[TriLUG] Linux Core 2 Duo problems

[Charles Fischer]

No questions here, just a warning or admitting I do not know what I am doing.

On Wednesday of this week I went to Intrex in Chapel Hill and bought 
all the parts I needed for a shinny new Intel Core 2 Duo box.  The 
mother board is an Intel DG965wh, with a 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo (E6400), 
two GB no name DDR2 RAM, 320 GB Seagate SATAII hard drive, NEC DVD 
burner, case, keyboard and mouse.  I have a Sharp LCD monitor and an 
old ATI Radon X800 based video card to use in the new machine.  This 
is the first Intel Inside box I have built in a long time.  I have 
been using AMD products from when Intel came out with the Pentium 4.

I burned a copy of Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS (Dapper Drake) and started to do 
an install.  The system would hang on uncompressing the Linux 
kernel.  So I grabbed my Fedora Core 5 DVD and it hung as well.  Now 
it is time for a sanity check.  I loaded a copy of Windows XP Pro, 
without problems.  I also loaded a copy of Windows Vista RC1.  Vista 
also loaded (what a --  never mind).

Now I know the computer works, but Linux is giving me problems.  I 
downloaded and burned Fedora Core 6 test 3 (version 5.92) and tried 
an install.  Same problem as Core 5 had.  The next step was praying 
to Google.  I loaded the newest mother board BIOS and tried Ubuntu 
and Fedora 5.92 again.  There was no change in the Ubuntu install.  I 
got past the hang using Fedore 5.92 (I have not tried 5 again), but 
the install could not find the DVD.  I thought this was odd being it 
booted off of the DVD.  After more Google praying, I bought a 
USB/Firewire external DVD drive.  Booting from the USB DVD got me 
through the 5.92 install after a couple of tries (if I selected the 
options I wanted, the install would hang).  I now have Linux up and 
running, but I cannot use the DVD that is connected to the mother 
board's IDE port, and X is only working in 640x480.

If somebody has better luck please let me know.  If somebody needs 
help to get this far, let me know.

Later
Charles Fischer