[NYLoCo] starting Linux

[D. Joe]

On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 08:38:08PM -0400, Herzog wrote:
> One year old XP-Dell, My wife's similar XP-Dell, my Ubuntu-Dell laptop, 
> my 10 year old Win 98SE Compaq laptop, my 8 year old win-98-HP, my 
> Win3.1 Magitronic, updated to win 98-SE, and my son's two computers, 
> after I gave him the discs.
> Two people I talked to at a local computer group also had trouble, with 
> Nick Francisco's free discs.
> EVEN my Dell laptop with Ubuntu Linux 4.07 would not run the Ubuntu 
> 10.07 disc from Karlie.

Brian has it pretty much right with 

 https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-us-ny/2008-April/000506.html
 
But just about anything can be a springboard for a good
discussion, and this is no exception.  The introduction of wubi
to this list is a good example.

Basically, these problems sound like a bad batch of discs, if
you ask me.  Or maybe what you have is a DVD, but none of the
systems you've mentioned can boot from DVD?

Have you asked Karlie or Nick for refunds, Wil?  I'm sure if you
buy a CD from On-Disk, and it doesn't boot in any
sufficiently-equipped computer, that they'll stand by their
merchandise and replace the disk with a known-good one.

You're right, AOL-ing the state with disks is not enough, and
that's been a point that's been made at least once in
face-to-face discussions amonst some of the local Rochester FOSS
community.  That's why we have meetings and installfests.  In
Rochester alone, there are two or three meetings a month now
(LUGOR, Ubuntu LoCo, RCSi Linux SIG).  It's almost embarrassing,
really, the number of opportunities one has to get together with
local Linux geeks.

Last month there was an RCSi sponsored installfest.  The last
two LUGOR meetings I was at had Q&A sessions--were you there? 
Did you bring these questions up?  Also, I think I'd have
remembered if this come up at the installfest, or the recent
follow-up meeting, but I don't recall it.

It gets even better:  I seem to recall you expressing
frustration at the pre-installed Ubuntu system you bought from
Dell, seeking even someone local to pay to help work on the box. 
I don't know if you found anyone to take your money, but
recently I've noticed that J&N in Fairport also ships Ubuntu as
a installed option: http://www.jncs.com I don't know yet if they
offer third-party support, or just for their own hardware, or
what, but consider that yet another possibility.

At least a few (most? all?) of the modern Dells I've worked with
recently will present a boot menu if one hits the F12 key
sufficiently early in the boot process.  Have you tried that? 
Are you able to get any of the system disks that these computers
shipped with to boot?  If you can't get any disks to boot on any
machine, it could very well be a case of PEBKAC.  If you can get
some disks to boot on a given machine, but not the Ubuntu disks
you have, you very well may have your hands on one or more bad
(or, if DVDs, inappropriate) disks.

-- 
Joe