Trouble installing 7.10

[D. R. Evans]

Bruce Bales said the following at 11/19/2007 01:48 PM :

> 
> I tried the CD in a newer machine and it booted and played just right.  
> 
> The Dapper CD works just fine in the problem machine.
> 

Neither of these causes me to alter my suggestion :-) The "alternative" CD
will work on machines that the ordinary CD won't. And there have been
enough changes between dapper and gutsy that I don't think one can read
anything into the fact that the dapper CD worked.

> Can't see anything in the bios.  Floppy is first load device, CD is 
> second.  And the CD does load -- at least partially.
> 
> The complete series of results is
> 
> First, the Kubuntu logo and a list of "Install, Run, Check CD, etc."  
> I pick one and get a message that shows for one second that 
> contains " ... acpi fails ...."

I can't say I've ever seen anything quite like that.

So you're saying that you get this even if you choose "Run" or "Check CD"?

That seems like it can only mean that the OS on the CD can't access the CD
drive properly. Which makes me even more suspicious that you should try the
alternative CD and probably try messing with the boot options.


> next I see:
> busybox v1.1.3 (Debian 1:1.1.3-5ubuntu7) Built-in shell (ash)
> Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
> 

Yes. Been there :-) The busybox stuff is useful if you get boot failures
once the system is installed; but in your case, since it's happening off
the OS CD, I don't think it's a useful place to leave you :-(

> 
>   The file `sbm.bin' that is available in this directory may be useful
>   to you if you are not able to directly boot the first CD because 
> your BIOS may be too old and may not support ISOLINUX.

Unlikely, since dapper works. In fact, so unlikely that personally I
wouldn't even think about spending the time on this (although of course you
might think differently). I am close-to-certain that you'd just end up in
the same place you are now.

> 
> COMMENT:
> I have been using Linux for eight years; exclusively for six or seven 
> years.  I have installed various versions and distributions perhaps 
> 30 times.  I greatly appreciate what the developers have provided me.  
> There have been great improvements in these years.  Kubuntu is by far 
> the best.  Would I give this CD to a typical Windows user and let him 
> install it?  Hardly.

My comment:

Yep. I agree that Kubuntu is the best to use. But *in my experience*
installation and upgrading is still too likely to fail. I too would not
hand a Kubuntu CD to a novice. A Mandriva 2008 CD, maybe. The end result
isn't as good as Kubuntu (and -- again in my experience -- the support
plain sucks in comparison to Kubuntu), but they could probably install it OK.

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