[ALUG] Re: Installation conundrum

[cl at isbd.net]

On Sat, Dec 23, 2006 at 10:52:15PM +0000, Ian bell wrote:
> cl at isbd.net wrote:
> >I'm having trouble installing *any* Linux on a system here.
> >
> >Well, not quite any Linux but I want something that's "easy to use"
> >for a non-techie user.
> >
> >I have lots of distributions on CD and have tried several.
> >
> >    All the various Ubuntu 6.06 distributions simply hang during the
> >    package install part.
> >
> >    Mandriva 2006 panics while copying packages from CD to disk.
> >
> >    Strangely enough Mandrake 8.0 installs OK and so does Slackware
> >    11.
> >
> >So what should I do?  Slackware isn't exactly you "new to Linux"
> >distribution (though it's what I use).  What else can I try that will
> >be reasonably easy for a new user?
> >
> 
> Sounds like a hardware issue. Set the bios settings to defaults and 
> try again. Is is a fairly new MB? I have helped a friend recently who 
> had Ubuntu which was problematic with a SATA drive. There are various 
> options for Ubuntu that turn of certian hardware detection during 
> install - it is worth checking these out as they can often help. 
> Ubuntu, once it is going is a reasonably good beginners Linux.
> 
No, it's not new, it's a couple of years old, an Athlon 1600+
processor with 256k of RAM.

However I now seem to have got Ubuntu to go much further than it did
before simply by making the CD a slave on the same interface as the
Hard Disk instead of being master on the second interface.  However it
now seems to have stopped again while "Scanning the mirror" during
"Configuring apt", that sounds to me like it's trying to talk to the
outside world, it should be able to but I might have pulled the
relevant wire out of the router.

-- 
Chris Green (chris at halon.org.uk)