Ok, this is very confusing.. I've been trying to get mandrake to work on my computer that has an athlon xp 2200+ processor. However, it wont boot. I know it is not hardware related because I stick my win xp pro cd and it boots perfectly.

I also have a comp with a pentium 4 processor and it boots perfectly (thats my parents though and they dont want me installing linux on it lol). Does linux not work with athlon processors?? I can't imagine it not working with amd.. I mean that's half the consumers not being able to run linux. Any tips to get my .iso images to work?

Oh yea, I can buy a distro.. I'm fine with that. So if someone thinks its a cd-rom issue please let me know.

Thanks.

No linux runs on AMD chips I run it on an athlon xp2100, but there are some issues with cheaper motherboards. I have had some trouble with sis chipsets. What motherboard are you using?

I suspect you did not burn the the ISO files correctly. What application did you use? If you view a CD and all you see is one *.iso file then you didn't. You can not simply drap and drop the files in XP.

With Nero or Easy CD Creator make sure you select "create from ISO image"

I have a pretty good motherboard: ASUS A7V8X-MX

So, if I bought the .iso images from linuxcentral.com they should work?

This is the link:

http://www.linuxcentral.com/catalog/...=C1Cyjguq0DiCp

It says Platform: Intel - that's the only thing that scared me. I just need some reassurance they will work with my system. Thanks.

Yes you are right it is a good motherboard. According to this web site
http://www.linuxtested.com/results_servera.html
it should work.
Buying the cds from linux central is not going to make a bit of difference. Unless you have your hart set on Mankrade I would try another disto. I like Suse and RedHat.
Also have you tried making a bootable floppy to start the install or try re-downloading the first cd and reburning the cd.
Buying the cd from a third party is not going to do you any good. I don't like buying cd's from third parties because they are just profiting on others work. I by a distro from the original supplier, only after I have tried for a while first. I do this just because it is the right think to do. Enough preaching.

Try downloading the free Mandrake 9.2 iso's off linuxiso.org:

http://www.linuxiso.org/download.php...-inst.i586.iso

http://www.linuxiso.org/download.php...2-ext.i586.iso

http://www.linuxiso.org/download.php...-i18n.i586.iso

I am 100% positive these will work on Athlon XP systems (actually any i586 or i686 platform).