Acer travelmate 4000wlmi wont install Ubuntu

[djrory]

I have recently aquired this five year old laptop. I have fitted a new empty hard drive, downloaded Ubuntu 10.04 LTS using another computer, burnt it on a cd as an iso, changed the boot order on the Acer switched on and it starts to load - gives two small icons, I press Enter, it asks which language and whether I want to install it, I press the install list item, press enter it says Ubuntu and has half a dozen dots going red then white and then twenty to thirty seconds later the screen goes black and nothing happens. On another old laptop it worked fine.

Kubuntu installed without any problems but I didn't want that and have since wiped the drive.

Any help would be appreciated.

[MASONTX]

Hi, I'm no guru, but I know the more knowledgeable folks will want to know hardware specs and equipment. I run Ubuntu 10.04 on an AMD3700+ with 512 MB ram. Some sites quote 256 MB as minimum, but it runs better on 512. It hangs and gives errors if I try to load it on an old P3 500/384 MB ram.

[nujinini]

Hi!

If I may ask...were you able to check if you were able to get a good burn? Just an idea...

[MASONTX]

Just a WAG, but since it loads on another laptop, I'ld guess you have a hardware conflict or not enough ram. You might go to distrowatch.com and see if another linux option appeals to you and try loading that.

[djrory]

Thanks for the replies.
The chip is a Pentium m 710 processor 1.4 GHz, it has 1Gb of RAM. With regard to the quality of the disk I have tried a couple of magazine disks with 10.04 on and they do no better. I have heard that if the system is picky it is worth trying the 'alternate' version of the iso and I'm downloading it now. I'm not really expecting much but we'll see.

[MASONTX]

You have enough ram, so that's not the problem. If the alternate install doesn't work, you might try Lubuntu, Xubuntu, or Mint.

[djrory]

'Alternate' seems to have installed - it took ages - now I have to get it to boot. It loads grub and wants me to tell it something.

[djrory]

I had to uninstall Alternate and am back at square one. I have read that the chipset Intel 855gm doesn't get on with Linux. Maybe its hopeless.

I've now tried Ubuntu 8.1, 9 point something, 10.04, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint 9 - nothing. I might install windows.

[MASONTX]

Before you give up, try PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, openSuse, and some of the others listed at distrowatch.com. Try enough of them, and you will probably find something that works with your hardware. Good luck.

[impert]

I had to uninstall Alternate and am back at square one. I have read that the chipset Intel 855gm doesn't get on with Linux. Maybe its hopeless.

I've now tried Ubuntu 8.1, 9 point something, 10.04, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Mint 9 - nothing. I might install windows.

Have you tried fiddling with boot options? noapic nolapic irqpoll might be worth trying.
I did a little googling and found an Italian debian site that says that debian lenny works perfectly on your machine