Noob:Mandrake 10.1 Hangs on 1st boot
 

I have had a search on the forums and couldnt find an answer to this. Sorry if I missed it and am repeating someone elses post.

I have just installed Mandrake 10.1 from the DVD ISO all seemed to go ok but when it tries to boot it gets to starting CUPS (Sorry can't be more specific as im at work now and can't remember exacly whats on screen).
It just sits there not doing anything. I have tried to unplug the printer in case its trying to communicate with it but that didnt seem to work.
I think I need to try to disable CUPS on boot, as Im not too bothered about printing yet. How can this be done? as I can't even get in to any form of 'command prompt' or window manager.

As I said I am a noob. I did have a go with Mandrake 10.0 about a year ago but gave up as couldn't get most of my hardware working for it to replace WinXP as my main OS. I am having another go mainly because I want to start doing some C development and know that Linux is the best development enviroment.
What distro would anyone suggest as being best for development? is Mandrake a good choice or should I try something else.


Thanks for your time

Martyn

Just after the boot screen, the message "Press 'I' for interactive startup" appears briefly. If you press I at this point (you have to be quick) you will be able to specify what you want to start (Y = yes, N = no, C= continue without asking again). When you get the system started, you can uninstall CUPS until you have sorted out what is wrong.

Regarding which is the best distro for a newbie, I recommend Mandriva. Ubuntu (or Kubuntu) is also worth a try, as is SUSE. If you still have hardware problems, post back here.