Installing Zorin for the first time --> BusyBox issue

Hi, first of all sorry if this issue was already solved. I was searching for it here but I didn't find any clue.

After several years of inactivity, I wanted to revive my old laptop a Toshiba Satellite SA60-111 (Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4, 2.80 GHz + 512 MB RAM) and searching for a suitable operating systems I found Zorin as a very good candidate taking into account the computer specs.

My problem comes when I try to install the Lite versions via CD (my computer doesn't support USB booting). Once I select any of the installation options from the menu, it loads BusyBox environment all the time. I tried the CD with another computer and the installation process works fine. Can you help me please?

Thank you in advance.

Hi, Toshiba has never been very Linux friendly. That said, even if you did get Zorin Lite installed it would struggle with the amount of RAM you have installed - trust me I've tried it on an old D600 Latitude and it ran like a 3-legged dog. I would advise that you give either Antix Linux a try or even better, MX Linux.

Antix iso: https://sourceforge.net/projects/antix- ... o/download

More information: https://antixlinux.com/

MX Linux: https://mxlinux.org/

MX Linux iso: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-lin ... o/download

Don't be put off by the menu being on the left in MX Linux - the beauty of this distro is that you can arrange things how you want and then at install it asks if you want to keep the live settings for the installation - superb! - so move panel down to bottom then move the menu icon which will end up being on far right to left and move the system icons from left to far right and you are sorted. Change the wallpaper in live mode then click on install and if you already pre-configured partitions from a different distribution you can select the ones you want to overwrite. Brilliant!

The notorious BusyBox error...
You may try using the command

Code:

fsck /dev/sdb1/ -y

in the terminal window displaying the error. Type that in, then press enter, follow any prompts.

Hi Aravisian,

I think even if he was able to circumvent the busybox error he is going to really struggle on 512 Mb RAM - speaking from experience!

Swarfendor437 wrote:Hi Aravisian,

I think even if he was able to circumvent the busybox error he is going to really struggle on 512 Mb RAM - speaking from experience!

This is true...

Aravisian wrote:The notorious BusyBox error...
You may try using the command

Code:

fsck /dev/sdb1/ -y

in the terminal window displaying the error. Type that in, then press enter, follow any prompts.

Thank you all for the responses.

Aravisian, when BusyBox starts there is no error, it loads correctly showing "(initramfs)" and waiting for a command. Typing "help" it shows a list of allowed commands and fcsk is not on the list. What's wrong?

Related to the amount of RAM, thank you for your advices, anyway I would like to try Zorian and see how it looks at least once.

Franken wrote:Aravisian, when BusyBox starts there is no error, it loads correctly showing "(initramfs)" and waiting for a command. Typing "help" it shows a list of allowed commands and fcsk is not on the list. What's wrong?

At that screen, the filesystem should not yet be mounted.
However, you may prefer to use the Recovery Mode, instead. You can boot into recovery mode by booting the computer while holding down the Left Shift Key.
https://lintut.com/fsck-command-in-linu ... le-system/
Scroll down to "Repair Root File System" - on my screen, it is halfway down the page. From there, please follow the instructions.
The other option would be from LiveCD, though using LiveCD would also allow you to Preview and see the OS in action (beware that the USB port is the bottleneck and it would run Very Slowly, especially with low RAM.)

It doesn't work, BusyBox is loaded again (Shift key works fine). I installed Linux Mint before Zorian and no problem, obviously it was too much for the computer. That's why I chose Zorian, according to the Lite version specs. I don't understand why is not possible with this installation ISO... I think is time to explore other options. Thank you for your help.

One thing I forgot to check with you is did you verify the md5sum/sha hash of the downloaded .iso before creation of the installation media?

The ISO is fine, I successfully loaded Zorin in another laptop with the same DVD. It looks good! Too bad, I really wanted to recover the Toshiba with Zorin even knowing more RAM would be recommended. Somehow there is certain issue during booting with this computer.