I've tried to install a number of different distros that use the 2.6 kernel. None of these have been able to boot, ending with a kernel panic. From what i can tell it has something to do with ACPI. I did a little research into my computer, an HP a705w, and found that its not exactly linux friendly. Short of building/getting a new computer, is there much i can do?

Hey ya, is that old pc? Try boot with ACPI off. All the best. =)

I agree...try booting in "expert" mode, with NOACPI and NOPROBE options. You'll have to set up some hardware manually after the load, which usually isn't a problem, but those options have gotten me past some boot-install-panic issues before.

Would it be something like acpi=off at the end of the grub kernel line??

this computer is only about 2 years old, but from what i've seen, its BIOS lacks some setting or requirement for ACPI to work correctly. and disabling it in the boot options is hit and miss. So im pretty much S.O.L here then?

Not at all...the installer can be very finicky, from what I've seen, and not just one distro, either. I've had problems with Mandrake/Mandriva, Suse, and RedHat.

The acpi=off/NOACPI and probe=no/NOPROBE (depends on your distro, check the install notes), usually work. After you get things loaded you *MIGHT* be ok with ACPI...but there's only one way to find out.

I'd be surprised if a 2 year old computer wouldn't work with ACPI, though.

The kernel panic problem could mean that it could not find the root (/) partition or the ramdisk (initrd) file did not get created with the correct modules. My computer's ACPI is enabled and it is working well. Also it (the motherboard) is four years old. HP computers and many other brands contains a restore partition that should be hidden in Windows but sometimes it sneaks in the drive listings. The restore partition can mess up the bootloader because it uses a different partition scheme. Assuming you do not care for the restore partition, find out the hard drive manufacture and download the utility from the hard drive manufacture. Use the utility to completely erase the hard drive. That should fix many problems. I suggest using Knoppix and boot into run level 3 instead of 5 or was it 4.

Well, the restore partition was killed off when i upgraded tha hard drive. I'm beginning to think that there are a number of factors aside from the ACPI one though. When i try to boot the Suse live dvd, it says something about agp aperture size, then freezes. Although, most hang during hardware detection, and as they scroll error codes, i see ACPI mentioned a bunch of times. But i will try booting Knoppix like you mention.