AVL-MXE Experience

[JWM-Kit]

IMPORTANT I want to make it clear that AV Linux is an amazing distro and is usually problem free. My experience is not normal or common. I'm only sharing in case by some rare occurrence someone else has the same problem.


I recently experienced problems installing AV Linux MX-21 “Consciousness" to my Acer Aspire E1-571. I figure I'd share that experience as it might be helpful if someone else has the same problems.

Additional INFO
This laptop is not "stock". When I received it the RAM and hard drive had been removed. I replaced them with what I had on hand. This configuration has worked well and has cause no issue, but it does have only 2GB RAM :(

First Attempt
I made the flash drive and booted up the machine to the live system. All worked fine so I continued to install the system. Choose a single partition install (well 2 counting the swap) and configured the other option. The drive formatted successfully and it started copying the system. Now I just wait for the prompt asking to install the grub menu. . . but that never happened. Suddenly at about 70% the installer window just disappeared off screen. The installer crashed.

More failure
I tried the install a couple more times. Rebooting the system between tries. I also closed down conky, compton and other background apps thinking it might be related to lack of memory. I also tried running updates before installing. Nothing worked. Installer crashed on every attempt.

Success?
Time to try the cli-installer. I booted the live system. Logged out and then switched to TTY1 (<ctrl><alt><F1>). Logged in as root and started the cli-installer. I wish I could provide step by step details here but I did not document the process.

The install completed and it asked to install grub and then asked me to configure timezone, locale, create a user, etc. When done I rebooted . . . and blank screen. X did not start, or it didn't start correctly.

After trying many things regarding the video drivers and such I finally took a look at the slim config /etc/slim.conf. Where I found this:

Code: Select all

default_user        demo

That's not right so I changed "demo" to the correct user name.

I also found this:

Code: Select all

auto_login          yes

I don't want auto login. So I just commented out the line.

saved the file, reboot and it worked!!! Apparently the problem was because slim was trying to login a user that did not exist. I've been using it for a couple of days now and all is fine.

[AVLinux]

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear the experience has not been very smooth for you. Without more system info I cannot say why the Installer crashed, none of your findings so far are what would be considered 'normal' and there a lot of people using AVL-MXE who have been able to install and Log in successfully (although some newer UEFI systems present challenges). Are you certain that the partition you targeted for installation had sufficient space?

As far as a CLI Installer in the case of AV Linux it has never been used or tested at all and I would have to think it has something to do with the new slim.conf not being created for your User. Autologin is enabled for the Live User 'demo' and if your graphical install had gone according to plan you would have had to explicitly select an Autologin Option..

[JWM-Kit]

Thanks you for your reply. and more importantly AV Linux. I've used it for many years and nothing else replaces it when it comes to audio production. That is why I went though the trouble to complete the install instead of just reaching for another distro. There is no replacement. It had to be AV Linux.

I'm sorry to hear the experience has not been very smooth for you. Without more system info I cannot say why the Installer crashed, none of your findings so far are what would be considered 'normal' and there a lot of people using AVL-MXE who have been able to install and Log in successfully (although some newer UEFI systems present challenges). Are you certain that the partition you targeted for installation had sufficient space?

I agree. Nothing about it was normal. I blame the hardware. Every other version of AV Linux has just worked for me. I do not know why The installer gave me problems. The install was bios/legacy install. So no UEFI challenges. I believe the cli-installer
only supports a bios/legacy install.
The partition was sda1 with more than 300GB free. which should of been plenty of space.

As far as a CLI Installer in the case of AV Linux it has never been used or tested at all and I would have to think it has something to do with the new slim.conf not being created for your User. Autologin is enabled for the Live User 'demo' and if your graphical install had gone according to plan you would have had to explicitly select an Autologin Option..

Well, it's been tested now. It works you just have to edit the slim.conf

I assumed the slim config error was left over from the live system and was because I used the cli-installer.

I am sorry I did not save a log from the GUI installer. I know it could prove useful, but at the time I was more interested in just getting it to work than I was in reporting bugs. It wasn't until earlier today I had the thought that sharing my experience might be helpful to others.

NOTE TO ALL
I want to make it clear that AV Linux is an amazing distro and is usually problem free. My experience is not normal or common. I'm only sharing in case by some rare occurrence someone else has the same problem.