Running an old HP Pavilion ze5170 with 2.0Ghz, 512MB RAM, and 60GB HD with Windows Vista Business. Sound painfully slow for Vista? It is. I've been on Mac for a couple years so I'm a little behind on PCs but I just have to get Linux running before I throw this computer out the window.

Trying to install Ubuntu 8.10 via LiveCD. Downloaded the ISO, ran md5sum, burned off a CD nice and slow at 4x. When I boot from the CD, I get the Ubuntu install menu . Pick a language, all good. I can move around the menu just fine but when I select something from the main menu such as 'Install Ubuntu' or even just try to check the CD for errors everything hangs up. There are no visible changes but the CD drive is working hard and I can't navigate the menu anymore. No error messages or anything. This has happened five or six times. I have left it alone for as long as two hours at a time with no change. I have also tried burning a second CD and that didn't work any better. Considered the alternate install but I lost my flash drive. I'm traveling in South America right now so I don't have a lot of options as far as using other CD burners, testing my CDs on other computers, or anything like that.

So where am I going wrong? Obviously I'm new to Linux so please explain any technical answers fully. Thanks in advance.

When you boot the disc you should see some other options for booting up, such as no acpi, no apic. I believe they are available by hitting the F1-F6 keys on Ubuntu boot discs.

Use one of these methods to get her up and running.

Thanks, that did the trick. I appreciate the help.