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!