I have an old desktop that I can't seem to get 10.04 or 10.10 live CD to work, or install.

LiveCD freezes for both 10.04 and 10.10. I have messed up my HD install and have gone back to 8.04 (which works flawlessly).

Symptom of live CD are - runs ok for about 5 mins, then mouse continues to move but nothing responds and the CD drive stops spinning. Disk light looks to be off and it seems to be dothing nothing.

I have tried starting with nomodeset - but this ended in a command prompt.

Any ideas? I have an nvidia geforce graphics card - could it be that it does not like? I am not sure where to look.

Does your system meet the minimum hardware requirements?

See this thread, it has many things to determine what the problems are.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1580857

If it is an old computer you should try using the alternate install CD. This is a text based install CD that is very similar to a Debian install CD.
Or better yet, try using a Lubuntu install CD: http://lubuntu.net/ Lubuntu is a fast and light version of Ubuntu with the LXDE desktop. It is also free of that resource hogging scourge that is pulseaudio.
I use Lubuntu. It is free of the Ubuntu bloat, and works very well.
There is also an alternate install CD for Lubuntu. But they keep it well hidden just in case you may want it. I found it once on the Lubuntu site; but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

A 30 second Google found this. Not really all that hidden.

Thanks, I think my specs are good enough to install 10. I have enough ram at 768mb, and it is a Sempron processor.

I will look into the text install and Lubuntu (although I really like gnome, so might need to consider a hardware upgrade if I can't keep up with the standard releases).

You should have enough hardware to run 10 releases. Look into the boot options in the post I made above if it won't boot.

Well, you can google anything. What I meant was it is not easy to find the alternate Lubuntu CD from the Lubuntu web site: http://lubuntu.net/
When you click "get Lubuntu" it only offers you the live CD. You have to go digging through the wiki to find out that the Lubuntu alternate CD even exists.

I know the Lubuntu website, I also know that it doesn't have the alternate cd. I did a quick Google and found that link and thought I'd post it for you cause you appeared, and you admitted this yourself, to be having difficulty.

May I also say that if you read the Ubuntu site you will be able to find everything to do with Ubuntu and its derivatives. Phillw, who wrote the page I linked to, is a regular at ubuntuforums and is also a member here. I think "You have to go digging through the wiki to find out that the Lubuntu alternate CD even exists." is an exaggeration, like I said a quick Google showed me it does and I have no interest in it at all.

Well, the fact that you had to google it, instead of easily finding it on the Lubuntu website, proves my point that it is difficult to find from the Lubuntu website. Does it not?
As I said previously:
My point was that the alternate install CD is not easy to find from the Lubuntu website. Y'know, where you would expect to find it.
How is that an "exaggeration", if you had to google it to find it??

Just try to find the Lubuntu alternate CD from the Lubuntu website. I did find it once. It is not easy though.

Tom, read the part I quoted.

You said "You have to go digging through the wiki to find out that the Lubuntu alternate CD even exists." To find it exists I typed "Lubuntu AlternateCD" in Google, the 1st result is a thread on ubuntuforums, the 4th post in that thread is the link I posted here. 3 clicks and it was downloading. It took 30 seconds to find, I didn't break a sweat doing it, I did not tax my cognitive abilities, nor did I have to dig in any wiki.

Google is your friend.

Once again, my point was that you can not easily find the Lubuntu alternate CD from the Lubuntu website! Can you acknowledge that, or not?
Did you even know the Lubuntu alternate CD existed before I mentioned it?
Have you not yet wondered why you are the only one who is troubled by what I said??

What is there to acknowledge? I quoted what you said word for word, what you meant does not matter one iota, what you said is what I am discussing.
I did actually, you see for years I tested Ubuntu releases, I have discussed various things with phillw and a guy called RanchHand (both of whom love Lubuntu, I myself don't care for it but I try to help people with it when I can ) on Ubuntu forums and have read alot of their posts.
You think I am troubled by what you said? I think the fact you can't google something is insignificant when compared to the number of people who die in abject poverty everyday. I pointed out that you may have not put alot of effort into finding something and that you exaggerate. If this makes me troubled then so be it. I myself think your exaggerating again but hey we are all allowed to have an opinion. I pointed you to something you appeared to be having difficulty finding for yourself and I got an argument from of you for it. I didn't get any gratitude, a thank you, kiss my ring, kiss my butt, or anything positive whatsoever, just an argument. Lighten up ok

BTW that entire last paragraph is meant to get you to see the lighter side, you probably won't though. So let me finish by saying, if you are done then so am I. Have a lovely day

Well, I would not want to compare this with global poverty, or anything else of significance.
Fine. I am done! I am sorry that I put you to this trouble!

ermmm.... anyway... back to my problem.

I have discovered the cause of the issue. I have a Nvidia 6200 GeForce graphics card - and that is what it does not like.

For the moment I have taken it out. Live CD worked fine, install was a breeze - no freezing. I thought I would put it back in, and it then started freezing again after about 5 mins. I tried to install the proprietary Nvidia - but it froze halfway through and would not restart. Graphics card extracted again and all is fine.

I think this might be a bug in Ubuntu. There seems to be a lot of posts about Nvidia cards.

camorri - I did try all the options under F6 on the liveCD, but it continued to freeze.

@ tur third, there are alot of post concerning Nvidia cards but finding the issue that deals with yours might not actually be as easy to find as it seems.

My initial thought is that it is the same issue that caused problems with Plymouth, Intel cards worked fine Nvidia and ATI didn't. Anywhooo I did another quick google and found this. Give it a whirl and see if it helps.