Peppermint 8/9 live USB not responding [SOLVED - used Mint non-PAE]

[Keith]

Success - although I'm not sure why.

When starting up my pc this morning, my Peppermint 9 USB booted successfully (and it looks good, by the way).
I had rebooted my pc several times yesterday during all these trials without success, so I have no idea what's going on.

I have just tried recreating an Ubuntu 18 Live USB.  I removed the new Live USB before rebooting the pc with the USB plugged in again and, voila - it worked.  I can't see any particular combination of actions that succeed as I think I tried them all yesterday, but I've done something right this time. 
You and SeZo have been very patient, for which I thank you. 

I am not out of the woods yet, though, as the original problem was getting Peppermint onto an aging laptop (32bit). 
So one question:  Can I test a 32-bit P9 Live USB on my (known-working) 64-bit laptop? 
....and the answer is yes.

[Keith]

Some notes for interested readers:
1. My new Peppermint 9 32-bit Live USB does not display in the file manager. 
2. In Gparted I get an error message "Invalid partition table  - recursive partition /dev/sb".  And shows the whole partition to be "unallocated".
3. Yet the Live USB works perfectly - on my 64-bit machine, anyway.

The key seems to be:
1. After creating the Live USB, remove it.
2. Shut down your computer fully.
3. Insert USB and reboot.

I still have the thorny problem of getting it to work on the very old 32-bit laptop. 

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

How old ?

Because some VERY old PC's weren't able to boot from USB sticks.

Maybe you could remove the hard drive, attach it to another PC (after having removed its drive first), install Peppermint 32bit, then swap the drive back to the original PC .. that would be one way to overcome a PC that can't bot from USB.

Others would be

1) to create a LiveDVD instead
or
2) to use a PLOP boot floppy to load the LiveUSB
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/intro.html

2. In Gparted I get an error message "Invalid partition table  - recursive partition /dev/sb".  And shows the whole partition to be "unallocated".

this is normal because it's now using a CDROM file system.

3. Yet the Live USB works perfectly - on my 64-bit machine, anyway.

again, it will do because the system see's it as a CDROM

The downside is once you're done installing, to use the stick as a normal writeable USB stick again you'll need to reformat it as FAT32/NTFS/a Linux file system/any other block device file system.

[Keith]

Thank you for your suggestions.

The old laptop is a Dell D505 and must be about 15 years old. 
It has Peppermint 3 that I installed ages ago and works well, if not up-dateable.  Pretty sure I used a USB stick, but I'm not sure after all this time. 

. I've looked at the Plop Boot manager website and it looks all to easy for a novice to screw up his computer - one really needs to understand the words!  Which I don't.
. Swapping HDDs means taking apart two laptops - hmm!
. Creating a live DVD looks like the best option, though it will take a while for me to get some. 
   Which image writer would you recommend for that? 

By the way;  although both the 64-bit and 32-bit Peppermint Live USBs don't display in file manager or Gparted (for the reasons you mention), the Ubuntu 18 LiveUSB does display in file manager, but is "unallocated" in Gparted.

[Rich J]

Thank you for your suggestions.

The old laptop is a Dell D505 and must be about 15 years old. 
It has Peppermint 3 that I installed ages ago and works well, if not up-dateable.  Pretty sure I used a USB stick, but I'm not sure after all this time. 

. I've looked at the Plop Boot manager website and it looks all to easy for a novice to screw up his computer - one really needs to understand the words!  Which I don't.
. Swapping HDDs means taking apart two laptops - hmm!
. Creating a live DVD looks like the best option, though it will take a while for me to get some. 
   Which image writer would you recommend for that? 

By the way;  although both the 64-bit and 32-bit Peppermint Live USBs don't display in file manager or Gparted (for the reasons you mention), the Ubuntu 18 LiveUSB does display in file manager, but is "unallocated" in Gparted.

