I have a friend who is an older man that has never gotten himself online. I'm trying to get him set up with a desktop.

I have an older HP TouchSmart IQ500 Series (IQ505) computer that tries to boot into Windows Vista but I don't have the password.

I think this is a touch screen and is supposed to have wireless keyboard/mouse, but it currently has a corded keyboard and mouse.

Core2 duo cpu.

Would it be practical to attempt a Linux install on this machine?

I don't care if the touch screen works or not.

Practical, yes! It may already be out of support for proprietary NVidia drivers, which means maintenance is easier but performance potential reduced. The CPU was intended for laptop use, so not particularly robust as Core2Duos go. I have a bunch of Core2Duos still running, but no touchscreens. They're not fast compared to new stuff, but adequate to typical geriatric tasks, including youtube if waste memory isn't wasted by too many open apps or tabs. I have Plasma and/or TDE and/or KDE3 on all mine, not a one with XFCE, Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate or other popular DEs or WMs. Don't believe people who claim Plasma is a heavyweight. Except for features, it's been on a diet for quite some years and need weigh no more than the supposed middleweight XFCE. Plasma is extremely highly customizable, and much of it is enabled by default, but easily disabled if unwanted. KDE3 & TDE OTOH are both mature true light-to-middleweights, and shine on Core2Duos now just as KDE3 did when Core2Duos were current state-of-the-art.

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I didn't want to come back and ask stupid questions, but here I go.

I ordered a Debian 11.6.0 / AMD64 CD from LinuxCollections.com.

I cannot get this computer to boot from the CD drive.

When I hit escape on the BIOS screen, it gives me the option of choosing the boot device and hit enter.

I've done this over and over, and it boots on the hard drive.

I've been into BIOS with no success.

The CD drive seems to be working, but I can't get into windows to look at it. (no password)

The Cd drive stands up on edge on the side of the machine. I assume the label side of the CD goes towards the user, but I've tried it both ways.

Any suggestions?

What exactly do you do when it presents a list? Is there a list that includes the optical drive?

You might try going back into the BIOS and in the boot device and order sectionS, make sure the optical drive takes first priority, and that only the optical drive is a listed boot device, if possible. IOW, disable booting from HDD without disabling access to HDD. There are plenty of variations in how BIOS presents these options, so it may take some experimentation.

"What exactly do you do when it presents a list? Is there a list that includes the optical drive?"

It lists the hard drive and the CD drive. Tells me to use the arrow keys to select the boot device,and hit enter to select.

In BIOS it gives me a screen with "boot device priority" I can change the "CD-ROM Group" to 1st boot device and hit enter to accept.

And then hit F10 to save and exit.

It then goes back to the Bios screen you see during boot, and even if I hit esc to select the CD drive on that screen, it still boots the hard drive.

I then restart go back to BIOS and it still shows the CD to be the first boot device.

Down below the list of 1st and 2nd boot devices, it has another list that has "CD-ROM Group boot priority" and "HDD Group boot priority"

If I select either one of these and hit enter to open a sub screen, it only lists one hard drive or one CD drive, and in both cases it shows the drives to be "disabled", and it will not allow me to change it.

It sounds like this BIOS has secure boot functionality to prevent booting anything except the HD with Windows.

Do you find anything in BIOS related to boot that you don't understand?

Do you have a manual that shows a motherboard jumper that limits boot to HDD or SSD?

You may need to move the HDD to some other computer where you can wipe the HDD. If the BIOS finds no OS installed on HD, it should allow booting something else.