Now the live cd boots into a screen that resembles the analysis screen from Windows defrag. Densly pack vertical colored lines.

THe cd seems to boot ok. I select try or install and the install starts and then dies or just stops on a text screen with lots of errors like the following.

initramfs
71.394273 buffer i/o error on device sr0, logical block 178897.

The laptop passes all of Dell's Diags.
Relatively new laptop (Studio 1535).

(I'm on the second optical drive) Of course it will boot and reinstall vista.
I am as much an Ubuntu newbie as one can be. Help! Thanks!

Hi,

You did check the md5sum for the iso image that you downloaded?

I would check the md5sum. If you downloaded the cd/dvd iso then be sure to check the md5sum for the original iso (get the md5sum file with the iso). From the cli;

If the iso md5 is ok then you should try 'CdromMd5sumsAfterBurning''.

This way you will know if the burn was OK!

This will check the download iso with the known md5sum that you also get with the iso.

These links and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

Hi, same here, in one drive it did this for more than 2 hours, in second, it got to the greeter after 30 minutes. I thik I should also mention that the last four versions do this(6.06 to present). I'd like some info about this too .

I verified the checksum. This is interesting. Vista does a clean reinstall without issue. XP blue screens while starting windows. (Prior to partitioning and formatting.) Ubuntu doesn't want to cooperate. Tried WUBI and after I select Ubuntu at the boot prompt. I get a grub prompt that I don't know what to do with. If I tell it to boot it says the kernel isn't loaded. IS there something evil afoot?

I got a boot cd to work by burning it on my mac using an app called burn. Not sure why this worked and the others didn't. I have many coasters.

Forget Fedora. It has way too many problems and a learning curve that looks like a flagpole. Dheck distrowatch.com for a descent distro.

Good luck, Michael