Hi Keith - removing the HDD is pretty simple on a Dell laptop - the Latitude range are all pretty much the same.  Mine is a D520 of similar age to yours and I swapped to a 500GB HDD a while ago.  Take a look here -     https://youtu.be/Xg_EhfPcZX4

The HDD sits behind the 2 sockets for Mic and headphones.  The screw arrangement may be different on yours - mine has 2 screws along the edge, for instance - remove these and the caddy slides out.  There are 2 more screws holding the HDD into the caddy so just remove these and replace with the new unit and you're good to go.  NB - remember to remove the battery first!!   

Hope this helps

Rich

[Keith]

Hi Rich.

Thank you for that.  I once changed the HDD in my Lenovo for an SSD.  Like you, I followed a YouTube demo and it went OK, although I was very careful! 
I could go that route but having two laptops in bits is asking for trouble  - the number posts I've made to this forum is a measure of how easily I screw things up!

I'll try the easy option first (DVD) and do the swap only if that doesn't work.
Can you recommend a DVD writer that will write an image disk?

Many thanks.

[emegra]

Hi Keith

Can you recommend a DVD writer that will write an image disk?

I would use Brasero, sometimes it gets a bad rap but to be honest I've never had a problem with it


Good luck


Graeme

[Keith]

Hi Graeme.
I recognise the name and seem to remember using it for ripping CDs.  I didn't realise it would write Live Discs, so that would be good.  I shall install it and give it whirl.

Many thanks,
  Keith

[Keith]

Brasero worked a treat and I can recommend it. 
The Live DVD of Peppermint 9 (32 bit) worked well on my 64 bit Lenovo laptop and spare desktop.

The original purpose was to install P9 on a very old Dell 505 but when I tried to do so, it failed. 
On the first Peppermint screen there appeared some mostly illegible text of which all I could make out was something like " inappropriate....kernel....CPU...".
So I guess the machine is just too old to cope with a modern operating system. 

My thanks to Mark, Rich J and Graeme for your patience and advice - I have learnt a lot. 

I wonder if there is another, more stripped-down version of Linux that might do? 
   Keith

[emegra]

The original purpose was to install P9 on a very old Dell 505 but when I tried to do so, it failed.
On the first Peppermint screen there appeared some mostly illegible text of which all I could make out was something like " inappropriate....kernel....CPU...".
So I guess the machine is just too old to cope with a modern operating system. 

My guess is the "inappropriate kernel" thing is the old Dell will be non PAE  (Physical Address Extensions)  most distros now require that as well as 64 bit , I think there are still 1 or 2 distros have a non PAE 32 bit version although I couldn't name any off hand but I'd suggest having a look at Bodhi they certainly used to do a non PAE 32bit version . I have an old Dell 600 non PAE 32 bit and it runs well on it

Good luck


Graeme 

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

IIRC Peppermint 7 and 8 had an i386 kernel and not i686, and they're supported until 2021 .. I can let you know for sure later.

[emegra]

IIRC Peppermint 7 and 8 had an i386 kernel and not i686, and they're supported until 2021 .. I can let you know for sure later.

But don't they require PAE ?



Graeme

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Both kernels support PAE, but an i686 kernel requires an i686 processor .. so probably won't work on an i486/i586

[Keith]

Graeme, Mark:   

I did try the "force pae" command when trying the LiveDVD on the Dell but to no avail. 
I've heard of Bodhi so shall look into it, but if there's a 32-bit, non-PAE Peppermint 8 then that would be  better.

Keith

[emegra]

Hi Keith

I could be wrong but I'm quite certain Peppermint 8 will not install on a non PAE kernel although there may be a way round it

the way to know if your processor is PAE capable is type at the terminal

Code: [Select]

cat /proc/cpuinfo

check alongside flags for pae as per screenshot


My interest in this lies in the fact I have an old Dell Latitude D600 and I couldn't get Peppermint to install on it due to the PAE thing and I eventually installed Bodhi which offered a non PAE version at the time which I'm sure was well before Peppermint 8, Bodhi works ok but if there a way to run a supported version of Peppermint I would rather go down that route


Graeme