Jody

Ok, thanks everyone for their help so far. I got the cd to boot and to begin installation, however - after analyzing the usb devices (the first part of install) I get an error message saying I might have hardware issues, or there may be a bug in the kernel. I re-downloaded install disk 1 hoping there was nothing wrong w/ my hardware, but I keep getting the message. I also get another message that looks like this after the initial message: error in exec of stage 2 :-( trying to execute '/user/bin/runinstall2' from the installation volume the following fatal error occured FATAL ERROR IN STAGE 1: I/O error I can't recover from this. You may reboot your system Quote: What gives? I really wanna try Linux. Should I give up on Mandrake and try another distribution? If so, what do y'all recommend? Thanks.

Yes, they were burnt as ISO's. Sorry, I am completely computer illiterate when it comes to technical things. How do I check my bios to see if the cd is set to boot? Am I too stupid for Linux? lol thanks.

Ok, I am completely new to Linux. I thought I'd give it a try. I downloaded the ISO files for Mandrake and burnt them to discs. When I try to reboot my machine w/ the discs in I get nothing. It autimatically goes straight to my Windows log on screen. Am I doing something wrong? I am currently running Windows XP Home Edition. Is this the problem? Please help. I really wanna try Linux and get away from M$. Thanks.