Laptop Install Help

[Clive Menzies]

On (15/03/06 06:01), david burkhard wrote:
> I have come across a problem with installing Ubuntu on
> a new laptop.  The laptop is an Acer Aspire 5021 WLMi.
>  I feel that I missed somthing important somewhere,
> but just don't know what it is.  The issue that I am
> having is that the laptop just powers off during the
> Ubuntu installation process.  I got an issue with
> having to specify "vga=771" at the start of the
> install.  But trying to install 5.10 (both 64-bit and
> then 32-bit) the laptop powers off at random times but
> never gets much past the start of loading packages. 
> Being worried about possible hardware problems with
> the machine, I then got out older versions of Linux
> and found that Ubuntu 4.10 (32-bit) has the same
> problem although it gets past the reboot during the
> install, asks for a user name and then asks for
> allowable video modes and at a point shortly after
> that it powers off.  The install has not progressed
> far enough to allow booting the machine up in Ubuntu. 
> This 4.10 version powered off at the same point
> several times in a row.  Then I tried RedHat 7.1 (very
> old) and it installed.  Finally I worked my way up to
> Fedora 4 (32-bit) and it installed without any issues.
> 
> So with a little trial and error, it appears that
> Ubuntu doesn't like this laptop where other
> (RedHat/Fedora) linux distributions do.  Does anyone
> out there have any idea what I might try to get Ubuntu
> installed on this machine ?  (I would really prefer to
> go to Ubuntu, if possible.)

This sounds like hardware.  I've got a 1524wlmi (64 bit) and I had quite
an overheating problem.  Debian sid would run fine but it didn't like
Ubuntu Breezy;  I sent it back to Acer twice and touch wood it's been OK
since last August.

Acer won't rely on your word re: overheating and aren't interested in
Linux related issues. You need to prove it's a problem under windows.  I
download a test program called HotCPU which managed to shut down my
machine (when it was faulty) in about 4 minutes.  I would run that.  If
it runs OK ..... then I'm wrong :)

Regards

Clive

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