Struggling to install via USB

[skar]

gold_finger,

I think I did not make it clear enough on what I want and what I did. I had Windows 8 on this laptop. I wanted to dedicate the laptop entirely to linux, and I choose LL. I used Universal-USB-Installer and selected Ubuntu. Since LL is based off Ubuntu, I figured that was the best choice as there was no LL option available. I then was able to boot into LL using the USB (don't have a CD/DVD drive) and start the installer. Then right at the end of the install I got a message saying grub could not be installed and hence upon restart, could not boot into LL. I tried other tools like Unetbootin and the ones suggested in this post. Either I would get the same result (grub wont install) or the USB wont boot. So I figured in the mean time I'd install xubuntu. I do like it, but still inclined to install LL as my sole OS for this laptop. I asked the question if LL was okay for a decent laptop, because I wanted to make sure it utilizes the full potential of the hardware and the fact that most folks were using it on a older systems. "Linux Lite is also great for reviving that old laptop or desktop you gave up on a few years back"- This gave me the impression that it was designed specifically to cater to low end machines.

I will check on the legacy boot. However, I did see that I could change from UEFI to legacy in the boot menu for my acer aspire v5. If you could let me know, step by step, how to make a bootable LL usb from Windows or Xubuntu and any other important steps, that would be great.

skar

[gold_finger]

Ok -- I may have misunderstood one of your prior posts.  I thought that after you had put Xubuntu on the computer you tried one more time to install LL.  It sounds like that is not what you did.  Sounds like you have not tried to install LL in place of the Xubuntu yet.  Is that correct?

I do know that your intent is to have only LL on the computer.  Since I had thought that you had another failed attempt at installing LL after Xubuntu was on machine, the questions I asked would have given me a clue as to whether you might have missed an install step or not.  For example, if you had unsuccessfully tried again to install LL as the sole OS, but Xubuntu still booted up fine after the attempt, that would have meant that you forgot to manually assign partitions for the installation.  (That is a relatively common mistake.)  If that were the case, it would be easy to correct.

If you could let me know, step by step, how to make a bootable LL usb from Windows or Xubuntu and any other important steps, that would be great.

For UEFI installations, there are varying success rates from people using different tools to make the USB.

From Xubuntu, your most reliable method to make the USB would be as described in the Help Manual.  Follow directions under the heading "Writing the latest Linux Lite ISO to USB using a terminal in Linux and OSX".

• Download the 64-bit LL 2.0 ISO file here:  https://www.freecinema2022.gq/download.html
  
• Download it to the "Downloads" folder.
  
• Open a terminal; enter cd Downloads to go to the Downloads folder; then enter md5sum linux-lite-2.0-64bit.iso to check the md5sum.  It should come back as "65eeeb03d1d22bc7f1b4e21db04da21b"
  
• Use the dh -f command to find out the device name of the USB you have plugged in.
  
• Use the dd command to make the live USB.  (It will take some time -- 5-20 minutes.)
  

From a Windows OS, the most reliable method for UEFI installations (from what I've read) is the Rufus tool I gave link to before.  I can't give step-by-step for Windows tools because I don't have any recent Windows experience.

Try one more time with a new USB.  Boot it in UEFI mode.  After booted up, open a terminal and confirm that it is booted in UEFI mode with this command:

Code:

ls /sys/firmware

If you see "efi" in the listed output, then you are booted in UEFI/EFI-mode.  Otherwise you are booted in BIOS/Legacy-mode.

Once confirmed, start installer and if you have choice to replace Xubuntu and use the whole disk, do that.  It should automatically create partitions it needs and install to them correctly.  If install attempt fails, boot the live USB again and post back with output from this terminal command:

Code:

sudo parted -l

[skar]

If I change to legacy boot, I can boot in perfectly with the Rufus tool.  I have not upgraded yet, will do so soon.

Thanks
skar

[gold_finger]

Yes, if you change everything to legacy mode the install should go fine.

However, like I said before, there are two areas that can be set for booting in CSM/Legacy mode -- the Boot Menu and the main UEFI Settings/Startup Menu.  The Boot Menu only controls booting for the current boot session -- and my impression is that you have been using that to control the boot mode for the USB. That's fine and you do need to do that.  But, you also need to change the default boot mode for all bootups in the main UEFI Settings/Startup Menu.  If you don't, then the computer will boot in UEFI mode as it does now and the Legacy install won't boot.

Another thing you need to do before installing is to wipe out the current drive partitions and then create a new partition table in "msdos" (MBR) format instead of the current GOT format.  That's pretty easy to do.

* Open GParted (Menu -> System -> Partition Drives)
* Right-click on the Swap partition and choose "Swapoff"
* Right-click on every partition and choose "Delete"
* Hit "Apply" (arrow button under word "Help") to finalize deletions.
* Then, along top of GParted, click Device -> Create partition table -> msdos
* Hit "OK" or "Apply" to finalize.
* Done.  Go ahead and close GParted

If you want a special partition setup, you can use GParted to create them at this point.  Otherwise, you can leave the drive empty and let Linux Lite installer do the partitioning for you.

When done with GParted you can go ahead and install.

[skar]

gold_finger,

I guess I should have come back to read your post before installing. I just changed the boot mode to legacy and went ahead with the install. I choose erase and reinstall LL. Everything went OK. To be honest I'm not up to speed with what you mentioned in the last post. As of now everything looks OK. Would be so kind to let me know if I made a critical error and what the fix would be. I'm experimenting with the laptop, so don't mind reinstalling and the like. But surely I want LL as my main OS. I'm learning linux at my own pace.

On completely different topics I had a few questions:

1) How may I see the percentage on the battery icon (right side of panel)?

2) I cannot get the window tiling option to work in settings. I had gone to window manager (Settings->Window Manager->Advanced) and turned on Window snapping feature to no avail. Also I just have 1 workspace enabled. I don't like multiple workspaces.

3) This might sound like a weird question, however, since I changed to legacy and installed LL, I note that the hard disk access noise is prominent and happens a lot. This I did not notice with xubuntu or windows 8. The kind of sound you here in older PCs when accessing the hard drive. Everything works well, fast and efficient, but can't help but notice this

skar

[gold_finger]

skar,

If everything is working then you're just fine.  So congrats on getting it up and running.  Good job!

I think the fact that you wiped Windows 8 completely off the system helped a lot.  That combined with you correctly telling the installer to erase and reinstall.  My steps were more of a precautionary measure than mandatory in your case.  If you had kept Windows on the computer, you would have had no choice but to perform things in a certain manner.  Since you got rid of it, the LL installer could go ahead with the Legacy mode install in whatever way it wanted.  The computer's UEFI settings must detect that the only bootable system installed is in Legacy mode and thus automatically boots in that mode.  (That's my guess.  There is probably a setting for only UEFI, only Legacy, or auto-detect and boot in either mode.)

My guess is that LL installed in legacy mode, but kept the GPT partitioning scheme.  Linux can do that, Windows can not.  If that's what it did, then it will have made an extra partition compared to the traditional MBR partition installation called a "bios_boot" partition.  I'm curious to know if that's what it did, or if it automatically converted the disk to MBR partitions and did that kind of installation.  If you don't mind, can you run these terminal commands to show which way it did everything?

Code:

sudo parted -l

(When entering password, nothing will show on the screen.  That is normal.)

and

Code:

lsblk

Just copy/paste the output from both of them back here to the forum.


Now that you've got LL installed, don't forget to run the initial updates to the system -- Menu -> Install Updates.  Then you're all set and ready to go.