel that is both old enough to predate this problem (assuming this really is a problem in the kernel at all!) and still supported is the server kernel from Ubuntu 8.10 LTS, which you probably don't want to run, because it's quite old and optimized for server rather than desktop applications.

All the above is really moot, though, assuming that the problem was solved by adding irqpoll.

It is strange that it seems to work in a Wubi system but not in a regular Ubuntu system. We can work further to try to figure out what is causing that (after you have satisfied yourself that it in fact *does* work in your Wubi system), but if you are satisfied with what you have now, you might not want to expend the additional time and effort.

As for the messages you saw printed to the console, they are nothing to worry about. They occur for everyone (not just on your system), and they have nothing to do with the specific file you are editing. To be more specific: they occur when you edit *any* file with "gksudo gedit" (or "gksu gedit"). They are warnings, not errors. You will notice that the files they refer to are not the same as the file you were editing--not even close--and that there was no error or warning about the actual file you were editing. These messages are sufficiently unimportant that they are offered only on the console--if you had run "gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub" from the Alt+F2 menu, then there would have no attached Terminal window and you would not have seen them (i.e., you were not also informed of the information they contained, via gedit's graphical interface).

The following is an explanation for why those warnings appear. You do not have to read it; it is not important to understand the reason they appear, in order to effectively use Ubuntu. However, please feel free to read it and, if you don't understand it, to reply with your questions--I'll try to answer them as best I can.

Files specific to a particular user are usually stored in that user's home directory. If your username were martin, your home directory in Ubuntu would be /home/martin. /home is not anybody's home directory, even though it is the directory "called home"--it is the directory that *contains* users' home directories. The exception to this is root--root's home directory is /root, not /home/root. (If you want to know why root's home directory is not located in /home, I'd be pleased to explain that. If you don't know what the root user is at all, please read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superuser before continuing on to the second paragraph of this explanation.)

Besides its location, there are some other important differences between normal users' home directories and root's home directory, on an Ubuntu system. One of them (or, I should say, one *class* of such differences) is the directory structure *inside* the home directory. Normal users' home directories contain, among other things, a directory called .local, where some (not all) user-specific application settings are stored. Inside that is a directory called share, which contains most or all of the settings that are stored inside .local, in most cases. Since these directories do not typically exist inside root's home directory, attempts to create or edit files inside them for the purpose of changing settings will fail. Programs that try to do this, fail, and *need* to do it will produce errors (or they can be written to create the necessary directories automatically so that writing files inside them is possible). Programs that try to do this, fail, but don't *need* to succeed--like gedit when it attempts automatically to access the file recently-used.xbel--will typically produce warnings rather than create the directory.

A user's recently-used.xbel file, when it exists, contains a list of recently opened documents, and is used by graphical user interfaces that provide Recent Documents lists and and like, for the convenience of the user. This is hardly mission-critical functionality, so when gedit is unable to edit or create this file, it acts based on the assumption that the user doesn't necessarily want the directory structure necessary to support it to be created.

Thanks Eliah,

Excellent reply.

Unfortuanatly the fix has caused a different problem to arrise.
Although the keyboard and mouse don't lock up with the 'irqpoll' command inserted, the mouse suddenly changes mode and the keyboard enters lots of `````````````` into any box that is open.
What happens with the mouse is that the left click does not work as it should. For example, left clicking on the X of a window to close it makes the mouse pointer turn into a gripping hand (like a fist used for dragging) and will not shut the window. Similar and options I wish to click on like 'close' or 'open' or 'help' etc. does exactly the same.
With the keyboard, if I have anything open that requires a text input from the keyboard, just enters a row of `````` into the text window. It is as though the ` key is held down.
Both these problems happen at a random time within the first 20 minutes of use, just like the lock-up occured, and again, the computer has to be shut down to remove the problem. At least I am able to shut down now although sometimes it hangs during the shut down process.

