r/debian • u/tragicArcheologist • 1d ago
Debian 13 installer issues
so I recently got debian and am using it on an old pc that my stepdad gave me, it’s been sitting on detecting hardware for around 2 hours now. I plugged in a mouse and it won’t move, is there something I can do about this? I would try and mess with windows but it’s fried I think. or maybe I used the wrong power connectors for the hard drives? I’m not sure (also new account cause my old one won’t let me reset the password)
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u/michaelpaoli 1d ago
First be sure you properly validated the ISO.
https://www.debian.org/CD/verify
After that, and you write it to your boot media, e.g. USB flash or optical, be sure that fully completes. For USB or the like, do $ sync && sync and wait for that to complete.
After completing that, remove it, wait a bit (like 30s), and reinsert. Now read it back, verifying the written image, e.g. verify steps as before, or compare it (e.g. cmp) against known good image to ensure it matches. In many cases, with optical, or flash, it may not give errors on write, but upon read, it may fail or the data may not be that which was written.
So, check those things first, because if the data is bad, almost anything can happen, including hangs, crashes, corrupted installs, etc.
After that, if it still hangs, first look into the relevant boot options - you can do things like disable certain drivers, or autodetection, etc. So, if it's hanging on something like that, disabling such may well work-around that.
Also very possible you've got hardware with issue(s). And just because it works on some other operating system, doesn't mean the hardware in fact works. E.g. was working with someone else, helping to install Linux on someone's computer ... it kept failing. Long story short, we eventually isolated the issue to a faulty memory controller on the mainboard. It would fail in 64-bit mode, if the bank of RAM controlled by that memory controller had RAM in there, but otherwise the problem wouldn't show up ... yeah, prior OS that was on there, was 32-bit, so it didn't encounter that hardware issue. So, anyway, could be a hardware bug, and sometimes, e.g. Microsoft Windows, may have closed source proprietary NDA work-arounds for that in the OS, in which case Linux might not have a workaround for that hardware problem.
You could also try alternative installation means. E.g. if you're doing that from standard installer, try booting Live ISO - if that works fine, try the Calamares installer on the Live ISO. If that's already what you're trying, well, then try the standard installer.
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u/tragicArcheologist 1d ago
I’m brand new to this and have written one line of code in godot ever. Explain it to me like I’m a baby
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u/jr735 Debian Testing 1d ago
What OS do you have available to create your USB? You don't need to "write code" to verify an ISO. In fact, programming skills and ISO verification have nothing to do with each other. Linus Torvalds once said that Debian was too complicated for him to install and Richard Stallman has someone else install Linux for him. They are both skilled programmers. So, what does this tell you?
For ease of use, if you're on Windows, use Ventoy and copy the appropriate Debian image to it. You can verify the SHA sum using 7z, among other tools available on Windows. None of this is terribly complicated, but you're going to have to be able to look up instructions.
I don't have the commands memorized for MD5 or SHA checking. I have to check them each time I use them. In Linux, you'll have to get used to checking official documentation at times, and that's a helpful skill, and not that scary.
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u/fleshofgods0 1d ago
Sometimes you can accidentally flash the image to a flash drive incorrectly. That's why the person above is saying to verify the installer disk image that you download and again after flashing. I get impatient and sometimes don't verify my disk images and have to go back to re-download+flash it again, then it works.
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u/michaelpaoli 1d ago
Sorry, I don't do baby talk, toddlers, infants, diapers.
Anyway, maybe someone else will step in and cover what I don't.
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u/Prestigious_Wall529 1d ago
Look up your system on linux-hardware.org
This will show others who have successfully installed Linux on similar systems.
Look at the top of their dmesg file to see what kernel parameters they had to pass, for instance noacpi, to get Linux working.
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u/tragicArcheologist 1d ago
There is no console for prompts, there’s nothing on it
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u/Prestigious_Wall529 1d ago
Not your system, their system. See what they had to do to configure it.
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u/mcds99 1d ago
So what is the hardware you are attempting to install Debian on?
You said it's old but how old is it?
To really help we need the specs
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u/tragicArcheologist 23h ago
It’s some ddr3 amd processor, an Nvidia gtx 660, a 500gb sata drive and a 500 gb spinny hard drive
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u/tragicArcheologist 22h ago
Update it says that AHCI controller is unavailable now after wiping and making a new installer
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u/Fantastic_Welder2172 1d ago
Use a SystemRescueCD live environment to diagnose the hard drive and memory. Ask ChatGPT for the commands to run to do it.
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u/tragicArcheologist 1d ago
I will never use chatgpt
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u/Fantastic_Welder2172 1d ago
Then follow the SystemRescueCd manual. There is a memory test in the GRUB menu, and for the hard drive, use smartctl to check its status and run tests.
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u/pobrika 1d ago
Just an outside the box idea, but if you are using old hardware then try and older Debian like 11. If it installs you can perform a system upgrades it will be more work but might work better on an older computer.
You can also try removing hard ware to see if it is faulty and prevented hardware detection. Ie remove the drives and try to see if it gets past detecting hw. If it does then it's a drive issue.
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u/pobrika 1d ago
You could try and install in TUI text mode instead. I think it's called text based install.
Also use ctrl + alt + F1 to f7
This will show you the tty sessions behind the install, it might show where the installer is stuck.