Finally started my install, but can't install kubuntu....

[trentend]

Okay.  I have custom built what I hope to be my LinuxMCE core and media directors.  I have four motherboards mounted in a case, with four power supplies, four power switches, fans and 6TB of storage.  Each motherboard can be turned on or off independently. The bottom motherboard in my stack is the core. Based on a Tyan S3115GM2N motherboard (no nvidia graphics, but dual nic, and an atom server board) it has a 64GB flash drive connected for the system files and three 1TB hard drives in a backplane arrangement for storage.  The other three motherboards, for media directors, are Asus AT3N7A-I's.  The next motherboard up from the Tyan board has another three 1TB hard drives connected via SATA backplane.  This motherboard is for the media director in the lounge.  The other two motherboards have no attached storage.  I have on order four DVB-S2 C 2104D usb tuners on order for my satellite feeds which I hope to connect to the core and to the lounge media director (two to each).  The intention is to leave the core and the lounge media director on at all times, and turn on the others as required (one will feed to my dining room, and the other will provide a central audio source and/or act as a media director for the kitchen).  All of the places that screens wiil be located are within a 5m cable run of the rack installation.  Currently none are connected via HDMI, rather they are all connected to an old KVM switch in the rack via VGA and ps/2 to usb converters.

Ultimately I will connect a cd/dvd drive via usb to the lounge media director.  I also hope to connect usb soundcards in various configurations (I have ten lying around and like the idea of moving the soundcard away from electrical noise from the server rack). As a result I'm trying to use a bootable usb drive to install Linuxmce.

Switching only the core on and booting (successfully) from usb flash drive (using the snapshot published on the 8th of this month) I get the following. It asks for my language and then reaches the install menu. I select install kubuntu. The sliding blue bar indicating progress runs for a few minutes, and then freezes. No progress.

Any thoughts?

[trentend]

No thoughts I suppose. I feel like this might be one of the hazards of trying to run an old kernel on new hardware. I know that I have other equipment that isn't supported in the kernel shipping with 8.10, could it be this causing my problem?  I've tried adding the noapic switch to the install command.  Is there anything else I can try?  I was hoping some of you who have tried the core on a recent atom board might have come across something similar.  I perhaps should add that I've had ubuntu 9.10 running on the board.

Slow development rate, leads to old kernels and less modern hardware support, however fast hardware evolution means that buying new well supported hardware is difficult.

It's a pickle and no mistake.....

[purps]

Not had a problem with this myself, but you could try "nolapic" as well as "noapic".

If it still freezes on the progress bar, try repeatedly tapping enter as well - this worked for me on an old laptop I had.

[OldBob]

I have tried installing onto a POV-ION Atom board with a similar result that I attribute to the issue with the second (in this case the on-board) NIC being the REALTEK 8111 / 8168 issue that is well documented in the WIKI / Forum with regard to a work around for media directors but not cores.   I've given up as my Linux skills aren't sufficient to install the work around.   Yours might be better.   Like your experience, the hardware configuration works well with Ubuntu 9.10.   The more modern kernel includes recognition for the 8111 / 8168.

Regards,

Bob

[OldBob]

I have tried again with the DVD install on the POV-ION Atom board (like you I added the ISO to a bootable USB drive) and had partial success.

The installation took around three hours (my guess, I didn't time it) and I needed to follow the DVD installation precisely (an earlier attempt failed).

The partial nature of the success is the failure to provide the usual software options in the "Software" screen, it being black and blank rather than showing libdvdcss, wcodecs, and cisco drivers.

All the latest nVidia drivers were automatically loaded, as were the drivers for the Realtek NIC.   It was difficult, but I resisted the temptation to respond to messages emanating from the Kubuntu instal (update Video driver, restart now) and waited for each terminal line to complete.

Hope you're having some success.

[trentend]

.....Hope you're having some success.

Thanks for that.  I'm on hold with it at the moment.  I've had the board or power supply blow and trip the electrics.  I need to take it all to bits and test to see what has been fried and what hasn't.  In the meantime I'm going to install the core as a test on an asrock atom 330 I've got lying around.  I'm not expecting that to go smoothly either, but I need to test the dvbworld 2104's that have arrived.

So much to do, so little time.