I have windows 7 and tried to boot into Ubuntu 12.10 using an ISO copy burned to a startup disc.

All seemed well at first as a mauve ubuntu start up screen appeared. Then things went crazy with line after line of code on a black background ending with the message" Kernal panic syntax error"

What, if anything am I doing wrong please?

Hi Aristorias,
Welcome to LQ!

Kernel panic usually occurs when kernel doesn't understand something or is confused as something about the hardware (machine).

When CD begins to load press Shift or Alt or Tab (whichever works) until you are brought to grub bootloader; press 'e' and add 'NOAPIC' (no quotations) then press 'b' to continue booting. There are many ways to overcome this type of problem.

Understand what kernel panic is all about, here is a good reading for that, also here.

If you have a quite not-recent (or old) hardware you may try other distros like Antix which also has a live medium.

Hope that helps.

Good luck.

1 members found this post helpful.

Please, take me your pc model.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for replying.

I have a packard bell

Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
Intel Core i3 550 @ 3.20GHz 28 °C
Clarkdale 32nm Technology
RAM
6.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 665MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
Packard Bell ixtreme M5801 (CPU 1) 30 °C
Graphics
M203WA (1280x1024@60Hz)
1023MB GeForce GT 420 (Sapphire/PCPartner) 39 °C
Hard Drives
977GB Western Digital WDC WD10EARS-22Y5B1 (SATA) 35 °C
Optical Drives
OFWXI 0XMB49UZ SCSI CdRom Device
ATAPI DVD A DH16ABSH
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

aristorias: You may want to check if the ubuntu distribution you are trying to insatll is a 32 or a 64 bit system.

Aristorias,

That's a stallion of machine you are riding on. There should be no problem with any distro versions today.

So as movaco recommends you try check if your iso is for your architecture or not.

There should be no problem running any buntus out there: your machine is good enough.

Hope that helps.

Good luck.

By md5, check also that your iso isn't damaged.