These above are whilst using Ubuntu 11.04, so I removed it and installed LinuxMint v9. I was going to put v8 on, but I wanted to try the WUBI installer, which only does Ubuntu. However I found that LinuxMint v9 has a similar (identical actually) program called 'mint4win'.
Having completed the install, I confirmed that I now had the original keyboard and mouse lock-up again, then carried out the same procedure, entering 'irqpoll' at boot up. Everything was identical to Ubuntu, same mouse problem and same keyboard problem.

As I run Windows 7, I am unsure how I can install Mint v8 alongside Windows 7, (Hence the reason for trying Mint v9).
Is it possible, while Mint v9 is installed, to get the kernal from the Mint v8 CD and put it on the current installation without doing any install of Mint v8?

I don't even know what I am looking for though!
I will trawl the forums to see if I can find out, but like you say, an old kernal may not be supported. I would really like to get Ubuntu 11.04 working as I quite like the interface.

Latest is that I have now installed Mint v10 64 bit, just to see how that works, and everything exactly the same!

I'm sorry to hear that the problem is not really fixed after all.

The different behavior between regular Ubuntu systems and a Wubi system makes me wonder if the non-Wubi systems were fully updated. If they were not, then perhaps if they were to be updated fully, they would behave like the Wubi system. (Wubi systems are sometimes fully updated upon installation, depending on how you install them.)

Either way, I recommend that you report this problem as a bug in Ubuntu. If you're willing to test out Oneiric (either Alpha 1, or, even better, the daily-live CD) to see if the problem occurs, that would be even better--that way, the bug is much more likely to be tended to, and it might even be fixed for Oneiric and all future releases (if not also Natty and some previous releases). It is sufficient to test out a live CD (i.e., you don't have to go to the trouble of actually installing Oneiric), especially if you use the daily-live, which always contains current versions of all its packages, including kernel packages. The daily-live images are always available at http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/. If you don't know how to pass boot options (like "irqpoll") to live CD's, please see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions.

To report this as a bug (whether or not you're making the additional effort of testing in Oneiric), please read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs carefully first. Then search to see if someone else who experiences the same problem has already filed a bug. Assuming no one else has, boot into an affected Ubuntu (not Linux Mint) system. If you're testing Oneiric, this should be your Oneiric system (unless you found that the bug did *not* occur in Oneiric). If it's not a live CD system, then fully update it (to make sure you're running the latest package versions) and reboot (back into this same system, not a different one). Then open a Terminal window and run "apport-cli linux" (without the quotes). I recommend you do it this way (rather than with "ubuntu-bug linux") because this tells you the URL that you'd need to go to to file the bug, rather than automatically opening a browser to navigate to that URL. Then you can email that URL to yourself, or save it into a file, or IM it to yourself, or whatever is most convenient, and fill out the actual bug report on a machine (or while booted into an OS) where the bug does not occur. (That way, the bug will not itself prevent you from composing and submitting the bug report.)

If possible, I recommend that you also run the commands "lspci", "lsmod", and "sudo lshw" (that last one may ask you for your password; it's fine that you don't see any placeholder characters like * while entering it, just type it in and press enter), copy all the text from the Terminal (Edit > Select All; Edit > Copy), and paste it in along with the URL for the bug report--you can include that information in the bug report. When you include the output of a command in your bug report, you should make sure that it's clear *what* command it's the output of. It might be more readable if you attach the output of "sudo lshw" as a file to the bug report, rather than including it in the bug's description (as it can be quite long).

In the bug report (as you are composing it on another machine or in another, more stably running operating system), make sure to include all the information you've posted here about what you have tried and what has happened, as well as any new information you've discovered. In particular, you should make sure to indicate what combinations of boot flags you have tried and what happened, and make sure to indicate which, if any, of the special boot flags you used during the specific run from which you ran "apport-cli" (as that's the run to which all the automatically attached information applies directly).

