Ubuntu help please

Ok, so I've got these 5 lovely Ubuntu cd's in the mail - version 5.04 but hey, it's still linux, right?

I'm feeling froggy, so I try to install it onto my baby.

First 4 disks fail during install no matter what I try.

Fifth disk does the trick, smooth install, or so I think - it finishes off with the CD, sets up for full-on boot.

Boot! Woohoo! Loads up kernel and looks like it's gonna cooperate, then BAM! here comes this screen that says "there were errors during the installation, but we're gonna put you into aptitude so you can fix it. This will only happen once, so if you don't fix the errors, you'll have to fix them manually later."

Ok, I'm a computer guy, I can handle this - an OS is an OS is an OS, right? (I strain my brain back the 7 odd years ago I had my SCO class and go for it.)

It shows me installed packages, packages needing updating, not installed packages, ok, no problem.

I want everything! I plus the updating stuff first figuring it won't take too long, and hit the G key to continue. zooom! here we go, 1000 odd megabytes downloaded later, it installs the updates.

Ok, no probs. Now to get gnome on there (since I know that without it I can't get a gui - I've been that route thru the previous install attempts. A bash prompt with no gui is a pain in the arse I can't seem to overcome.)

I take a look at what all's not installed, see it's a ton of stuff, hit the plus key on everything, and start.

2 and 1/2 hours later it finishes downloading, tries installing some of the language updates and crashes. No big, I don't need my computer to know more japanese than I do anyway. live and learn and next time I'll skip those...so I do.

Go through the entire install procedure for the nth time, get to the aptitude thing again, do the updates again, do the not-installed thing again except the languages, which I deselected manually. Hit the G key.

about 1 hour later it starts installing.

About 1/2 hour into the install it gives me

Kernel Panic! and crashes. OUCH!

I reboot and I get

grub>

Any suggestions on what to do next or how to get this )(^*&^%*&^%*&%^%!#@ linux package FOR HUMAN BEINGS to effing install? Remember I'm virtually linux illiterate, although I remember stupid things like "ls" and "man"... C'mon, you know you wanna help!

(BTW I'm NOT giving up on this - I'll keep loading the freaking "live" edition so I can monitor here and spam their help chat irc chan until I get it resolved...) Thanks in advance guys!

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First 4 disks fail during install no matter what I try.

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Just to clarify you did the standard order of PC installs right? No 64bit mixup or anything like that?

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Boot! Woohoo! Loads up kernel and looks like it's gonna cooperate, then BAM! here comes this screen that says "there were errors during the installation, but we're gonna put you into aptitude so you can fix it. This will only happen once, so if you don't fix the errors, you'll have to fix them manually later."

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At console type dmesg and post what you get here. That will allow us to look for @ what happened.

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2 and 1/2 hours later it finishes downloading, tries installing some of the language updates and crashes. No big, I don't need my computer to know more japanese than I do anyway. live and learn and next time I'll skip those...so I do.

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I've had this problem about 75% of the time when I install as well. I brought it to the attention of the devs and apparently its a common problem.

Just thinking......if you have a kernal panic during boot its likely *nothing* got logged.......

Try to boot and watch the screen and see what is going on when it panics.

hjack

Woudln't hurt to check all your cables.

Make sure nothings loose, and re-seat your ram

You also said you tried 5 discs before it finally seemed to work... Maybe you have a faulty cd rom drive... I got 10 cd's for free from their website... everything went real smooth on the first disc...

Ok, now the conclusion to our episode, and thanks muchly for your advice, although it was neither - the real problem (as I strongly suspected) lay between the desk chair and the keyboard.

I took the time and read the 'how to use aptitude' helpfile and discovered what I was doing wrong - conflicting software packages tend to do nasty things to linux kernels, as does (albeit unknowingly) installing a 64bit kernel onto a 32 bit machine. Ooops.

All that to say, I AM NOW A LINUX USER! Microsoft BLOWS!!!!!!!!!!

FEEL MY PHENOMINALLY AWESOME POWER!!!!!!!!

(can ya tell I'm happy?)

LMAO........I can feel your POWER........it's corrupting my NT like a blast from a solar storm. She can take any more captain! :airoff:

Now for the stupid little questions that prove I'm a penguin noob.

1. on bootup when it's doing its little checklist, one of the things it says is "setting sensors" - ok, no problem there other than I have positively no idea what a sensor is other than StarTrek, and I know my box isn't THAT advanced yet...anyways, it fails, so the questions: What are sensors, and how do I fix that issue?

2. The first thing that comes up after I login and get to the desktop on the gui is 'Hal failed to initialize!'... welp, this ain't 2001 the movie either, so what's Hal, and how do I fix that one too?

Thanks!

If it doesn't get answered over here try @ http://www.ubuntuforums.org/

yah, that's my next step - just tried in the ubuntu irc chan.... no luck there and they're clueless.

New twist to those issues - synaptic's failing install. I run apt-get install -f, it acts like there's nothing wrong. I try it again with sudo, same result. synaptic still fails.

Posted a thread here to get their take on things too - hopefully I'll get a fix even though the developers are working more on the new release than this one...
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...618#post491618

Sorry about the double-post...it's a bump, plus an update.

The thread started on ubuntu's forums has been pretty much fruitless as well, gaining me only one thing - the sensors are now set. Hal still isn't initializing, and I still can't install or update anything with either apt-get or synaptic - any further suggestions?

Other issues - one file I desparately need to get installed is called nvidia-glx since it fixes glitches caused by nvidia cards, so my browser and other softwares periodically lock up the entire system.