I just dug out an old machine, pentium III, 600mhz, nvdia riva TNT video card, some sound card, and windows 2000. I formatted hd with Collegelinux boot disk. Tried to install, gave it a 2g swap. It starts fine, and then errors show up. I can choose abort, retry, and continue, so i retry and it doesnt work. So i just continue. Eventually it gets stuck in some error message. Doesnt move. Do i just wait forever?
Anyways next i tried Mandriva linux and it says:

<0>Kernel panic - not syncing:Fatal exception in interrupt

What to do?

Need more details: Size and type of hard drive and size of ALL the partitions. Also, are you trying to make it dual boot with Windows or linux only?

Finally, give details on what errors you get AND where in the installation process they occur.

Have you tried any of the Linux live CDs such as knoppix?

Preparing to install Linux:
# Choosing a Linux Distribution:
Will your hardware work?
Do you have good RAM? Memtest86 - A Stand-alone Memory Diagnostic
A Beginner's Guide to Choosing a Linux Distribution
Reasons to Choose or Not Choose Linux
LWN distro list
elinux Linux Distributions
# Freeware tools for partitioning/resizing hard drive partitions:
Any Linux Live CD usually have fdisk, cfdisk and other tools available
Ranish Partition Manager
# Understanding Linux Filesystem layout:
Directory Navigation Help File
Filesystems, Directories, and Devices Help File
Proper Filesystem Layout
Advanced filesystem implementor's guide (requires registration)

Do I buy a boxed source, download off the internet or buy some cheap CDs?
It's your choice! If you download, I suggest that you check the md5sums on the Linux ISO Images and make sure you know how to burn ISOs in Windows to install Linux
# Cheap CDs
Discount Linux CDs
Linux Central
Cheapbytes
TuxCDs
ComputerHelperGuy
CheapISO
Os Heaven

Okay here are some more details:
10gb hard drive, not sure what type i dont understand.
Im trying to install CollegeLinux by itself not dualboot. As for the errors in collegelinux,they occur when it attemps to install something like gimp. First it will be stuck on installing "*" then, it will say "error installing * press a to abort, r to retry, c to continue" thats pretty much it, and it does that for mostly everything it tries to install.

In Mandriva Linux the error is:
<0>Kernel panic - not syncing:Fatal exception in interrupt

Did the md5sum check indicate a good download?

Does your ram pass memtest86?

why are you trying to install college linux? the distribution is discontinued as far as i know. It's based on slackware or vector, so why not just install slack and have a up to date distro?

What's your partitioning scheme? Is there enough room in the appropriate partitions to actually install the packages?
I have no experience with collegelinux, so this might seem like a dumb question, but if it is ported to multiple chip architectures, did you get the correct one?

This may explain why I could not get the website to load!

Well, for the ram, as I said the computer was running windows 2000 before i formatted it. Windows was working just fine until then. Still, i will check my ram with memtest....

Though Mandriva has built in memtest86 v1.60 I will try that out.

I cant download another Linux, because I am out of blank disks! for now...

I tested with memtest and, yes, the ram passed the test. So if its not the ram chip's problem, what could it be? I am going to try some more Linux distributions and see what happens with them. One of them has to work!

In the BIOS, Boot Virus detection is Disabled, but there is an entry known as:

Security option: system
The second choice instead of "system" would be "setup"
I do not want to change anything yet, and would like to know what that mysterious entry is.

Windows sometimes will run with faulty ram (Windows hides error messages, so you can't tell if it is ram trouble or a buggy OS) whereas Linux needs good ram.

Did you run md5sum on your downloaded file to make sure you got a good download?

Did you do the media check that most distros offer on the start of the install?

Bad downloads/media can cause that trouble.

yes, I ran md5sum and it passed ok. My download is good.