Booting to Linux with a USB Drive - Errors and will not boot

[tkolarik]

I tried several different USB formatting solution with the same result so it's not the USB drive. The live boot to linux locks us with an error like;

[2.314099] [drm] nouveau .....Detected 2048 VRAM
[2.314099] [drm] nouveau ..... 512 MIB GART (aperature)
[2.314099] [drm] nouveau ..... PMC - unhandled INTR

The last line is repeated several times till it locks up.

This happens with several different versions of live Linux.

[tkolarik]

OK,it looks like it has something to do with the "BumbleBee Project", that attempts to allow Optimus to work with Linux. Unfortunately, Asus took care of that. So it looks like it is trying to boot using Intel video not Nvidia, or something like that.

Any ideas on how to get the G67VW to boot into Linux?

[rewben]

@tkolarik, can you please list out the linux distros (including their versions) that you have tried but were unsuccessful?

a g75vw should have no problem running a linux liveusb session created using pendrivelinux.

i thought optimus was not enabled in th g75vw?!

[tkolarik]

This looks like it has something to do with the "bumbleBee Project", which aims at enabling Optimus support for processors. Somehow it knows this is a laptop that could run Optimus but doesn't know Asus had it disabled.

Tried an older version of Ubuntu 12.04 and got a: "lightdm process 6902 terminated status 1" error and no sucessful boot.

[tkolarik]

I've tried Debian 6.06, Linuxmint 14, both 64 and 32 - bit versions, was about to try slax. I think I was able to get the 32-bit to boot but there were some other problems. I Tried both pendrive and linuslive to create usb drives.

[rewben]

ok i used to use ubuntu 12.04, centos 5.9/6.3, debian 6.06, and linuxmint 14 64bit liveusb. i have a g55 though; had no problem with them :/

sorry but maybe someone with more linux desktop experience will tell you more about this.

[tkolarik]

I was able to get Debian 6.0.5 to boot but max screen resolution 1600 and couldn't install wireless device. Could try to enable persistence on the drive and try Ethernet. If that works maybe can get 1920 x 1080.

[dparish2]

Use this http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ to make a bootable flash drive. This worked for me with Fedora, also used this for Backtrack 4 - 5r3 and have not had a problem.

Also use Wubi.exe, that has always worked for me too.

[Zygomorphic]

I was able to get Debian 6.0.5 to boot but max screen resolution 1600 and couldn't install wireless device. Could try to enable persistence on the drive and try Ethernet. If that works maybe can get 1920 x 1080.

Max screen resolution of 1600 (?x1200?) is due to the wrong video driver being loaded. You need to install the proprietary nvidia drivers from the nvidia website into your installation and see if that helps. As I recall, Ubuntu ships with the nVidia drivers in the live usb. Oh, and I would recommend staying away from Ubuntu, with their phone-home software that they have added. Debian is good, according to @fostert, and I am partial to OpenSUSE myself. Both of these distros have live-usb builds, so you should be able to test them. OpenSUSE has done an excellent job of recognizing my GTX560M (ASUS G53SX) out of the box with the open-source nouveau driver. It also runs great with the nvidia driver.

[tkolarik]

I would but I can't get Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10 to boot.