You should compose your report in such a way that it won't be necessary for the Ubuntu developers to refer to this question, in order to fully understand and appreciate your bug report. However, after you submit your bug report, you should use the "Link existing bug" link near the top of this question page to link this question and the bug to each other. Also, after reporting it, you should check to make sure that a file called "dmesg" (or "messages", if you're running an older version of Ubuntu) is was automatically attached by Apport. This might be attached compressed, as dmesg.gz or messages.gz. If it is not attached at all, you should boot back into the affected system (the system on which you ran "apport-cli") and attach this file (which is located in the /var directory).

Linux Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu, so it is more important to report the bug in Ubuntu than to report it in Linux Mint. (That's not intended as a value judgment. Rather, if the bug is fixed in Ubuntu, then the fix will propagate downstream to Linux Mint, too.) However, reporting it in Linux Mint is not difficult, and is a good idea. All you have to do, for this, is to add the package linux in the distribution Linux Mint as an affected package to your Ubuntu bug report. You can do this with the "Also affects distribution" link near the top of the page. Make sure the bug report contains information about what versions of Linux Mint, and what versions of the linux-image-generic package in Linux Mint, are affected by the bug. (As in Ubuntu, there is no need to report the bug against releases of Linux Mint that are no longer supported, so you may want to double-check support dates to ensure that you're not wasting your time and unnecessarily complexifying your bug report by including information about unsupported releases.) You can find out the installed version of linux-image-generic by running the command "apt-cache policy linux-image-generic". You can get other important information about the kernel by running "uname -a" (you can include that in your bug report--make sure it's clear *what* OS live CD or installation it corresponds to).

I apologize for the somewhat jumbled nature of this reply. I composed it in a hurry. Please don't take this as meaning that your bug report should be similarly confusing or overlong. ;-) Please feel free to reply with any questions you may have about these instructions. Also, if you choose not to report this as a bug, then that's OK too (though reporting it as a bug may well help you get a solution to the problem, or a workaround for it even before it's fixed). I'll try to reply soon to answer your question about kernel version downgrades (I still have to test something out on a virtual machine, to be sure of my answer). My reply will pertain to kernel version downgrades on Ubuntu, which will likely apply equally well to Linux Mint, but if you want a more definitive answer specifically about Linux Mint then I recommend you consult the Linux Mint forum (http://forums.linuxmint.co). If you find the answer there or post a new topic to ask about it, then it would be helpful to post a link here to the relevant forum topic there.

Correction: The URL for the Linux Mint forums is http://forums.linuxmint.com (I had left off the trailing "m").

Hi,
Sorry, been busy with a broken system.
I thought I would try to install Ubuntu 11.04 properly rather than use the Wubi installer to see if it would cure the problem.
Unfortunately it didn't .
So, how to UN-install Ubunto? Well, you can't, can you!
Ended up deleting the partition, only to find out that I could not boot my machine into anything.
Spent a whole day trying everything until I came across a small utility which restored my Windows 7 MBR. Of course after this, I had to contact Microsoft because it removed my software licence and I had to re-register.

So, once this was done and I was up and running again, I installed, using WUBI, Ubuntu v9.04. This was found to be stable with no keyboard or mouse lock-ups. The downside was that although I had downloaded it and installed it to a USB memory stick, when launching WUBI, it then spent 3 hours downloading the same from the internet. Not everyone has super fast broadband, I'm lucky if I peak at 1Meg.

Anyway, after the successful install of Ubuntu v9.04, I noticed I could upgrade to v10.04 using the package manager. So, this was the way to keep the old Kernel then... I thought!

Next day and several long hours later, the upgrade was complete, time to re-boot.

Oh no.... what now... Grub failed to boot Ubuntu. No Grub configuration and after trawling the internet for the last 2 days trying all sorts of things in Grub Recovery, manual starting etc, I am about to give up.
I cannot get Ubuntu v10.04 to launch at all.

