Ubuntu takes forever to install on a Toshiba NB 200

[Marc Tardif]

I have been trying to install Karmic (20090917) over the network on a Toshiba NB 200. It was so slow that I left it running overnight and it's still not finished in the morning. The installation seems to be stuck at installing base packages. I am attaching the syslog from the installer environment for more information.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Marc,

Sorry I missed this one. It'll help in the future to make sure bugs are assigned to a specific package. For now I'm reassigning this from Ubuntu to the linux kernel package.

Is the system actually locked up at this point or just creeping along extremely slowly? I'm unfortunately not seeing any obvious error messages in the syslog attached. Would it be possible to access the machine in question and grab at least the full dmesg output (assuming the machine is not completely locked up). It might also help to see the output of ifconfig to see if there are any issues of dropped packets etc.

[Joey Stanford (joey)]

Confirmed for Alpha 6 on an NB205. The slow down for me was mirror selection and later. Unsure of the specific cause.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Just to add more info here. Since I was in Montreal this week I tested this exact system in the lab by installing Karmic Alpha6 manually from a LiveUSB. Installation succeeded in a normal time frame. I'm having Marc retest doing a netinstall while I'm still here to examine any issues if this reoccurs.

[Antonio Sánchez (antoniosanchez)]

Hi Marc, Leann, Joey,

We had a similar issue when we tryed to install Jaunty over the network, finally we found that is something related with the Atom power management.

Try to disable C-States of the Processor Power Management setup in BIOS.

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

@Leann -- if this is confirmed as always occuring on this laptop then it probabally deserves a release note entry. Also if there is a work around via BIOS we should confirm and document that.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

@Marc,

Can you confirm the workaround Antonio mentioned in comment #5?

[bkrzem (bkrzem)]

I can confirm that switching "Dynamic CPU Frequency Mode" from "Dynamic" to "Always Low" in BIOS makes installation process much faster. Tested on TOSHIBA NB200-N12 and Ubuntu 9.10 network installation from mini.iso image.
(thanks for the tip Antonio!)

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

I can reproduce the issue on a recent Lucid install (20100419.1), in both desktop and alternate.

It seems setting acpi=off as a kernel parameter for net boot is a valid workaround.

[Ameet Paranjape (ameetp)]

Mathieu,

Do both acpi=off and the bios options work as workarounds in Lucid as well? I will write up the release note for this issue on Lucid after you reply. Thanks.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Ameet, I confirm, the workarounds work on Lucid as well.

Also, I removed the patch tag, there is no patch attached to this bug.

[Ameet Paranjape (ameetp)]

Proposed release note text:

"Depending on how your BIOS is configured, installation on a Toshiba NB 200* might take a long time. This can be worked around by switching "Dynamic CPU Frequency Mode" from "Dynamic" to "Always Low" in BIOS or setting acpi=off as a kernel parameter for net boot."

[ZombieSnipe (zombiesnipe)]

I'm sorry for the delay, you have to install the Netbook remix on the Ubuntu website if you have a laptop version of the Toshiba NB 200.
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[Herton R. Krzesinski (herton)]

Does it still happen on latest kernels (Maverick, Natty)?

If yes, I suggest to test with these parameters given to the kernel, it may help narrow down the real issue:
processor.max_cstate=2
processor.max_cstate=1
processor.nocst

If C-states is the issue, probably one of them will workaround the problem. If is not a kernel bug, we can add a dmi blacklist entry to processor.

But as changing frequency setting in bios also worked, may be something is happening on pstates handling, so setting /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor to performance can make a difference too.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

This bug was nominated against a series that is no longer supported, ie karmic. The bug task representing the karmic nomination is being closed as Won't Fix.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Dave Walker (davewalker)]

Marking the ubuntu-release-notes task as Invalid, as the release notes for Karmic have long passed.

Thanks.

[Kate Stewart (kate.stewart)]

Stale task, does not appear relevent to release note for precise. If problem still exists with precise, reopen and target specifically to precise.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

lucid has seen the end of its life and is no longer receiving any updates. Marking the lucid task for this ticket as "Won't Fix".

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]