install linux on laptop
 

I have installed Ubuntu 7.10 on a sony laptop, the installation went fine but when it finnished and reboot it comes up with the message

PANIC CPU too old for this kernel

I then tried to install Debian 4.0 and it boot up fine after the installation. Does that mean Ubuntu 7.10 is a newer version then Debian 4.0?

Pretty strange error. What kind of laptop do you have?

Ubuntu can be considered as slightly newer than Debain. But I don't think that's your problem.

Kernels can be compiled with support or optimisation for specific CPUs. Sometimes that means there's a minimum specification that can be used. The minimum X86 CPU supported by Debain stable at the moment is a 486. I'm not so sure about Ubuntu.

Either it's not recognised your CPU correctly and installed a kernel optimised for something newer or Ubuntu doesn't support CPUs as far back as a 486. Although I always assumed they did.

However, that's all a little academic as we don't know what you're useing. If you've still got Debian installed then you can check what your CPU is.

As root instal lshw;

Then to get info on your CPU run;

and post the output here. That might shed some light on the problem.

Thank you for your reply, when i tried to type
apt-get install lswh it come up as below

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree...Done
E: Could't find package lswh

However I have the laptop specification and that is an

Intel Pentium M Processor 1.60 GHz

Would it help? and that does it mean E: Could't find package lswh

Many thanks

Caught out by a misspelling. That should be lshw for List Hardware.

It doesn't really matter as you seem to know what your processor is. A Pentium M should be supported by Ubuntu without a problem?

Had a look round and the only similar problems I can find are with the server edition of Ubuntu. See the bug report;

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...22/+bug/151942

Are you using the server version? If so, changing to the normal desktop version might be preferable if you _really_ want Ubuntu.

Otherwise there are some suggestion on how to fix the problem on the that link.

Good luck.