Ubuntu is go!

[memevector]

Just had the new computer running Ubuntu off the Live CD, after getting a tipoff on the Tekheads forum from someone else who'd had the same problem with identical mobo & CPU. Hurrah!

It was indeed a BIOS related problem (as observantly suggested by lovingboth). I'd had the OK from Tekheads to send the mobo back to be updated, but thanks to this last-minute info I didn't have to after all. The obscure and rather inexplicable trick was to disable Cool 'n' Quiet. This allows an OS to boot, and apparently you can turn it back on again once you've got the up-to-date BIOS.

Now I need to flash the BIOS and then carry on with getting together the less barebonesy bits of the new machine.

lovingboth, I could potentially install Win98SE any time now, as dual boot system setup is supposed to work best when you put the Win on before the Linux. What's the likelihood of your spare copy turning up soon do you think? If you can't find it, my fallback plan is to look for one on eBay, which is fine, but I don't want to do that if you're about to send me one :-)

Comments

[lovingboth]

Thanks for the prod :) I'll have a look this evening - it should be in the spindles on the printer...

[lovingboth]

Oh, the reason it works better that way is that Windows versions tend not to acknowledge the existence of a) any later version of Windows properly and b) any other OS, so overwrite their boot details. It's repairable, but a pain.

When you come to do the install, you want

1) A Win98SE partition, large enough for the files you want to use under Windows

2) A swap partition, about 1G

3) A Ubuntu root '/' partition for the system files, say 12G

4) A Ubuntu 'home/' partition, for all your files and settings covering the rest of the disc.