Antix doesn't like Acer

[Member amir]

I am trying to install the antix full on a acer machine (TravelMate B), the booter doesn’t take me into the desktop. Instead i will be prompted into a tty-like terminal where i have to type all information (without any gui). At the end antix is not installed at all! This should has to do with the acer notebook since i have installed antix on other machines. Does any one know whats wrong between antix and acer?

[Member PPC]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hi- folks probably will need a bit more information to be able to help you. For example:

Are you able to run antiX live? Or not even that?
Are you trying to install via usb drive or optic disc?
If by “booter” you mean the inicial Grub menu with several options, try using the down key to choose “safe video mode” and see if you manage to boot all the way to antiX desktop… antiX is worth the hassle of any problems you may found when installing…

P.

[Member amir]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Hi and thanks for your post!
If by Live you mean running the desktop environment no i can’t run into the desktop of antix. I am using a USB drive for installing, which i also used to install antix successfully on an old Asus Notebook. I also can not see any option safe video mode, also the whole F2, F3, … Key hints at the bottom of the Grub page are not there. I will post of photo of my Grub page.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by amir.

[Member PPC]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Amir, your problem is a bit above my know-how… but if I had to guess I would say that this machine is booting via UEFI, I know that at least the MX Linux (based partly in antiX) “booter” looks different the BIOS one… (Take a look at https://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/docs-antiX-17/FAQ/boot-params.html). Does it look something like this? https://forum.mxlinux.org/download/file.php?id=7922&mode=view
If so try “fail safe” or any other option you can find and test it…

Post the photo and please wait, someone will eventually be able to help you out, more than me…

P.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by PPC.

[Member amir]

Helpful

Up

0

::

Here is a photo of the bootloader screen (in the attachment)

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_20190524_181922.jpg
   

[Member fatmac]

Helpful

Up

0

::

I’d take a look in Advanced Options, you may find a way from there.

Linux (& BSD) since 1999

[Anonymous]

Helpful

Up

0

::

amir, visit this 1 minute video howto: Changing BIOS Mode from UEFI to Legacy
or ame.answers.acer.com/…/changing-boot-order

The antiX bootmenu F5, F6 options are displayed only for “Legacy BIOS” boot.
According to the video & mfg helpdocs, legacy mode is available on the Travelmate B.

[Forum Admin BitJam]

Helpful

Up

0

::

TL;DR:

1) You may be able to get to the familiar live legacy bootloader by making changes in the BIOS to make the acer boot in legacy mode.

2) If you use the top entry in the boot menu, then all of the text menus will be skipped.

3) Setting up the live environment with those text menus is not the same as installing.

4) If you didn’t get to a graphical desktop then try the Failsafe” boot option under “Advanced”

amir wrote:

I am trying to install the antix full on a acer machine (TravelMate B), the booter doesn’t take me into the desktop. Instead i will be prompted into a tty-like terminal where i have to type all information (without any gui). At the end antix is not installed at all! This should has to do with the acer notebook since i have installed antix on other machines. Does any one know whats wrong between antix and acer?

Thanks for the picture. That helps tell us what you’re doing.

The highlighted entry says “Customize Boot (text menus)” and this is what you got. If you don’t want to customize the boot then use then entry right above it. Those text menus exist because many of the choices need to be made before X starts. Our live legacy bootloader uses graphial menus but, unfortunately UEFI was a giant step backward in terms of UI and user friendliness so we were forced to use text menus or nothing (although our dev fehlix is a grub whiz and has some ideas of putting option selection menus in the grub (UEFI) bootloader). We enabled the text menus by default because if we don’t then many people miss them (just like you missed the non-text-menu entry) and they complain that they can’t set the language or timezone, etc.

The text menus were designed to be easy to get through since pressing gives you the default selection.

I’m not sure what you mean by “At the end antix is not installed at all!”. Setting up the live environment during the boot process is not the same thing as running the installer, although many of the choices you make will get carried over when you do an install.

The next question is: do you get to a graphic desktop after the live boot process? If so, then everything is fine and you should be able to run the graphical installer. If not, that as PPC said, you should try to use the “Failsafe” boot entry that is in the “Advanced Options” menu.

Does any one know whats wrong between antix and acer?

I think the only “problem” is your Acer is booting in UEFI mode and that means you can’t use our legacy bootloader which you are probably comfortable and familiar with. On my old Acer ES1-511, I need to choice either legacy booting or UEFI booting in the BIOS. If your BIOS has this option then you could use it to choose legacy booting which would get you to our legacy bootloader.

I’m sorry the text menus that appear when you boot UEFI were so off-putting. We were very frustrated by the huge step backward caused by UEFI. Like many things foisted on us because they are new and “better”. This things was new and worse (YMMV). The text menus were our attempt to make the best out of a bad situation.

Context is worth 80 IQ points -- Alan Kay

[Author]

Posts