Install problem: Dell Inspiron 3500, RESOLVED

[John Green]

I found a workaround:

Boot with expert mode. Step through, but BEFORE "Detect and mount 
CD-ROM", switch to console with Alt-F2, and enter these two commands:
umount /cdrom
mount /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /cdrom
Switch back with Alt-F1, and continue installation.

I'll post more details here:
   http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=60913

HTH  :)
John


John Green wrote:
> I've learned a little bit:
> 
> Alt-F4 shows the install log (I didn't know that), and the problem is 
> with /cdrom/dists/stable/*
> 
> If I switch to a console session with Alt-F3, and then look at 
> /cdrom/dists, there are the following zero-length files: local, stable, 
> testing, and unstable. Those should all be sym-links to dists/warty.
> 
> If I view the CD from Windows, of course it looks the same (no 
> symlinks), but if I mount the CD from a Linux machine, then those files 
> are symlinks, as they should be.
> 
> This caused me some confusion when I was checking the MD5SUM for the CD 
> under windows - there were 18 files reported missing because Windows 
> didn't follow any symlinks. It would be nice to warn users about this, 
> somewhere obvious on the disk. When I checked the MD5SUM by mounting the 
> CD from the machine booted with Linux, all symlinks were there and all 
> MD5SUM checked out OK.
> 
> I'm searching the forums with better keywords now, and seeing that 
> others had trouble with the same thing on Dell Inspiron laptops. I 
> haven't found a resolution yet.
> 
> Regards,
> John
> 
> 
> 
> John Green wrote:
> 
>> [Duplicate of: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=60913]
>>
>> Summary:
>> Are there any special boot arguments (or module parameters) required 
>> to install on Dell Inspiron 3500 Laptop?
>>
>> Gory details:
>>
>> I checked the ISO image MD5SUM, and I also tested the CD against 
>> md5sum.txt on the same machine where I'm trying to install Ubuntu. 
>> (Machine currently has FC3 installed.) All files on the CD MD5SUM 
>> check out OK - the CD and CD drive are fine.
>>
>> I can run Ubuntu live, it only requires the boot argument "nodma".
>>
>> I have also tried: nodma noscsi noapic nolapic aic7xxx=no_reset
>>
>> - Select language, location, keyboard OK
>> - Detect and mount CD-ROM OK
>> - Unable to load some modules: agpgart, 3c59x, ide-mod, ide-probe-mod, 
>> ide-detect, ide-floppy
>> - I tried PCMCIA parameter: exclude port 0x800-0x8ff
>> - Detect and mount CD-ROM: hdparm to tune CD-ROM drive parameters (I 
>> leave blank - I wonder if I need something here?)
>> - Scanning CD-ROM - successful
>> - "Load installer components from CD": There were problems reading 
>> data from the CDROM.
>>
>> If I try to "Check the CD-ROM integrity", it doesn't even touch the CD 
>> before coming back with a report that the disk is not valid.
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> John
>>
>>
>