Live disks won't install drivers or install

[ajkochanowicz]

So far I've tried gOS, Linux Mint, Ubuntu, and SuZE. The result is the same: The live disk runs, opens up but the graphics are shoddy, sound doesn't work, everything is very slow, and in attempting to partition and install the os, it stays at "Resizing partitions 0%"

I know Live disks are going to be a bit slower, but this is super slow and this computer is just a few months old. Usually the live cds have a database of drivers for common media but it just isn't accelerating the graphics or even recognizing my wireless. I know its not the CDs because they work fine on other (much older) computers.

I have a Compaq laptop with an AMD Athlon x2 64 processor and I've tried both i386 and x86 versions of linux.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

[saikee]

ajkochanowicz,

Welccme to Justlinux!

You have made your post very difficult to answer because you ask so many questions in one thread. The correct approach is to ask one question at a time and give information for others to help.

As an example your first complaint is "Resizing partitions 0%" taking too long or stuck while attempting to partition the hard disk. This makes us think you are resizing an existing partition rather than to create a new partition. To create a new partition is a one-minute job using terminal command like fdisk, cfdisk or sfdisk because you only write 16 bytes on the first sector (or 512 bytes) of the hard disk. To resize it is a totally different matter because you are rearranging every binary bit in the entire partition. This process can take a very long time if your partition is densely populated.

While we would like to help you to get over the partition problem we can't solve your sound, wireless, slow response, drivers and other hardware problems because some of them will disappear if you manage to install the Linux and able to modify its settings.

My suggestion is to create the partition for Linux first. If you haven't got unallocated space then you have to be patient with the resizing operation, unless you can copy the data to a USB device, remove the partition and recreate the new partitions.

For a Linux a 10Gb partition should suffice. The first one needs a swap of 0.5 to 1Gb too.

[i845_]

About the shoddy graphics part... does your notebook use an ATi graphics processor? On LiveCDs, you might try forcing the vesa driver with a kernel parameter/cheatcode. For instance, on Ubuntu, you could try using the safe graphics boot option, or pass the xforcevesa parameter to the kernel. (A complete list of boot options for Ubuntu Intrepid may be found here.)

About the slow part... some distros allow you to load the contents of the entire LiveCD into RAM (useful only if you have >= 1 Gbyte), with the help of a kernel parameter. Some distros (Ubuntu for one), also offer alternate installation disks for installation in esoteric/restricted/special/uncommon hardware environments. You could try those as well.

Once you've done installing, post us a description of your hardware (what chips your machine uses for graphics acceleration, sound, wireless connectivity, etc.), in case you encounter a problem. We'll be happy to help you out with the rest.

Regards.