I cant figure out how to run ANY linux distro! Help!

[BadBowtie03]

hey everyone! I am new! and I am having problems... sorry if I dont know or sound like I have any idea what I am talking about, because I really dont have a clue. Anyways, I wanted to give linux a try just to see what it was like so I read alot of stuff on the internet and then I first tried to install ubuntu with the wubi installer and that didnt work. It would start to boot up but then would go to a Dos looking black screen and said "type help" for a list of commands. I had no idea what to do. Then I tried Debian on a bootable CD and that didnt work. Then I just tried Knoppix on a bootable cd and it started to load and then it said something was wrong too... I dont know what I am doing wrong or maybe linux doesnt like my laptop. I read alot of stuff saying how easy the bootable cd's were, but I couldnt figure it all out! I just bought a new Thinkpad and it is a T500. It has a 2.53 core 2 duo with 2gb of DDR 3 ram and a 160 gb 7200 rpm harddrive and switchable graphics. Its a intel chipset and a ATI radeon 3650. Can someone please help me out? What do I need to do? Thanks!

[rokytnji]

Try following this install procedure for Ubuntu 8.10 for T500.

Install Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) on a Thinkpad T500 - ThinkWiki

Just change the bios settings shown in the instruction manual and you will be able to boot up in live cd mode. You can decide later how you want to go about the install after Test driving Ubuntu in Live CD Mode. If you are going to dual boot Windows and Ubuntu another tutorial from APC mag is pretty good at walking you through that part.

HowTo Category