I'm sorry to say that I think I will be giving it a miss for a while. Surely I cannot be the only one that has this MB, RAM & CPU combination!

I will continue to dabble and play, but I feel I have devoted too much time in the last week or so just to end up actually much worse than before I started.
Ubuntu v9.04 looked quite nice and worked perfectly, but as there is no long term support, then everything comes up nu-supported.

May I thank you for your effort in trying to get me up and running.

All the best

Martin

The problem with using Ubuntu 9.04 isn't that there's no long-term support (though that might be a problem for you, as some users insist on using only LTS releases)--it's that there's no support **at all** for it anymore.

When you upgraded, did you upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 and then to 10.04 LTS? If not, then I recommend you start over and reinstall Ubuntu 9.04, then upgrade to 9.10, and then upgrade to 10.04. (Ubuntu 9.10 is also no longer supported.)

Are you sure that the problem booting Ubuntu was with GRUB and not with the Windows boot loader (both are involved, on a Windows system)?

Also, after upgrading, are you able to boot into the new kernel and not the old kernel, or are you unable to boot the upgraded Ubuntu system at all?

"Not everyone has super fast broadband, I'm lucky if I peak at 1Meg."

1 megabyte per second is quite fast. People with fast broadband connections can sometimes download that fast, or almost that fast, when obtaining Ubuntu install images via bittorrent. At that speed, it takes 12 minutes to download a 700 MB .iso image. It would be amazing if you could download an .iso from a website or ftp site that fast, or if you could update/upgrade an installed Ubuntu system that fast.

On the other hand, one megabit per second is considerably slower. I'm not sure which speed you're referring to.

By the way, the kernel from Ubuntu 9.04 would not be supported. On the other hand, the kernel from Ubuntu 8.04 is still supported, as that was an LTS release. (I've checked, and since they have the same source package, it seems that the generic, i.e. desktop, kernel is supported, and not just the server kernels, even though Ubuntu 8.04 itself is only supported in the server version and only for packages in the main component that do not provide or rely on a graphical user interface.) Furthermore, upgrading directly from Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubuntu 10.04 is supported, since they are both LTS releases.

I don't know whether or not the Ubuntu 8.04 kernel will actually *work* on an Ubuntu 10.04 system, however. I'd have to do more testing to determine that. I'll probably go ahead and do that, if you're still interested in working on this problem, and if you can give me more details about your slow Internet connection. (If it's actually considerably slower than mine, then I'll go ahead and perform the test, to save you the hassle. Otherwise, you are better off doing it, because if it works on my machine it still won't necessarily work on yours, and if it doesn't work on my machine it still might work on yours. Kernel behavior in edge cases like this is often quite hardware dependent. I did try installing the Ubuntu 8.04 kernel on an Ubuntu 11.04 system, and that didn't work, but I haven't tried it on an Ubuntu 10.04 system, and I haven't tried doing it by starting out with an Ubuntu 8.04 system and upgrading.)

Hi,
I understand that Ubuntu 9.04 is not supported, but unfortunately it is the latest version which actually works without problems on my computer.
The upgrade to Ubuntu v10.04 was done by the update manager in Ubuntu v9.04 itself. I carried out the upgrade in order to KEEP the old Kernel of 2.6.31-14-generic.
If I carry out an install of Ubuntu v10.04 from scratch, then I am back to the problem with the keyboard and mouse.
Also note that LunuxMint v8 also uses Kernel 2.6.31-14-generic, and that works correctly. LinuxMint v9 uses a newer Kernel, 2.6.32 which has the keyboard and mouse problem.
So, the problem appears to be the Kernal.

With Ubuntu v11.04 installed, I tried to look for the old Kernel in the repository, but they only went back to 2.6.32, which is just short of what I wanted, hence installing Ubuntu 9.04 and taking an upgrade path.

