lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Yorvyk <yorvik.ubunto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 3 Oct 2010 23:42:57 +0400
Mikhail Maksimov <mcwillin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi, all.
> 
> I was testing the 10.10 betas  on a low-spec machine and found that, for
> both versions, with 256 Mb RAM the Live CD session starts normally, but
> launching the installer kills the system in a creative way: everything
> disappears except the wallpaper and mouse pointer (I mean, menu, installer
> icon, lxtask that I started earlier), however Ctrl+Alt+F(n) works and from a
> text console "ps ax | grep ubiq" shows nothing, the installer process is
> gone.
> 
> lxtask says I have 243 MB of RAM installed, top says I've got 249844k total
> memory. AFAIK swap partitions get used silently by Live CD if present, so I
> cleared the partition table before running tests.
> 
> Adding another 128 Mb stick to the box solves the problem, so I believe it
> really is the RAM amount that matters. Unfortunately all my 32  and 64 Mb
> sticks fail so I cannot be any more precise.
> 
> Thus the current beta does not seem to be installable with "not less than
> 160 Mb" as stated in the wiki. I'm wondering if it's permanent, or just the
> "beta effect" which may get fixed when and if the "install" menu item works,
> not just the "try" one.
> 
> If anyone can confirm or correct my findings it is good to have it all
> documented in the wiki.
> 
It really does seem to depend on the hardware. I have installed with 160 MiB of RAM and a swap partition, on one machine.  While a machine with 256 MiB of RAM and Intel video wouldn’t install, even with a swap partition. On the later machine the Ubuntu beta works but not on the former.  I haven’t been able to make much sense of it.  I have tried other LXDE based  distros such as OpenSUSE, Fedora and Mandriva ,and they exhibit similar erratic behavour.

-- 
Steve Cook (Yorvyk)

http://lubuntu.net