After two days of fighting with Ubuntu, I got it to install on one problematic machine, but with no boot loader. This is the message I got during install:
"You will need to boot manually with the /vmlinuz kernel on partition /dev/hda1 and root=/dev/hda1 passed as a kernel argument"

When I booted up I got to a prompt that asked for a user name. I gave root and got a prompt with no password. What must I do now to get grub installed and to have a gui? The install disk does nto have an option to just reinstall grub, and after the fight that I had to install it, I'd rather not take the risk of reinstalling it. (yes, I know that Ubuntu is supposed to be an easy install and it was on every _other_ machine that I'd installed on.)

Thanks in advance.

Try to install grub with Ubuntu's packaging tool (apt?).
When successfully installed you can set up /boot/grub/grub.conf for your needs, and then run grub-install to install grub in mbr.

Hope that helps.

Tuens out that X was toast, too, so I'm trying to reinstall. The install keeps locking up, though. I also tried Fedora Core 5 and it too keeps locking up during the install. FC3 and 4 and Kubuntu 5.10 all installed fine. I suspect a hardware problem, but memtest86+ ran all night and found nothing. I also tried witha different harddrive, and also with a different power supply. I don't know how to test the m/b or the processor, but I have Hiron's Boot Disk if that could help diagnose the problem.

dooey5 I sympathize with you, but you need to start your own new thread. If you're not happy with Ubuntu, then try Mepis.