1

i've seen all the posts about using a USB bootable and the boot repair disk utility. my twist is that my pc i'm using for a server is too old to support booting from USB. And when i try 'try ubuntu now' from a v20.4 lts install disk, apparently it doesn't have support for the onboard video (too old?) as i get a purple screen with many, offset dashes on it. also, the boot repair utility won't let me create a cd-rom on my windows computer.

can anyone provide instructions or a prebuilt ISO with all the necessary tools to fix this?

thanks john

John W Zerkel
  • 11
  • downloaded 18.04 lts workstation and used that to build a boot cd. was able to 'try ubuntu now' successfully and applied the recommended fixes via a terminal window. system rebooted perfectly – John W Zerkel Aug 01 '20 at 00:07
  • and in response to guiverc's question about the version of 20.4, it was ubuntu 20.04 lts workstation. and while the 18.04 worked, the background was all hashed up. but the icons and terminal window worked/was viewable. – John W Zerkel Aug 01 '20 at 00:27
  • and why does ubuntu drop you into the grub shell if there is nothing that can be done there? and why/how did this get by the testers? – John W Zerkel Aug 01 '20 at 00:28
  • The grub MBR has to fit in 512 bytes of memory... not a lot of troubleshooting, or UI can be fitted into 512 bytes of memory (and thus remain bootable according to standards set decades ago). grub has survived decades of use because its actually very usable & still complaint with standards; why Ubuntu uses it for amd64/i386 architectures (but it's only 1 of a number of options, it's GNU code). If you don't like it, switch to lilo or another... (Ubuntu doesn't use grub for all architectures) – guiverc Aug 01 '20 at 00:34
  • This is not a specific Ubuntu problem, but an industry wide problem involving all companies, and microsoft too. They together decided on the approach, and the approach decided is being executed by all companies (including microsoft). Work started in April, but testing is limited because it was not a public public as CVE/security related, and nothing could be made public until the set disclosure date. – guiverc Aug 01 '20 at 23:59

2 Answers2

1

I had the same error: "symbol `grub_calloc' not found" followed by the dreaded grub_rescue prompt. I've spent hours trying various commands to no avail. At the end I decided to use the boot-repair disk at sourceforge.net. It took all of a 4 minutes to restore grub.

Orhank
  • 11
0

boot-repair-disk should be burned to a DVD not a cd.

Also yes, a computer that doesn't have USB support... is it a pentium 4?

You should not be installing Ubuntu to a P4 computer, most next gen the core2 duos are probably too old.

Try lubuntu, otherwise settle for puppy linux, maybe Kaos.

If you do have a core2 duo or higher, I would be that USB booting is off from the bios.

Dellmontez
  • 11