Installation sticks on "Creating User"

I don't have all the information you requested, Swarfendor, but here's as much of it as I have:

1. Name (Brand) of Computer: Dell Dimension 4600 desktop

2. Amount of available Memory (RAM): 4 GB

3. Whether Zorin is the only OS on the computer: I elected to delete the entire drive and install Zorin 10 Core. The installation got as far as "Creating User" and hangs at that point. Because of this, I don't know if the deletion of the previous OS has been completed yet, or not. It was Windows XP Professional SP3.

4. Hard Drive partitioning: None other than what might have been done by Zorin's installation process before it hung up.

5. Graphics card make and model: (I'm not exactly certain if this is the info you need or not...) NVIDIA GeForce4 MX440 w/AGP8X

6. Wireless Dongle or PCI Card, or Wireless chipset: I'll have to look up how to find this info, but right now the PC is connected to the internet via ethernet cable.

7. Whether you ran Zorin Live first to check it worked before installing. I installed this same version, from the same USB flash drive, on a previous computer and it worked there.

8. Which version of Zorin you have installed/have in mind to install. Core 10


I tried installing this version before I upgraded the RAM to 4 GB (from 2 GB) and it hung up at this point in the first attempt, too, I've noticed that I can click on the arrow beside "Creating User" and it shows part of the progress of the installation, but I don't know how to capture it to make a copy. The only lines I could catch were:

Sep 19 20:57:04 zorin-os user - setup

Sep 19 20:57:04 zorin-os user - setup: Enter your mount passphrase [leave blank to generate one]

Sep 19 21:17:02 zorin-os CRON[21682]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron/hourly

Is there a way to copy what's showing in this window? Thank you for whatever help you can offer.

Now the last thing showing is: Timed out waiting for reply from 199.223.248.100:123 (2.debian.pool.ntp.org).
I wish I knew if the best thing to do was to force it closed or just let it sit all night until I hear back from someone or find the solution myself. I can click to Suspend or to Hibernate it. Would one of those be the best move until I know how to save this log?

Whilst modern Linux may allow use of capitals in username I still tend to avoid this, preferring all lower case. Other issues can occur if you allow the installer to create a computer name with dashes in it (which most distros I have tried tend to do. Replace with one continuous name with a mixture of text but no spaces. Also did you try to encrypt your /home folder? This should be done after installation.
You would have thought by now that Ubuntu (and its forks) would have removed this option at point of install by now and replaced with a launcher after install offering the option with a script. I personally avoid encryption because if the system goes AWOL for whatever reason your data is gone forever!

Wolfman wrote:Hi,

did you follow this advice when creating your Zorin bootable media?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4771

If you didn't, this could explain why it crashes at the point of "Creating User"?.

Hello again, Wolfman. Yes, I followed those guidelines. Luckily, I read your posts before I ever burned my first live disc and so now follow them every time.

My edit: I should have added that I formatted the USB drive to FAT32 prior to using Unetbootin to create the live ____ (whatever it's called) and since the file system of this computer is NTFS, was wondering if I should create a new .iso flash drive formatted to NTFS. Your instructions in the link you gave, though, say that FAT32 is what's needed and that was done.

What about you? Do you have any ideas regarding capturing and being able to use the information that shows up outlining the progress of the installation? The latest showing today, after being suspended last night, is:

Sep 20 16:17:01 zorin-os CRON[25139]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)

After that, there is a non-blinking cursor bar and it will let me enter a command there, but I have no idea what to enter.

Thanks again for your attention to this thread and for your help.

Swarfendor437 wrote:Whilst modern Linux may allow use of capitals in username I still tend to avoid this, preferring all lower case. Other issues can occur if you allow the installer to create a computer name with dashes in it (which most distros I have tried tend to do. Replace with one continuous name with a mixture of text but no spaces. Also did you try to encrypt your /home folder? This should be done after installation.
You would have thought by now that Ubuntu (and its forks) would have removed this option at point of install by now and replaced with a launcher after install offering the option with a script. I personally avoid encryption because if the system goes AWOL for whatever reason your data is gone forever!

Hi, Swarf! Thanks for your reply. The username I chose is all lower case and only one word, no dashes or strange characters. The computer name, on the other hand, is the one suggested by Zorin, which does contain dashes, but it's not hanging on the computer name.

I did click to encrypt the home folder when that option came up. I'm making notes now not to do that again in the future, at least not during the installation process. In fact, in the future I'm pretty sure I won't encrypt it at all, based on what you wrote. Makes sense to me.

