Hi everyone, I am new to this forum and Linux also. I have downloaded several distributions, Ubuntu, Debian, Mandrake 10.1 and 10.2 2005LE, College Linux, Slakeware. The only one that I can get to install is Ubuntu. The other ones all hang when they get to looking for the operating system on the cd. I am running a Pcchips motherboard with a AMI bios, a Samsung CDRW, a Western Digital 10 GB harddrive and a Floppy. I have tried to install them over Windows XP and also after wiping the drive.
Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks in advance.
Bob

What is the model name of this PCChips chipset? Anyone that is newer than 4-5 yrs should be recognized unless it is less than 3 months old (and even then...). Of course, kernel developers do have to drop support for ancient hardware sooner or later I suppose if it is very old.

The chipset is an SiS 730S, the bios is AMIBIOS build date 7-15-95. the numbers on the chip are 686 AMIBIOS 1999, AS16 3873
I have looked into a bios update but am affraid of killing my system, because it does work with Ubuntu. I wanted to be able to compare it to the other distro's.

This very strange. Do you get any type of error message when it hangs? If it doesn't hang with Ubuntu install, then it shouldn't hang on the others without a very specific reason.

With Mandrake 10.1 it says looking for Mandrake on cd in Samsung CDRW and gives the correct model of the drive then nothing happens. I watch it in the terminal mode and the blinking curser will stop and nothing happens. With Mandrake 10.2 it starts to load then I get the screen with the penguin and then nothing. I bought the Mandrake 10.1 from someone on EBAY when that did not work they then sent me 10.2 which also did not work, I also downloaded Mandrake and that does the same thing. With 10.1 when it does the autorun from within Windows it comes up with a menu with three choices on the left and three on the right. The three on the right are for registering and the Mandrake store and something else I can't remember at the moment, but they work when clicked on. The three on the left do not and one of them is the install button. I downloaded Debian and will give that a try tonight.

I must say I am at a loss. Have you tried doing the install on a different box (or even VMWare) to ensure that there's not a problem with the disks themselves?

No I don't have access to another box. I did give the Mandrake 10.1 to a friend to try. I have not heard from him recently. I doubt that all these disks are bad and hand at about the same part of the installation. All the disks were made the same way and on the same computer. What is VM ware?
Thanks again
Bob

You might try Mepis and chose the earlier Kernal. That computer is so old that you might be better off with something like Red Hat 8 or 9.

Well for now I have Ubuntu working quite well. I have downloaded Mepis and installed a second harddrive that I am going to try to get Mepis on. Going to look around this forum for some info on doing that. I do not want to wipe out the Ubuntu.
Thanks for the help.

Bob