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[Golfer]

Hi All  I've just moved my operating system over from Vista to Linux Mint 12 and thought I'd share this with you.

I had an awful problem getting my Linux installation disk(s) to boot up and jumped through many hoops to solve the problem.  My system met all the criteria to run Mint, I double-checked the MD5's and made sure the disks burned at the slowest speed.  All to no avail.  I then purchased a disk via the 'net in the hope that copy was viable.  Nope!  The issue was that Mint booted only as far as the initrd line (2nd line of script) and then stalled.  One attempt brought up the error message 'not enough memory to load specified image'.  I have 2MB RAM so couldn't figure this one!

After much surfing I found a mention about a (apparently unrelated) graphics issue.  Specifically, the words 'memory hole' caught my attention.  The poster related how disabling this in Bios cured his particular problem.  It jogged my memory as I'd seen something like it in my Bios so I found it and disabled it.  Bingo!  All disks booted and I installed Mint without a hitch.

I'm not saying it will work for everyone but if you come across a similar problem of disks not booting, check it out.  I found the entry in 'Super Bios' on my m/c.

Rich

[roseway]

I've never come across that problem, but I can certainly believe it. I guess it applies to systems in which the graphics processor uses some of the main memory. Thanks for the information Rich.

[tickmike]

Hi Rich.
That's interesting  .
I could immediately think of one of my old machines I have problems with (HP e-vectra about 12 years old  ) .
I have just looked at the bios but its very limited and does not have that function.
Just tried a 2011 Mint disc in it as a live CD and it loaded ok (even with out a hard drive in it ! ), very slow (do to the spec of the computer !), got on the internet ok with Firefox
What is the spec of your computer and which 'bios' does it have ?.

Re "I have 2MB RAM so couldn't figure this one!" Unless that is a typo it's a bit low 

[Golfer]

Hi Rich.
That's interesting  .
I could immediately think of one of my old machines I have problems with (HP e-vectra about 12 years old  ) .
I have just looked at the bios but its very limited and does not have that function.
Just tried a 2011 Mint disc in it as a live CD and it loaded ok (even with out a hard drive in it ! ), very slow (do to the spec of the computer !), got on the internet ok with Firefox
What is the spec of your computer and which 'bios' does it have ?.

Re "I have 2MB RAM so couldn't figure this one!" Unless that is a typo it's a bit low    Yes, a typo!!!

My specs are - CPU Intel 4 3.20GHz, 2Gb Ram, 160Gb HDD, Bios Phoenix v6.00PG, Mobo Foxconn 945 7MC Series

M/c is about 6-7 years old (but actual build may be older than that).  It was a PC World 'manager's special' with Vista OEM preloaded (and I reckon was an upgrade of an XP machine).  It only had 512Mb RAM when I got it, so you can imagine what speed Vista ran at.  I upgraded the Ram to 2Gb (actually bought 4Gb but when installed the comp wouldn't boot.  I believe it's due to a lack of available power from the mobo?)  I wanted to ditch Vista for Linux but only if I could be sure I had a viable install disk as I had no Vista disk to re-install with.  I tried several ways to burn Linux (including to a USB drive) but nothing would boot.  I spent a huge amount of time trawling the net for answers and tried many 'solutions'.  Again, no luck.  By a sheer fluke I came across this link (I saw it out of the corner of my eye as I was about to click off the page!) -

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/not-enough-memory-to-load-specified-image-898197/

It mentions 'memory hole' in the Bios and jogged my memory as I'd been in and out of Bios many times trying to get things to work!  Anyway, disabling it meant the disks I burned all booted fine and there we are!

One pity is that Linux in general has a reputation for being 'user unfriendly' which isn't really the case but if you do get installation issues as I did, it can be a really difficult job to sort it out.  Perhaps it's because there are so many distro's out there and they each need something a bit different to set them up............?  Whatever, I'm a happy bunny now I'm with Mint - at the very least, if I want to renew my equipment I can do so without running into licensing issues/compatibility etc!

Rich

[Golfer]

I've never come across that problem, but I can certainly believe it. I guess it applies to systems in which the graphics processor uses some of the main memory. Thanks for the information Rich.

You're welcome!  I had a read of your excellent tutorials - perhaps it might be useful to include it there for future reference?

[broadstairs]

One old motherboard I have used in the past supported a 'Memory Hole' which was used to reserve space for ISA adapter ROM remapping and the default was OFF. I suspect this PC had ISA slots and that's why it has the feature, however as has been said this stops 15-16MB from being accessible and I guess stops the image from being loaded into contiguous memory. It wont be an issue with newer motherboards as they don't have ISA slots any more! I think you will find that when your distro boots it loads an initial storage image into memory which has to be contiguous, and I suppose they did not bother about this memory hole as it is very old technology now!

Stuart

[tickmike]

With this machine I talked about above only some of the very old PCLinux distros will load (older kernals used) and the only way I can get one of the newer 2012 releases to work is to take out the hard drive use another machine to load the operating system up on it, then move the hard drive back and then it boots ok.