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I have attempted to install Ubuntu on my old Laptop for enhanced utility.

  • I have cleared the Hard Drive as there is no operating system on it.
  • I have installed Ubuntu 14.10 and it was successful

However, that is where the good points end. As soon as the installation completed, the screen went black with roughly 3 lines of white text and the CD ROM opened. Nothing else happened. There was no text asking me to restart or press enter.

I pressed enter and it loaded fine. I logged in however, and there was no taskbar on the left and no status bar at the top of the screen. I am also certain that the Background image had not loaded properly. I attempted to follow some instructions on the internet and install CCSM in the CTRL+Alt+F1 terminal and it failed to download. I also received a message about an update and I attempted to install but that also failed. Have I done something wrong? could anyone give me some guidance?

For reference, the laptop I am trying to install Ubuntu on is an Acer Aspire 5535.

Thanks for reading. I hope for a reply soon.

Michael Lindman
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The_Mann
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  • I don't know if the laptop can handle unity, it's very demanding, perhaps xubuntu is the way to go ? A review I read says "The entry-level Acer Aspire AS5532-5535 can keep up with neither dual-core laptops that are still moderately priced nor with a competing single-core entry-level laptop from Compaq." http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/acer-aspire-as5532-5535-athlon-64-tf-20-1-6ghz-3gb-ram-160gb-hdd-windows-7-home-premium/ – Mark Kirby Apr 04 '15 at 11:59
  • I see. I must say that it is indeed a very old laptop. If I install XUbuntu instead, will it work? – The_Mann Apr 04 '15 at 12:01
  • There are many different "distros" all are ubuntu with a different face. Give me 10 minuets I will write you a good answer about distros. – Mark Kirby Apr 04 '15 at 12:03
  • Ok thank you very much. If it helps you when Finding Distros, I was intending to use it for installing Audacity for Audio Recording. I heard there as a distro called KXStudio but its website did not look like a place to install so I thought nothing of it. Thank you for all the help. – The_Mann Apr 04 '15 at 12:06
  • possible duplicate of Unity doesn't load, no Launcher, no Dash appears – David Foerster Apr 04 '15 at 12:17
  • It may also help to verify the integrity of the files on your installation medium: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM – David Foerster Apr 04 '15 at 12:24

2 Answers2

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I don't know if the laptop can handle unity, it's very demanding, perhaps you should try one of the various Ubuntu based "distros".

The lightest distro is Lubuntu - you can run this on anything almost but it is no frills and looks like Windows 95, it uses the Lxde desktop.

Next is Xubuntu - This should run well on your laptop and has much more fancy bits and extras, it is inline with windows 7 with the areo effect off (basic theme with no transparancy), it uses the xfce desk top.

There is also the upcoming Ubuntu Mate - It is not out yet but you can get a beta and it will up[date later this month, this will run well and is designed to emulate the old Gnome 2 desktop.

If you are just trying distros for fun there is Gnome and Kubuntu but they are high end like Unity.

All these distros are Ubuntu and use official packages and sources and are supported on this forum.

As well as all that there are also Ubuntu forks like, Mint and Elementary OS but these are doing there own thing with Ubuntu and may work a bit diffrent.

Finaly there are hundreds of diffrent Linux distros HERE.

So don't be dishartend by Ubuntu not working there are loads to choose for.

PS With regaurds to KXstudio it is based on Ubuntu (but forked) and is for professional music production. It comes with LOADS of free software, looks nice and uses XFCE like Xubuntu. If thats what you want go for it BUT for an every day desktop user no, it is not for that and they proberly won''t support those features.

I would recommend Xubuntu then when you have installed

sudo apt-get install audacity ubuntu-restricted-extras

Should work great.

Mark Kirby
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  • OK, thank you very much for the time and effort to help with my issue, I will look into Xubuntu - I am very interested in it. – The_Mann Apr 04 '15 at 12:36
  • No problem, don't forget you can test it as a live cd first to see what you think. – Mark Kirby Apr 04 '15 at 12:39
  • Excellent! I tried out the Xubuntu Live CD and it worked, I tried it and finally decided to install and now it works, the Task Menu shows and it performs as expected. I am about to use the code you supplied for Audacity but the main purpose of this final comment is to thank you. – The_Mann Apr 04 '15 at 13:46
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Rewrite the image to your USB stick / a different USB stick and try it again.

UTF-8
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  • I used a 4GB DVD, I have no USB's to use. I have also tried to ubuntu 3 times in the past 3 days and the same results mentioned in my question occurred. – The_Mann Apr 04 '15 at 11:56
  • This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. – David Foerster Apr 04 '15 at 12:14
  • Did you use the same DVD? If so it can be that there is something wrong with it which was reproduced every single time. – UTF-8 Apr 04 '15 at 12:20
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    @DavidFoerster The question is how to resolve to problem. If the installation medium is damaged, this could resolve the problem. Therefore, it's an answer. – UTF-8 Apr 04 '15 at 12:22
  • How do you know the installation medium is damaged? You would first need to get OP to run a checksum test. – David Foerster Apr 04 '15 at 12:23
  • I guessed. If something can be tried again without complex preparation, it's often the easiest to just try it again. He used an optic medium in which errors are quite common. – UTF-8 Apr 04 '15 at 12:27