Sony PCG-9B5L

[eesh]

Hello

I'm trying to install Sparky Xfce 32 bit on an old Sony PCG-9B5L, which currently has Win XP.
Sparky loads from CD but keyboard, mouse and touchpad aren't working.
So I have the desktop with the cursor in the center of the screen with no way to move it.

Your help will be appreciated.

[paxmark1]

Ctl-Alt-F1 to get into a tty terminal.  sign in as root and investigate.  "journalctl -b -1" and the "systemctl status" are two ways to investigate. 

[eesh]

Thanks but keyboard isn't working.

[blaze]

Did keyboard, mouse and touchpad work during the live session for you? Is it possible that something is wrong with the download, or the iso burn?

[eesh]

Keyboard, mouse and touchpad are not working in live session.
They are working in Win XP.
The ISO is good - I used it to install Sparky in another old laptop.

[paxmark1]

Sorry for not reading intently and thinking shallowly - no keyboard, no tty1.

Have you tried going to a terminal - tty  via your grub screen, select the "Advanced Settings" line and then select the "Recovery" line and log in as root (or as a user and use sudo). 

 

[eesh]

grub screen has no "Advanced Settings", only:
SparkyLinux
SparkyLinux failsafe
Run memtest
Boot the first hard disk

[blaze]

When you are at the Grub screen, there is a line that says something like;

Code Select Expand

Press ENTER to boot or TAB to edit a menu entry

Does the TAB key work?

[eesh]

yes, TAB works.

[paxmark1]

well, did you try the Sparky Linux fail safe?  That is what you would want to go to. 

[eesh]

The keyboard, mouse and touchpad worked in fail safe mode.
However, the installer from CD to HDD froze in a number of attempts.
I guess this laptop is just too old...
Thank you for your help!

[paxmark1]

If you are not willing to track down the problem at the command line in your logs via journalctl and to investigate what is running well and what is not via systemctl; yes, you should move on to something else.

DigitalOcean has some excellent tutorials about systemd.

Lurking at freenode #xfce would have been good also.  The thing about freenode and xfce is that you would not have been shot down because you had a "Debian -variant" but possibly, even probably assisted.  Note, you would need to know how to pastebin as it is irc. They would have asked you for command line output which you could have provided via Ctl-Shift-C to cut text out of the terminal.  You would also need gpm installed. to cut.  If you wish to stick and learn . . .

[blaze]

Wise advice from paxmark1 eesh. I am sure that there are some Linux distro that will work on your laptop, it might take some work, time and Googleing. It depends on how much of it you want to invest in it.

[eesh]

Thank you paxmark1 and blaze.
The computer is for someone with very basic knowledge of computers and English.
Therefore, the chosen desktop environment was Xfce which in addition to being lightweight, is also easy to use and translated.
As the laptop was not in use for a long time it is possible there is some hardware failure.
All in all, not worth the time IMHO.

[paxmark1]

Well then a system based on Debian Testing is not the best fit.  If you go with Debian stable with either XFCE or LXDE you should get something good.  And for every person here there are hundreds on the Debian Forum and #debian. 

And in hopefully April, Debian Stable will have the XFCE that is is in Debian Testing and Sparky today.  Peace out.