Regarding the Grub boot problem, I still get the option to boot in Windows or Ubuntu, and the Windows boot works ok. When choosing Ubuntu, I get the following lines of text then a cursor.

"
GNU GRUB version 1.97~beta4
[Minimum bash-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions, anywhere else TAB lists possible device/file completions]
sh:grub>_
"

My broadband is 1 megabit/second at best. Over 1 1/2 hours to download a 700meg ISO file.

I have to hand, Ubuntu v8.04, v9.04, v10.04 & v11.04. But as I used WUBI to install, every time I update or do another install, it downloads the whole lot again from the internet. (This is also adding to my monthly download allowance).

If I install directly to the HD without the WUBI interface then I have the problem again when it fails to work, to restore my MBR for Windows 7.
I use my computer for business and its very scary when Windows suddenly doesn't boot, although having gone through the experience the other day, I think it will be much easier to put things right next time. HiHi.

I will try something different in that I will try to do a manual install of Ubuntu v8.04 directly to the second partition on my drive and see if I can use BIOS boot options to boot from the second partition which should in theory leave the Windows partition and boot loader untouched.

I will let you know how I get on.
Thanks

"I understand that Ubuntu 9.04 is not supported, but unfortunately it is the latest version which actually works without problems on my computer."

Yes, I am suggesting that, if possible, you should use the kernel from Ubuntu 8.04 LTS instead, since while that is an earlier version than 9.04, the kernel in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is still supported (even though a desktop 8.04 LTS system is not itself still supported), for the reasons explained above.

"If I carry out an install of Ubuntu v10.04 from scratch, then I am back to the problem with the keyboard and mouse."

Yes, I understand. I was just saying that you should upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10, and then to 10.04 LTS, rather than directly from 9.04 to 10.04 LTS, which is not supported. If you used the Update Manager to perform the upgrade, then that's probably what happened (but you would know, because you would have had to upgrade twice). On the other hand, if you installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, upgrading directly to 10.04 LTS from that *is* supported.

"With Ubuntu v11.04 installed, I tried to look for the old Kernel in the repository, but they only went back to 2.6.32, which is just short of what I wanted, hence installing Ubuntu 9.04 and taking an upgrade path."

You can manually install the kernel package from the previous version of Ubuntu, though I'm not sure that works as well as installing the whole release and upgrading. You can also enable the the release and security software sources for the main component of the earlier release, and then the kernels from that release will be available for installing...and will also receive updates. You should enable those software sources at some point, because that way, the kernel will receive updates (whatever updates are available...in the case of the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS kernel, there are quite recent updates available).

"When choosing Ubuntu, I get the following lines of text then a cursor."

That happens when you select Ubuntu in the menu that gives you the choice between Ubuntu and Windows? If that's what's going on, try http://www.omaregan.com/?p=583.

"But as I used WUBI to install, every time I update or do another install, it downloads the whole lot again from the internet."

If you run the Wubi installer from the CD, and you're installing for the same architecture that the CD is for (so, for example, you're installing and i386 system from the i386 CD, or an amd64 system from the amd64 CD), it should install from the CD rather than from the Internet.

If you have the alternate install CD rather than the regular (desktop) install CD, you can use that as a software source for upgrading to the release that CD is for, in the Update Manager.

And, as I have explained above, if you start with Ubuntu 8.04, then you only need to do one upgrade to get to a supported version of Ubuntu (and the kernel in Ubuntu 8.04 is supported with security and serious stability updates, too). While it's possible that the Ubuntu 9.04 kernel will work and the Ubuntu 8.04 kernel won't, I'd definitely recommend trying the Ubuntu 8.04 kernel. You can download .iso images on another, faster, less limited Internet connection, if you have access to one. You can buy factory CD's for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS from the Canonical Store.

I'll go ahead and see if I can get the Ubuntu 8.04 LTS kernel to work in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS in a virtual machine, and I'll report the results here.

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