I left the machine on last night, Suspended, until I could check this board today for advice. How should I shut it down, or does it matter? Should I just try a new install now?

Is the information I can see in the progress bar window of any help in understanding what's holding it up? And, is there a way to save or copy that log?

Thanks again for all your help; I'm so glad this forum exists. I really love Zorin and even though I've run into roadblocks 3/5 of the time, I am determined to make it work. This is now the fifth computer I've put it on. (I seem to have more problems with Dell computers than the others and I'm wondering if the proprietary nature of the Dell systems causes part of this.)

Wolfman wrote:Hi,

if you have a problem with shutting down, try using the terminal command (Ctrl + Alt + t) Terminal! That's what this is called. When I click the little arrow beside the "Creating User" title over the progress bar (the bar is just under 1/4 of the way to the end at this point), it shows me about four lines of the terminal (black background with white font, the way DOS used to look, right?) and also shows what has happened in the installation process. When I tried Ctrl+Alt+t, this appeared in the window: ^[^T
I typed in SELECT ALL and hit Enter, it moved to the next line. I typed in sudo poweroff and hit Enter; nothing happened.

Code:

sudo poweroff

I noticed in the draft version of this reply to you that "SELECT ALL" is not showing, so I'm guessing those are instructions for copying the command sudo poweroff? I tried it again, by Ctrl+Alt+t then Enter. Next I just typed in sudo poweroff again and hit Enter. Again, nothing happened.

If push comes to shove, hold the power button in until the PC shuts down (soft power off). That's what I've been calling a forced off or forced shut down. I'm glad to hear it's considered a soft power off.

Check that your disk boots okay and don't select encryption as that has indeed lead to problems with Ubuntu systems in the past!..
In this instance, are you suggesting I should just abort this installation and try again from scratch. It will be my third attempt on this machine and this time, I will definitely NOT select encryption. However, it hung up at this same point in the other two times, the first without selecting encryption and the second with selecting it.

What is your partition layout like?, please post a pic using Gparted to show us what your partitions look like!.

I'm already in over my head, but I can usually figure these things out eventually. I know nothing about Gparted, but I can look it up and watch and read tutorials to learn how. As soon as I've done that, I'll run it, take the screenshot, and get back to you. As is, during the early stage of this installation/setup, I selected to have Zorin installed and the previous partitions deleted. Since it continued for a while after that, I assume those other partitions are already deleted?

I greatly appreciate your help and will set to work on all you have suggested right now.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I have the Zorin aqua-blue splash screen in the background, behind the "Install (as superuser)" box and in the top right, I have five icons.... right to left:
Power button, volume adjustment, English symbol, Connection icon, and the one for High Contrast/Screen Reader/Keyboard Modifiers/and On-screen Keyboard.

I can drag the Installation box around and can open the tiny bit of the terminal, can also "arrow" back and forth between all the intro screens.

I'm never going to understand this stuff, LOL. I tried exactly the same things a third time. Exact same live .iso USB and THIS time, it sailed right through the "Creating User" section. Weird.

Okay, so it's on; the installation is complete.

My edit: Boy, did I speak too soon! At the final point in installation where you need to restart your machine to complete the installation, it flickered a few times, showed the Dell splash screen, then... booted into WindowsXP, which I thought was deleted during the Zorin installation process. Now I am completely flummoxed, however that's spelled.

I have found when having weird issues during install "dd" seems to make all my issues go away.

WARNING: I HAVE BEEN TOLD THIS CAN RENDER A DRIVE UNUSABLE (never had it happen to me though)
boot in the live disk
format the HDD using the following

Code:

drive=sda;
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/$drive bs=$( blockdev --getbsz /dev/$drive );


This will completely remove everything on the HDD before beginning install (including your windows XP), Then I would try doing the install from the USB again.

Update: Hi. I had to completely abandon this project and go out of town two days after I last posted. As soon as I got back, I had to turn right around and go out of town again. Total of both trips equaled six months. When I got back, I had shoulder surgery which rendered me unable to type or do anything further until just recently. I'll be picking up where I left off sometime within the next couple of weeks, after I review all my notes. My friend has been using the loaner (Dell Opti-Plex GX280 with the 80 GB hard drive and 512 MB RAM) all this time and has had no problems with it. LOL. Amazing what Zorin can do with the barest of resources!

I am on the forums again with a new issue, but I'll create a new thread for that. I'll be back posting in this one shortly.

I also want to thank you both yet again for all your help on this board.