Linux distros won't live boot...

B

beachsounds

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Greetings!
As April 8th approaches, I am planning to convert my girlfriend's old Dell laptop (Pentium 4 M 1600, 2GB RAM) into a Linux machine. I have some experience with Ubuntu desktop. She will be new to Linux, but willing to give it a try. My problem is I can't get live images to boot. I have tried LTS versions of Ubuntu, Mint, Zorin and Fedora. Fedora started up once, but now leaves just a blank screen. Mint and Zorin get as far as the splash screen and lock. Ubuntu claims a kernel incompatibility. I have tried both 32 and 64-bit distros. I have tried both USB and optical media. What am I missing?
 


Thanks for your suggestions!
1) I'm not familiar with MD5SUM. (will google it)
2)One of the Ubuntu disks I tried was used to do a clean install on a different machine; otherwise, no.
3) NEVER! :)
4) Will do...
5)Sorry. You are correct. There was a flashing underscore.
6)Sorry, I did omit the model. It's a Dell 600.
 
Would that be?
Dell 600m
Dell D600
Dell Inspiron 600m
Dell Latitude D600
Dell Latitude CPTS600
...or something else?

A flashing underscore usually means a graphics problem.
 
A flashing underscore usually means a graphics problem.

At the flashing underscore, try hitting Alt F1 or Alt F2. It may put you into a working console, where you can do some work trying to find out what your issue is.
 
I've had similar problems with older desktops. I used a live Gparted cd to format the hard drive first then try the live cds.

Also I tried booting live DVD's once on an old computer that only had a CDrom hahaha. ooops.
 
Would that be?
Dell 600m
Dell D600
Dell Inspiron 600m
Dell Latitude D600
Dell Latitude CPTS600
...or something else?

A flashing underscore usually means a graphics problem.
It's a Latitude D600
 
I have a few Dell Latitude C400s (P3s). I am constantly surprised that Crunchbang Linux works so well. I am not a great fan of Openbox. One of the first things I do is: sudo apt-get install xfce4*

Look at e.g. http://www.linlap.com/dell_latitude_d600 . The top posts mention Debian, Crunchbang and Kali (Crunchbang and Kali are both based on Debian.)

Check the integrity of your ISOs...
 

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