I'm planning to install Ubuntu 8.10 on a currently buggy desktop (homemade, currently running XP Pro, not sure if I will partition). I chose Ubuntu because it's said to be a little more user friendly, but I've read about people having problems connecting to AT&T Uverse with Ubuntu.

I'm currently set to wpa2 (no mac addressing, because enabling it blocked my laptop). I want to make sure that Ubuntu 8.10 is compatible with AT&T Uverse before I install.

Please note that I'm totally new to Linux and am a little slow when it comes to programs and configurations. If anyone willing to help could put it all in layman's terms that would be great!

[solution] http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...u-wifi-716973/

Ubuntu will run in livecd mode i.e. directly from the cd without touching the hard drive. That's one way of testing if it will work with your hardware/configuration.

Thanks for the reply, Nexus. I was told this in another thread, and tried it, but no luck.

The BIOS configurations look fine (as far as I can tell, but I'm no pro), and I was told to press F12 to run the live CD. It came up the first time, and then I got a pop-up telling me that there was a boot error and to reboot. I pressed OK, the system rebooted, and now the CD won't even spin when I press F12. The green light flashes as I press the button, but that's the extent of it. Windows, though delayed, still comes up. Once I got the black screen asking if I wanted to start Windows in safe mode, the other 50 times Windows decided for itself.

I tried to run Ubuntu on my laptop and it came up on it's own (HP, Vista). However, Windows kicked in asking if I wanted to start normally, etc.

So, I can't even check Uverse on my own till I solve this matter. However, when I ran Knoppix on my laptop, I couldn't connect to the internet. More than likely, I'll still need a little help with internet connection config.

Where did you get the CD? If you downloaded Ubuntu and burned it yourself, did you verify the MD5 checksum?

If your BIOS is set to boot from CD first, all you need to do is place the CD in the drive, reboot your PC, then select "Try Ubuntu without any changes to your computer".

You can test all of your hardware from there.

BTW: I, too, can't get Knoppix to connect, but I'm still playing with it. I had no problems with Ubuntu or DSL.

Hope this helps.

Another tip is to burn your cd at the slowest possible speed to avoid corruption.

I burned it myself and verified by checking the box to verify in the program (if that's what you mean).

I've checked BIOS already, but it still won't boot from CD. (I had a problem getting into safe mode with this computer before. So I do wonder if it could be something infecting my boot sector.)

As for the internet connection, that's good to know. However, I switched from At&T DSL to AT&T Uverse which is digital. I have no clue if that's still technically DSL or not, as the entire house (phone, TV, internet) runs off a central modem. Some devices wirelessly, and others by ethernet.

I just burned a Ubuntu at a slower rate (2x) and it didn't work either.

I tried simply inserting the CD, and then when that didn't work I tried with F12. With F12, after a lot of pressing, text mentioning Linux showed, and then the system automatically rebooted.

I repeated this process over and over again to no avail.

None of what has happened makes any sense. It would be helpful if you could post exact messages/texts that you see. If you need to press a function key in order to boot from cd, your bios is not set to automatically boot from cd. Look for a section in your bios to do with the boot order and set the cdrom/dvd drive as the first boot device.

Yes, I know. It makes absolutely no sense. However, I checked BIOS as soon as it wouldn't boot from CD the first time. In BIOS, it does say that it is set to boot from my CDROM drive first, and I only have one installed on this computer.

Are there any other settings in BIOS, something I may have over looked that would control this? As I said above, my system wouldn't even let me go into safe mode a while ago, and so I was wondering if there was something wrong with the boot sector. I don't know enough about computers to have any clue what this could be.

I checked it a second time, but I will triple check, and report back with specifics.

FWIW: If I recall correctly, F12 is for the Windows XP boot menu. That's exactly what you don't want. (Windows is not Linux-friendly.)

The condition of your boot sector on your hard drive has no impact on booting from cd. Do you have any other make(s) of blank cd's? It could be your drive doesn't like certain types of media. Also check for fingerprints on the underside of the disc and clean if required.

Sorry, but I overlooked this line earlier. The program may only be verifying that the burned copy is identical to the downloaded version. That is not what you want. You need to burn a CD Image.

Put the CD in the drive and look at the contents. If you see a single .ISO file, the CD was not created properly. You do not have a boot CD.

I believe I do have a boot CD. I just ran the slow 2X burned copy on my laptop. I couldn't figure out how to connect to the internet while running it (I'm not sure about the configurations for that), but I did get it to run on my laptop.

Incidentally, when I ran the slow version this time on my laptop, I noticed I chose the wrong option before (when I ran the original Ubuntu CD I burned on the laptop), and selected boot from harddisk. So, apparently, both versions of Ubuntu ran on my laptop.

However, when I restarted my laptop I was prompted to make startup repairs or start in normal mode. (I didn't like that very much.) So, both CDs do work.

I did burn image to CD. Never understood what that meant, but I was able to figure it out on the laptop in order to burn Knoppix, which worked on the laptop as well.


So, apparently, the problem is with the desktop and not with the CDs. I tried Ubuntu burned at both 2X and 8X, both worked on my laptop, neither worked on the desktop... not even knoppix.

**Edited to Add**

As for F12, ironically, the one and only time that Ubuntu came up temporarily was the first time I pressed F12. However, when I selected "Check CD for Defects" I got an error message stating there was a boot problem and it needed to reboot. I selected "OK", the system rebooted to Windows.

Other times when I pressed F12, I got to the black screen with the cursor, just after the first boot screen mentioning Pentium 4 and "press del to run setup". It said Isolinux 3.62, etc., stayed there for awhile, but Ubuntu never loaded again. But that's only when I pressed F12.

Without pressing F12, it just stays on the black screen with the cursor, no "Isolinux" is displayed. After awhile, Windows loads.

The other CDs and DVDs I had were apparently damaged. I tried to burn on both yesterday (from my laptop), but all burn attempts failed. So, yesterday, I bought a little 3-pak of Maxwell DVD-R discs and everything burned without any problems.

I think it's worth noting that I've never had any problems with my DVDRW not accepting certain types of DVD or CDs to burn or play. Freshly burned, right out the wrapper, no prints, scratches, dings, or scuffs.

**EDITED TO ADD**

So, then there's no likelihood of a virus affecting or a bad modification to the boot sector causing this problem?

I let the CD run again, after triple checking BIOS, not pressing F12, and it didn't work.

It took longer to boot than normal.

- First was the screen mentioning Pentium 4 which says press del to run setup.

- Next, black screen with cursor, on which the computer stayed for a long time.

- Then I got the windows boot screen.

- Then the light blue screen: "Checking file system of C:" "One of your disks needs to be checked for consistency." Then a number of files were truncated, Ad-Ware program files among them.

- Lastly, the login screen.

I believe I may have to google BIOS configs or something. All of this just reminded me that I had this very same problem before when I was trying to do a clean install of XP Pro. I went back into BIOS and say the "Force BIOS" setting instead of "Keep Current". That's when I remember my cousin having me play with BIOS in order to get the XP Pro CD to boot. Does this sound like I need a new hard drive? Something is definitely screwy with this desktop.

On a more positive note, my internet started right up when I connected my laptop while running the Ubuntu live cd. That eased my main concern, but I still can't figure out how to connect via wifi. I've looked at a couple of articles regarding Ubuntu and WPA2, but none of it made any sense to me. The second was full of command lines which I'm afraid to use just yet on this laptop, as I don't want to break anything.

Thanks again to all the people who took the time to help me out!