Help with Switching from Windows

[elmo]

Jason Crain wrote:
> Matthew Bartek wrote:
>   
>> Hello and good afternoon.
>>  
>> I apologize if this question is very basic and is getting sent to many 
>> people as I am new to Ubuntu and to this listserv. I am trying to 
>> switch from Windows (read: liberate myself) and I ahve downloaded the 
>> iso file, verified it using md5sum (spelling?), and have tried to 
>> create a bootable cd, but it hasn't worked. While this problem could 
>> be with my computer (the computer that I want to load Ubuntu onto is 
>> basically broken--I tried to reset the boot order, but it said 
>> "operating system not found" unless I allowed it to boot from the hard 
>> disk), I am wondering how to check to see if the cd that I created 
>> from teh iso file will actually work. I actually made two: one using 
>> the windows XP cd burning system, and one using Nero. For the windows 
>> disc, I dragged the file into my CD drive and then clicked on: "burn 
>> disc". For Nero (I have version 7), I followed these instructions: 
>> http://www.bay-wolf.com/burnimage.htm
>>  
>> Still, when my put the cd in my computer and try to boot from it, it 
>> fails. Any thoughts?
>>  
>> Any help is appreciated.
>>  
>> Thanks.
>>  
>> Matt
>>     
> While windows is running, what do you see on the disc?  You should see 
> several files, and it may autorun a "Welcome to Ubuntu" program.
>
>   
I'll bet that you tried to burn the iso file directly to a disk by 
simply copying it.  It won't work because the iso
is a compressed version of the image and this requires a special burning 
program that's available in Nero,  Look for something like "Burn image 
to disk" in Nero.  This performs an extraction and installation in one 
operation.
Iso is a single file and extraction converts this to the multiple files 
that make up the image. This is the disk
that you use,

elmo