Bill Gates..(or Dell?) Vs. Tux

Bwah? · March 2008

Basically I can't run Linux to save the world. I googled and found that my model (inspiron 1520) has some problems with Ubuntu7.04..so I even went so far as to get Ubuntu V6.10..Further info below.

System
Intel C2D t7100 1.8Ghz & 2gig shared ram
Dell Inspiron 1520 Vista Home Premium
Used InfraRecorder and IMGBURN to burn the iso images.
Used several different distro's for UBUNTU..last attempted to burn was from argon labs
Downloaded Fedora from the website

First off I tried running the burned image of "ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386" from a cd, when I select anything but boot from hard disk I'm given an error that I believe is "Boot Disc Error" Confusing to say the least considering I burned it correctly from several different sources and different programs.

I Then tried Fedora- in which cae i was given the error Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 356928.

When I googled the error above without the numbers- a large variety of results and causes came back. According to my research my cd/dvd drive IS working correctly.

Any help is appreciated- Thank you

Bama · March 2008

Sensationalist title much?

seasleepy · March 2008

First off, some nomenclature: a distro is different from a release version. Ubuntu and Fedora are examples of distros; 7.04 and 7.10 are examples of releases. A lot of distros have different numbering schemes for their releases -- for example, Ubuntu's release numbers correspond to (year).(month). Generally you will want to go for the most recent release, as going back in time just means that you're further and further out of date. In Ubuntu's case, the most recent release is 7.10. There will be a new Ubuntu release in about a month, which will be 8.04. There is a beta for 8.04 out now, but it is a beta, so it may not work for you.

Along the same lines, since Linux can change rather rapidly, you may be able to find more currently applicable information by including the release version along with the item you're searching for.

You should make sure that your CDs are downloaded/burned properly. There are two ways to do this:
-- Before you burn the CD, check that you have downloaded the ISO properly. You should be able to see the md5 sum for the ISO from wherever you downloaded it. You can download a program (like this, for example) to check that the sum for the file on your computer matches the sum on the website.
-- After you burn the CD, try to boot to the CD. There will normally be a listing on the menu along the lines of "Check install media."

If it passes one/both of those, then you should be ready to go.

This Ubuntu forum thread may give you some starting points for 7.10. It doesn't appear to work entirely out of the box (no sound, hibernate, compiz, etc), but you shouldn't be having as many problems as you are.

I do know that in the case of laptops, occasionally one distro will work much better than others, so feel free to keep looking beyond Ubuntu.

squirly · March 2008

1) Don't use stupid titles.
2) Use the support forums of the actual Linux distribution, there a millions times better, strangely enough.

Bwah? · March 2008

seasleepy wrote: »

First off, some nomenclature: a distro is different from a release version. Ubuntu and Fedora are examples of distros; 7.04 and 7.10 are examples of releases. A lot of distros have different numbering schemes for their releases -- for example, Ubuntu's release numbers correspond to (year).(month). Generally you will want to go for the most recent release, as going back in time just means that you're further and further out of date. In Ubuntu's case, the most recent release is 7.10. There will be a new Ubuntu release in about a month, which will be 8.04. There is a beta for 8.04 out now, but it is a beta, so it may not work for you.

Along the same lines, since Linux can change rather rapidly, you may be able to find more currently applicable information by including the release version along with the item you're searching for.

You should make sure that your CDs are downloaded/burned properly. There are two ways to do this:
-- Before you burn the CD, check that you have downloaded the ISO properly. You should be able to see the md5 sum for the ISO from wherever you downloaded it. You can download a program (like this, for example) to check that the sum for the file on your computer matches the sum on the website.
-- After you burn the CD, try to boot to the CD. There will normally be a listing on the menu along the lines of "Check install media."

If it passes one/both of those, then you should be ready to go.

This Ubuntu forum thread may give you some starting points for 7.10. It doesn't appear to work entirely out of the box (no sound, hibernate, compiz, etc), but you shouldn't be having as many problems as you are.

I do know that in the case of laptops, occasionally one distro will work much better than others, so feel free to keep looking beyond Ubuntu.

Thanks for the help-

No need to flame.. but thanks for "setting me straight".. For the record I made the exact same post on Ubuntu help forums and recieved 0 replies. So for now just waiting to bump.
As for burning correctly i've tried atleast 6 times with three different sources, and used two burning image programs. So I don't know where the problem is coming from.