Problems with Ubuntu installation; hotplug subsystem?

[Cloudz]

Hi.

I just as recently as yesterday installed Ubuntu Breezy Badger 5.10 on my Sony Vaio Desktop PC. I've tried most methods posted on the Ubuntu Forums and elsewhere to get around the problem of the bootup freezing at the "hotplug subsystems" part; I tried ctrl + c to bypass it (no luck), attempted to disable USB 2.0 functionality (once again, no luck) and could not disable the sound/modem option in BIOS (the closest I could get was to disabling the audio controller in BIOS). No dice.

When I attempted to edit the boot-line I get past the "rw init =/bin/bash" bit and it still freezes at the hotplug subsystem part after I boot, so I can't add snd_hda_intel & snd_hda_codec to the blacklist with nano. :S

I tried ctrl + c again and it worked, though..
however, when it tries to finish installing packages it says that some packages could not be installed and stops at around 5% then brings me to a command line, no X or anything, with "ubuntu login:" prompt. I thought maybe I should try "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-org" but I can't! When I try I get "sudo: unable to lookup ubuntu via gethostbyname()"

what should I do?

 

[horndude]

try a distro more suited to laptops, and get someone to help, also go here:

http://www.tuxmobil.org

check your model of laptop and see what others have done

 

[Cloudz]

i shouldve been more specific, this is a desktop Vaio.

 

[horndude]

ok, well first step of installing ANY linux distro is checking to see if your hardware is compatible, which you did not do, now its in your face !!

someone here im sure is more familiar than I with ubuntu, but I would guess that the first thing after identifying what hardware you have that will work and what wont would be commenting out a bunch of things that happen in the boot process so the thing can boot properly and go from there

ubuntu uses sysV init scripts, that is where you will find alot of this stuff, and like all linux distros you will find those in the /etc directory, not sure where exactly without looking it up, the one I use has BSD style init scripts(they do the same tasks, just different location)

to be quite honest, it sounds like getting this to work may end up being more hassle than its worth........this is one of the issues with distros that do lots of automated checking and make their own decisions about hardware.......when they guess wrong bad things happen or dont work at all and often make it diffcult to figure out whats wrong

 

[Cloudz]

Yeah, I just figured that it would work fairly well considering that I have an older PC that runs Ubuntu fine. meh well, doesnt bother me. I'm pretty sure it's a problem with the onboard Intel soundcard; I blacklisted it & its codec and when I boot into Ubuntu it works just fine /except/..

there's no X. Earlier today I got around the hotplug problem and it started installing the rest of the files needed, but stopped at 5% and said that some files could not be installed. I'm guessing GNOME and the related files were some of them because now when I boot into Ubuntu I come to a CLI with "ubuntu login:" as described here - http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/nox.php

I cd'ed into /init.d and did "gdm start" but I got

** (process: 7929): critical **: ve_config_get_sections: assertion 'config != NULL' failed

The problem is *supposed* to have been fixed in Dapper 6.06, so I may wipe my Ubuntu partition and install Dapper, see what happens.

 

[Cloudz]

I'm getting Dapper CDs in the mail any day now, if I install Dapper will it write over the Breezy installation or would I need to uninstall Breezy, rewrite my MBR (I installed GRUB to the MBR) and then install?

 

[The General]

Hi.

I just as recently as yesterday installed Ubuntu Breezy Badger 5.10 on my Sony Vaio Desktop PC.

You were pretty specific, horndude must've just not read it carefully.

What model number is your computer? So we can check the hardware...

 

[Cloudz]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00079F7LQ/103-8815006-6083808?v=glance&n=541966

That's it. VGC-RB30.

 

[The General]

The only reason I could see that having a problem with Linux is the motherboard's chipset. Probably proprietary, knowing Sony.

 

[Cloudz]

Huh.

Well, from my experience, it's only done it to Ubuntu; live CD & install. My **** Small Linux CD works just fine, as does the Knoppix CD.

I blacklisted snd_hda_intel & the codec for it and now it's not happening, but when I boot into Ubuntu it boots into a CLI (sort of?) with a "ubuntu login:" prompt.

I tried what's listed here http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/nox.php

no dice, however; I got an error message. Give me a minute and I'll post the exact message.