Ubuntu
ubiquity package

natty kernel won't boot on old laptop

Asked by Simon Oosthoek

yesterday I tried installing natty (11.04) on my old laptop (it's one I bought late 2002). I was unable to boot the install CD's of xubuntu 11.04 and also linux mint LXDE with a similar problem.

I then tried 10.04.2 xubuntu and I was able to normally install on the laptop.

Then I proceeded to upgrade to 10.10 and it booted fine after upgrading.

Next I tried upgrading to 11.04, which also went find, except I was again unable to boot using the natty kernel. Selecting the older kernel from 10.10 worked ok. I think I saw some glitch on the startup screen, but otherwise it seems to work ok.

I'd like to use the proper kernel for this release, is there some option I might try to add to the kernel commandline to start it on my old laptop?

------
some info:

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 15
model : 2
model name : Mobile Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 - M CPU 1.80GHz
stepping : 7
cpu MHz : 1200.000
cache size : 512 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe up pebs bts cid
bogomips : 2393.15
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 128
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 [Brookdale] Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 [Brookdale] Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 42)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801CAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801CAM IDE U100 Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 420 Go] (rev a3)
02:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev 46)
02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6933/711E1 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller (rev 01)
02:04.1 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ6933/711E1 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller (rev 01)
02:06.0 System peripheral: Toshiba America Info Systems TC6371AF SmartMedia Controller (rev 02)

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delance
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Revision history for this message
Simon Oosthoek (simon-margo) said : 		#1

Perhaps a related/followup question is how to I tell the grub configuration to boot an older kernel by default. I tried "saved" in /etc/defaults/grub's GRUB_DEFAULT, but it didn't seem to work.
I also tried the title of the entry in /boot/grub/grub.cfg, but that didn't work either.

I'm not yet familiar enough with the modern grub system, to know how to force it to a specific entry whenever I reboot.

(Obviously, I'd rather boot the latest kernel, rather than an older one...)

/Simon

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#2

What happens when you try to boot the natty kernel?

Revision history for this message
Simon Oosthoek (simon-margo) said : 		#3

I get a blank screen (in quiet mode)
when I boot in recovery mode, it appears to get stuck during the initialisation of the PCI devices.

The last line I see is roughly:
[ 0.239817] pci 0000:00:1e.0: bridge window [mem 0x30000000-0x37ffffff pref]

that is after several such lines, but then it just stops.

Revision history for this message
marcus aurelius (adbiz) said : 		#4

it seems that 11.04 doesn't work on quite a few machines. i have an hp desktop, lenovo laptop and toshiba netbook. it doesn't work on any of those machines.

if you don't need the spanking new features, stick with 10.04. it's supported longer than 11.04. you can use 10.04 until 11.10 comes out in october if you want the new stuff. hopefully, the developers will have fixed the problem.

Revision history for this message
Simon Oosthoek (simon-margo) said : 		#5

I'll try to boot an install CD when the next alpha/beta version for 11.10 comes out...
But meanwhile, it should somehow be possible to boot 11.04 using an older kernel by default. If I can just get grub to take another kernel by default. I can't get my head around the new grub configuration system :-(

Revision history for this message
Ubfan (ubfan1) said : 		#6

In /etc/default/grub, the line
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
selects the kernel to boot when the grub.cfg file is written.
Change the number, and run
sudo update-grub

Revision history for this message
Simon Oosthoek (simon-margo) said : 		#7

I already tried GRUB_DEFAULT=saved and GRUB_DEFAULT='title of the working entry'
neither worked as I expected. Setting it to other values has so far not been successful.

I suspect this is actually a bug, because I'm trying to start a kernel that is in a grub submenu, which may not have been tested often, if at all. I haven't figured out why and how the kernels from previous linux installs end up in a submenu (though this sounds reasonable). I need to have an older kernel as default, so in my case, this becomes a problem...

So far, in this question I guess there are at least two bugs:
1 - the natty kernel doesn't boot on my laptop from 2002 (and apparently quite a few other machines)
2 - the new grub (with the fancy update-grub system) appears unable (or at least difficult) to be configurable to boot the previous ubuntu's kernels by default.

It may be that the bug in 2 is lack of documentation (or my knowledge thereof ;-)

Revision history for this message
Best delance (olivier-delance) said : 		#8

Set "GRUB_DEFAULT=3" and run "sudo update-grub".
I also tried GRUB_DEFAULT='title of the working entry' and it failed, so it doesn't seem to work.
Another solution is to remove faulty kernel, and run "sudo update-grub".

Revision history for this message
Simon Oosthoek (simon-margo) said : 		#9

GRUB_DEFAULT=3 (and update-grub)
gets me to boot into memtest, and somehow it's now also very quick through the grub menu. Luckily my hands remembered to press the shift key during boot ;-)

I noticed that memtest was on position 3 and 4 in the main grub menu, so I figured 5 might be the best choice. Somehow it doesn't seem to work that way. I think it's not possible to select a submenu entry as default

Removing the kernel 2.6.38-10 and changing the default to 0 again resulted in a default boot option that works.

It's still a bug in (update-)grub though...

Revision history for this message
Simon Oosthoek (simon-margo) said : 		#10

Thanks delance, that solved my question.