[downerczx]

I've been trying to install with the live CD installer...

from boot, I use "ide=nodma" and I've tried several other options, but whenever it gets to "scrambling root password" I get dumped out with

hdc: lost interrupt

is there something I can do or should I move on to another distro?
thanks

[antidrugue]

Is that a laptop? Do you have a SATA drive on that machine?

Please give more details about your hardware.

[downerczx]

Yes, it's a Gateway Solo 5150 Laptop... I think it's from 1999. 196 megs of RAM, 40 gig hard drive. I don't know what SATA means... I know the hard drive is newer than the laptop. Is there anything else I can tell you? Thank you very much.

[antidrugue]

Either you have a problem with the hard drive (unlikely), the ide controler (unlikely as well), or you must figure out proper boot options.

First make sure you have latest BIOS version for your machine (version 11.09) in order to rule that out:
http://support.gateway.com/support/d...os=10405&type=

Try booting with different options (F1 for help at the boot screen):

acpi=off nolapic

Or more simply try another version of the Gentoo Live CD (newer or older). Or you may be able to choose from different kernels to boot from with this Live CD.

[downerczx]

Well, I tried the options on boot, and it still does it. I checked the bios and it's up to date. I don't think there are any older or newer versions of the gentoo CD.

[antidrugue]

Not sure if Gentoo Live CD accepts it, but you can try:

irqpoll

as a boot parameter.

[int13]

Your laptop has a CD-ROM drive with "tricky" DMA. Most Linux distros enable DMA as default for CDs - and that is causing the problem (hence DMA "timeout" errors".
Install with Debian requires selecting the gui install at boot - then at the first window CTRL+ALT+F4 to get the terminal that shows the install process (vt4) - you should see no CD errors there yet... ALT+F2 then hit enter to get a terminal - "cd /proc/ide/hdc" (for the solo 5150) - "cat settings" should show Using DMA as "1".... meaning enabled. "echo -n "using_dma:0" > settings".
Now "cat settings" should show as follows...
gateway:/proc/ide/hdc# cat settings
name value min max mode
---- ----- --- --- ----
current_speed 33 0 70 rw
dsc_overlap 0 0 1 rw
init_speed 33 0 70 rw
io_32bit 0 0 3 rw
keepsettings 0 0 1 rw
nice1 1 0 1 rw
number 2 0 3 rw
pio_mode write-only 0 255 w
unmaskirq 0 0 1 rw
using_dma 0 0 1 rw
gateway:/proc/ide/hdc#

When the install gets to the "find cd"/"load components from cd" it will NOT fail . After the install is completed add the apropriate entry to HAL (if you install it) so that DMA is disabled on the cd from boot. Or "hdparm -d0 /dev/hdc".
NOTE: I haven't installed Ubuntu to this machine... mine has only 128M RAM so KDE (or gNOme) would be too slow. XFCE works fine for me.
Now if I could just turn off shadowing and get my IRDa working in FIR mode...