Mint 17.1 released - installer broken

[VirtualLarry]

I downloaded and burned some DVDs of the new Linux Mint 17.1 release. I booted the 64-bit Mate edition, and the installer gave me the option of installing it alongside Windows.

Now, I have a 240GB SSD (MBR) with Win7 64-bit, and a 3TB data HDD (GPT).

The ONLY drive it would allow me to select, to install Mint onto, was the 3TB HDD! It wouldn't let me select my boot SSD.

BROKEN!

Edit: My Win7 64-bit boot files, are NOT on the 3TB, in case you were wondering. I had that drive disconnected when I installed Win7 to the SSD, and I installed MBR-style, and did NOT let it create the little mini-partition.

 

[lxskllr]

Is it in the option "something else", or whatever they call it now? I usually use the advanced installer, and it seems to have gotten more hidden over the years.

 

[VirtualLarry]

No, the "full manual" option is still there, but I would much prefer an automatic installation method, that at the very least, allows me to choose the drive! I don't need to carve off 1.4TB of my data drive just to install Mint in a dual-boot system, thank you.

Edit: I'm not even sure how that would even work, the system doesn't have UEFI, just standard legacy bootloader. What would be the point of putting an OS on a GPT-formatted drive, when you can't boot off of it?

Linux is so doggone stupid sometimes.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Now, I have a 240GB SSD (MBR) with Win7 64-bit, and a 3TB data HDD (GPT).

The ONLY drive it would allow me to select, to install Mint onto, was the 3TB HDD! It wouldn't let me select my boot SSD.

BROKEN!

...

Linux is so doggone stupid sometimes.

I believe this is actually a feature, not a bug, and it is designed as a failsafe for a new-to-linux user to prevent them from accidentally destroying their windows installation.

Linux is detecting a windows installation on the SSD which, presumably, is formatted as one big NTFS partition. Since Linux can't have an ntfs filesystem as its root, as a simple install alongside option, rather than give you the option of formatting and destroying what appears to be a good operating system, it is deliberately removing that option.

If you would like them to both live on the same SSD in harmony, you need to either partition the SSD and shrink the NTFS file system(with something like gparted) before you attempt an installation, or you'll need to select the "do something else" option where it will guide you through doing something like that.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I believe this is actually a feature, not a bug, and it is designed as a failsafe for a new-to-linux user to prevent them from accidentally destroying their windows installation.

Linux is detecting a windows installation on the SSD which, presumably, is formatted as one big NTFS partition. Since Linux can't have an ntfs filesystem as its root, as a simple install alongside option, rather than give you the option of formatting and destroying what appears to be a good operating system, it is deliberately removing that option.

If you would like them to both live on the same SSD in harmony, you need to either partition the SSD and shrink the NTFS file system(with something like gparted) before you attempt an installation, or you'll need to select the "do something else" option where it will guide you through doing something like that.

No, it's not that. The installer prompts you to select whether you want to install Mint alongside Windows (resizes the Windows NTFS partition automatically), in place of Windows (and warns you it will blow away Windows), and "manual partitioning".

I was able to get Mint to install to my SSD, by shutting down my PC and physically disconnecting my 3TB HDD, then booting the Linux Mint 17.1 install DVD. Clearly, the installer is broken.

Another thing is broken is Linux's TCP/IP stack. Path MTU discovery is broken. Win7 64-bit automagically discovers the max MTU along a link just fine, but I had to manually set the MTU to 1464 on my AC1200 USB wifi adapter connection in Mint, otherwise it was literally taking like 5 minutes per page load on AT forums. (I had a perfect A/B setup to test with, as I have an identical machine next to me that could access the forums, using the same model USB wifi adapter, and same wifi router/AP, except with Win7, and everything on the Win7 machine was fine, but the Linux machine was wonky. Also, it was just this forum, so there possibly is a configuration issue with the forum's net connection and path MTU discovery too.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Oh yeah, the DVD burning program included with Linux Mint 17.1, Brasero, is broken too. I put in a brand-new blank DVD disc into my drive, and the program reports that there is 3.0GB free. How it comes up with that number, I don't know. I've been using these discs sucessfully, with ImgBurn, without issues. The blanks are PlexDisc LogoTop, and they have recieved mostly good reviews at Newegg.

Edit: Ok, I take it back, now I get it. It does show the correct free space. Only, after you select an image file, it shows you the free space left over after burning the image. Which is pretty wierd, I don't know how you would burn multiple ISO files to one disc, and still have them bootable.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Middle-click to auto-scroll in Firefox is broken too. Or perhaps that's just an X thing, middle-click to paste. I really miss that feature, I might go back to Windows 7 because of it.

