I recently installed Ubuntu Edgy server on an Compaq Presario 7478, after installation, grub loads and says 'Starting up...' in the upper left hand corner as it should. But, it never makes it past this point. It then reboots.

Here are some specs on the machine:

- 533 MHz AMD K6®-2 processor
- 256 MB RAM
- 10 GB hard drive
- 512KB L2 Pipeline Burst Cache
- 3.5" 1.44 MB diskette drive
- Netgear gigabit Internet adapter GA311

I ran Memtest86+, some of the numbers had me concerned:
L2 Cache: Unknown
Memory: 248M

Shouldn't that be:
L2 Cache: 512KB
Memory: 256MB

booting from CD and booting Memtest86+ works

I just bought the hard drive (works great), and the Internet adapter worked wonderful in my other computer.

Any questions or comments is greatly appreciated.

I just had a recent expierience similar to yours were RAM was the culprit. I could get the alternate install going, but it almost always crached when configuring debconf or the kernel. Can you swap your memory with another machine to see if that's the problem? Another very basic problem is that the CD or the ISO you burned it from has errors.

I did check the CD for defects before installing, but the RAM just might be...

Let me shutdown this computer to "barrow" it's RAM.

Thx for the replay.

I tried four different sticks. Three PC133 256MB and the one that came with it PC100 64MB. Nothing changed with the original or one of the PC133s. But the other two were very interesting...

What does it mean when teal, brown and purple squares move diagonally across the screen? lol

I'll try installing ubuntu desktop or dsl; see if they work.

If anyone has any other suggestions though I would like to hear them.
Or if I'm doing something wrong with the ram. lol

Hi

I was having problems with the same AMD K6-2 Processors. It turns out to be due to the pre 686 processors. Apparently looking at other forums the fix is to boot off the CD and use the command apt-get install linux-image-386.

Philip