Anyone in the North NJ area?!?! - HELP

[mikedelo]

I am about to give up on switching to linux.

I had trouble installing Fedora 11 on a Dell desktop. Thinking it was a hardware issue, I got a much newer, computer that I put together myself a few years ago for a friend. (He was getting rid of it for an Mac, lucky me) So I waited until F12 came out. Downloaded it, burned it to a CD, installed perfectly.

The next day, the computer would not boot up! I can't explain why, because I did nothing but install it, and try to install a wireless network card. (I now think the wireless network card is not compatible to linux, so I removed it).

I have an AMD processor, so I thought maybe Fedora isn't compatible with that type of chip, so I download my second Linux OS of choice, Debain.

Put the Debian 5 disk in the drive, booted the computer up, got to the first screen asking to press enter - I do - and get no where. The computer freezes.

Any thoughts?! I don't understand this trouble. Years ago, the installation was easy, it was the OS that was hard to understand. Now it has reversed!

Is there anyone in the area that is willing to give me a hand? I live in Lyndhurst, NJ 07071.

Thank you!

Michael

[mikesd]

What error do you get when it boots up?

It's rare a linux box doesn't boot and doesn't spit something out too.

[mikedelo]

The computer freezes, no error message.

[mikesd]

next time it starts to boot hit Ctrl+F1-6 or hit esc. One of those you shoul ddrop you to a text output and then you should see what at least may have caused the problem.

Then there should be an interactive boot up option and you can boot and it will ask you what you want to load and skip that part and then you can fix the problem. Or boot into a rescue mode w/ the CD and fix the problem.