 

[lxskllr]

Middle-click to auto-scroll in Firefox is broken too. Or perhaps that's just an X thing, middle-click to paste. I really miss that feature, I might go back to Windows 7 because of it.

That has to be set in Firefox. Default in GNU/Linux(Windows?) is autoscroll off.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That has to be set in Firefox. Default in GNU/Linux(Windows?) is autoscroll off.

Woot! Thanks! It works now.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's unfortunate that this release has an "upstream bug" with the installer. If you choose to encrypt your home dir, you can't mount swap. Some people report workarounds by editing some config files. (This is all documented in the release notes, btw, this isn't just me ranting.)

So I apparently got hit by this bug. I open System Monitor, and it shows I'm using 0 of 0 swap. I assume that if I had swap mounted, it would show using 0 of 8GB swap. I do have an 8GB swap partition on disk.

I do have 8GB of RAM, so I can manage without it, but it's an annoying bug.

I like Mint 17.1 Mate overall though. If only it didn't have so many bugs, it would be great. It feels very "Windows 98-ish", both in appearance, and overall quality.

I was able to get Skype installed fairly easily. I downloaded a .deb package from skype.com, right-clicked it in my Downloads directory, opened with "GDebi", and it analysed the dependencies, said it was good to go, so I clicked "install", and it installed.

Yet another Linux bug, I didn't have my webcam installed when I installed the program. So I plugged in the webcam, restarted Skype, and it picked it up. So I called someone, but they couldn't hear me. So I used the audio properties widget to select the USB webcam mic as my input. Only, I had to re-start Skype AGAIN to get it to use the new input. I don't think Windows requires that. Yet another deficiency.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Having trouble with Skype. Unsure if it was because I didn't have UPnP enabled in my router.
Calls would suddenly lose voice from other end, and then I would attempt to quit Skype, and in System Monitor, with all Skype windows closed, it was using 96-100% CPU time. On a quad-core. Something up with that.

So I would try to reboot, and sometimes Mint wouldn't let me reboot. Had to bring up a terminal and "sudo shutdown -h now".

So far, I would likely have preferred to continue to run Win98se than Mint. If it was only more stable, I would consider it for a daily-driver. But with apps failing, and chewing up CPU time, and not being able to reboot the OS, well, forget it.

Again, same exact hardware is perfectly stable with Win7 64-bit. I have a dual-boot now.

Have discovered that my few-months-old AC1200 router (configured as an AP), is now appearing to be failing. I can see it, but I can't connect, unless I reboot it. That was true with both Linux and Win7, so I'm pretty sure it's the router.

Edit: Oh, my buddy that runs Mint too, suggested when Skype didn't close, to open System Monitor, Processes tab, and End Process. I tried that, it didn't do much. Skype went into "sleeping", with "futex_wait", and didn't leave. So I couldn't re-open it, had to reboot. Again, much like Win98.

 

[Elixer]

What the heck is up with mate-settings daemon running at 100% CPU until it is killed / stopped ?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm, my PremierTek PT-8812AU AC1200 USB3.0 wifi adapter has failed in the 5Ghz band, mysteriously after installing Mint 17.

I can see my router, and it worked after I rebooted the router, before, but I checked my Windows 7 PC next to me, and it was still connected and working. So apparently no need to reboot the router.

But this adapter would see the 5Ghz SSID, in both Linux Mint and Windows 7, but it wouldn't connect. It would connect to the 2.4Ghz SSID.

So I tried swapping an identical model wifi dongle, from my laptop, and it worked. Beautifully. I then tried this one in the laptop, and it couldn't connect to the 5Ghz SSID, although it could see it.

So, something's up with this. I suspect the 5Ghz transmitter in the USB dongle burned out. It could be due to the Linux driver, due to me plugging it into an Intel ITX mobo in a Habey case with a cheap PSU, or me doing a modprobe with a wrong driver. rtl8822ae or something like that.

Edit: Well, it wasn't doing "sudo modprobe rtl8822ae", that didn't do anything to the working adapter.

And in fact, I plugged the non-working adapter in, and rebooted my router and my AC1200 AP, and it started working again.

So I'm not sure what to think. I wonder if the AP is blacklisting the MAC of the adapter, if it doesn't authenticate correctly.

I know I have the password correct though.

Next time it happens, I'm going to try spoofing the MAC on the Wifi connection, and see if that lets me connect. That would tell me if it's blacklisting the MAC.