Install issue
 

Have an older EMachine that I'd like to load up with Linux. The EMachine already has Windows 2K loaded. Have Fedora Core 2 and Red Hat 5 and for my test would take either. Have tried to boot up this emachine with the (either) dvd in the drive and made sure dvd is first in boot up sequence yet all that happens is Windows loads.

Any suggestions?
Thanks
Fizzy

Do you have an option at start up to hit F12 or such to load from a specified device?

Yes I can interrupt the boot, but only to enter setup, it doesn't alloow me to point to the dvd at that point.

Does it boot on another computer?
Did you burned the iso correctly?
Did you verify the md5sum?
Can your drive read DVD's?
Try to burn the iso at a lower speed.

Kind regards

Fedora Core 2 dvd came with Dummies book, Red Had is DVD1 in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 box set.
I can read from the dvd's when the system boots up under Windows 2K.
Don't believe it's a DVD issue, could it be a quirk with EMachine not wanting to boot from removeble drive?

The key to select the boot device may different than the key for bios setup. On my laptop, I think it is f10 for bios setup and f9 for selecting boot drive. You might have to do a little research on your machine for bootup options.

Fedora Core 2 became obsolete 6 years ago, DO NOT use it. If you want Fedora, get the newest version (Fedora 14).

And about the problem with it booting to Windows, that's becasue your hard drive is set before the CD drive in the BIOS boot order.

You say you can enter the BIOS setup. Somewhere in there is the place where you can choose the order of places tried for an operating system: just look till you find it.

How old is "older"? Make sure you have enough memory. Most things will run in 512GB; if you have 256MB you can use Xubuntu or Mepis.