i have an older compaq 1 gig machine, a deskpro en. not sure what kind of cd-rom drive it has, but both the distros will boot, but when they get to the part where they check for a cd, they both fail. how can a distro installation that is running off the cd, not find the cd it is running off of? is there a start up switch i can use to get around this? i have been able to install kubuntu on other machines (newer ones) and would like to have it on this one.

nevermind, went back to debian, dont know why i ever stray away from that distro

I'm glad you were able to return to the distro you enjoy, at least!

In answer to your question above, the installation gets started by the BIOS recognizing the CD-ROM and letting the boot process go from there, so I imagine recognition from that point on through the end of the installation is different from recognition after installation, when recognition by the installed system requires the CD-ROM device to be properly mounted, like any additional hard drives, the floppy drive, etc.

For that reason, I don't think there's any switch you could use at boot-time to enable recognizing the CD-ROM after the system's loaded and going.

Examining the /etc/fstab table might give a clue as to why the CD-ROM is not recognized afterward, and also examining the /var/log/messages file often enables finding what went wrong (if anything did...) during the boot process.

yeah, i've read this happens sometimes... the fix seems to be to give the parameter "ide=0x180,0x386" at boot... if you want more info just do a search for 0x180,0x386:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...86&btnG=Search