hmm, there is the option of getting on the old laptop, and using that to view these install guides, save me ablack ink cartrige, 200 sheets of paper, and time.

ALT+F1, ALT+F2, ALT+F3........links and nano are all you need.....

?? explain?

What he probably means is that you can read documentation in one console using nano (text editor) or links (console HTML browser) while you're installing in another console. Alt-F1 etc switch between consoles.
So yeah, you don't absolutely have to have a printout if you're gluton for punishment or just don't have a printer. What I should've probably said is, "don't even think of installing Gentoo without having some means of reading instructions as you go along"... OK now, is everyone happy?

Not yet....haven't tried Source Mage or LFS yet. LOL

But seriuosly, yes, that's what I meant. Contrary to what people think, Gentoo holds your hand all the way and walks itself onto your hard drive. All you have to to is pay attention. I installed (twice) by reading the docs in terminal 1, while I use terminal 2 to install it, and terminal 3 to check on file locations and a man page if required. The documentation is very good, but Gentoo's not the only way to go. If you want a lot of available packages and good hardware support, use any of the biggies. If you can get Mandrake installed, there are a few thoughtful tools that help you administer your system without having to get a degree first (of course you can still pop the hood and mess around all you want). And, hey, it installs in about 1/2 hour instead of a weekend.

ahh, well I downloaded the 7 disks of debian, is that a hard install?

Hmm... Debian probably isn't what you want - not only is it pretty hard to install, but more importantly, by default it is so out of date you have little chance of booting your system. You want something as recent as possible, preferably with kernel 2.6... and Debian stable still uses 2.2! (yes I know it can be upgraded, but it needs to install first).
But I had another idea you could try: Yoper! (www.yoper.com) Three reasons: one, it is very recent - their version 2 was just released a couple of days ago. It has kernel 2.6.7 and all the latest goodies. Two, it's just a one CD download, and it is quite a nice system - as a matter of fact, I'm typing this from a Yoper desktop. Three, and perhaps most important - if it doesn't boot, you can ask for help on Yoper forums, where the developers themselves are very active and responsive, so you'll get the best help possible - directly from people who made your distro.
This might be worth trying... and if it works, you might be quite happy with Yoper. It is very fast and quite nice to use.

... then again, perhaps not. I asked on Yoper forums, and it seems you'd still have to do some work to get it to work fully. But it isn't entirely clear to me at this point, would it at least boot? I'm not sure. Developers of Yoper promise full nForce 2 support in the next update, so it might be worth keeping an eye on, anyway.

http://www.yoper.com/forum2/index.php?showtopic=1178

Yoper is also compiled for i686, so it won't work on anything older than a p-2. Debian was actually the first Linux distro I actually got installed. Its not really a hard install, unless you know nothing about your hardware. It asks too many questions. That's why it looks harder. Actually, you can usually skip the extra "driver" section because most of what you need on a system will be already in the kernel. That kernel is 2.4.18. Debian hasn't used 2.2 since Woody came out, 2 years ago. It is true, though, that some of the Debian packages aren't the newest, but they're going to be stable.

My x86 recommendations:

P-200 and before - Deli - its made with older (but updated) libs so it'll run without the overhead of newer kernels

P-II - Debian or Slackware

P-III and above - whatever you can get your hands on - Mandrake, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, or whatever else is up to date - 2.6 is at home here.

I don't know if anyone remebers 2 years ago when all the distros were going through pains wondering if they should include that new-fangled 2.4 kernel and using XFree 4 instead of 3.3. There was a lot of talk about how much more swap the 2.4 needed to run with over the 2.2. That concern is still valid today, since so many people are doing the right thing and trying to put older computers back in service.

I really wish I could find any distro to work already... or figure out the reason none will install.

So nobody has any idea's why linux won't work on my comp, I mean the live CD's work.

what errors where you getting with suse?

When Yast reaches 100% complete for package installation it brings up a list of packages that returned with errors. There are literally over 100 packages on that list. If you try and continue with the installation, while it is creating intird, it just stops at 62% and stays that way.

Sounds like a bad disk. Did you check the md5sum before you used it?

Yes I did, and there isn't anything wrong with the iso.