Mageia 7 and 7.1 32 bit fail to boot

[uberzilla]

Hello,

This is an odd problem. I have a few older laptops (a Dell D620 ATG with onboard graphics and 2ghz Intel t7200 core2duo, a Dell D430, and others). I was seeking to upgrade to Mageia 7 on the ATG. The upgrade install failed. So I just did a new install. Unfortunately that failed too. What happens is all seems to go well. The install finishes up and it reboots to the new boot screen - all looks good. But then the boot process starts, and what happens is a bunch of code lines start writing fast - scrolling in a frantic pace - on and on - and then it reboots and repeats. So I was thinking maybe the old hardware in just not supported. But to make sure I pulled out the old Dell D430 and installed. Same thing. So now I am a bit nervous as I was going to upgrade M6 on a dell E6420 to version 7 64 bit. I did not want to take a chance so I tried the 64 bit install on the D430 and it worked perfect - all working fine. So why the difference? Why the 64 bit installs fine and the 32 bit installs but never boots right.

Here I want to note that both the original Mageia 7 release in 32 bit and the 7.1 release did the same thing. I should also add the following as it might be related. I also tried an end round - installing the 32 bit live XFCE Mageia 7. On this attempt - the installer did not post up a user name fill in box - just a password box - so the install failed to work.

If anyone has any thought or similar experience , please feel free to advise.

Looking forward to installing the 64 bit version as it is working amazingly well on the D430. Anyone who has such an old low powered machine - you never expect anything resembling speed. But some things don't require speed - though sadly with all the data mining and advertisement online - I don't even use it for the web anymore

[doktor5000]

Dumb question: You didn't mention what media you used for the attempted upgrade installations.
Also, you could try to upgrade via urpmi, see https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Mageia_7_Rel ... _.28CLI.29

[uberzilla]

USB-thumb drive was the means of installation. Upgrading is irrelevant in that I also did complete new install attempts. If no one else has encountered this then it can it obviously means some localized problem. Again for comparison I did a 32bit install on a different computer, with the same faulty boot results (same exact behavior as described in original email). Then I installed the 64bit version with no problem. So it is narrowed to the 32bit. So if someone has experienced this - which does not seem to be the case - I will just tinker when I get a chance.

[benmc]

hi

I have (very occasionally) had something similar after updating kernels.
for me, choosing recovery mode and then booting up to the desktop and a reboot seems to fix whatever the issue is.

have you tried booting into recovery under advanced options (grub boot menu)?

[uberzilla]

Yes - in fact when I do the recovery boot - it would run through the repair process and boot successfully. But in every instance (did this 4 times 2 in two different installs) - upon restart - it went back to the same problem. I need to do more testing when I get a chance - like install it - the do the recover boot into the system - and then update the system. Other possibility is a mother board going bad. I find this a long shot - but having been around computers for 3 decades now - a bad mobo will wreak havoc with Windows in my experience. On the other hand I have run Linux on a desktop and a laptop with known mother board issues. That could all be reaching - but I started systematically eliminating variables using different laptops for comparison, testing 64 vs 32, and the original M7 vs M7.1 releases. At some point - if I get a chance - I will keep running through and eliminating variables. There is always an answer - just a question of time (if available) to isolate.

Thanks for the responses! If I find an answer - I will post it - on the long shot anyone else runs into the same symptoms.