I have both Ubunto 6.10 and 7.04 on CD. I have been trying to install Ubunto onto a freshly formatted hard drive. When the CD starts to boot, I get the error 17. I get the same message from both distros.

I had Linspire installed and it was VERY slow. I re-formatted the hard drive to have a go with Ubunto. It appears to me that since it is such a pain to install Linux that it is certainly not ready for prime time. My XP Pro is looking better all the time. Linspire was also a pain to install.

Why are some distros so HUGE? Five CDs seem way over the top. Everyone is adding this and that and they have succeeded in doing is slowing things down and eating lots of resources.

I have both Ubunto 6.10 and 7.04 on CD. I have been trying to install Ubunto onto a freshly formatted hard drive. When the CD starts to boot, I get the error 17. I get the same message from both distros.

I had Linspire installed and it was VERY slow. I re-formatted the hard drive to have a go with Ubunto. It appears to me that since it is such a pain to install Linux that it is certainly not ready for prime time. My XP Pro is looking better all the time. Linspire was also a pain to install.

Why are some distros so HUGE? Five CDs seem way over the top. Everyone is adding this and that and they have succeeded in doing is slowing things down and eating lots of resources.

First Gary, don't give up! I'm going to tackle your last question first. The reason that some distros have five CDs is because the last couple usually have the source code. Shoot, Ubuntu ships on one cd, and lots of distros can have a net install with a ~23MB ISO. You really should decide what you want installed, otherwise it will install everything.

I don't know why your distro won't recognise your freshly formatted drive. If you have a XP install disk, format the disk with NTFS and reboot with your Ubuntu CD in your drive. For whatever reason, your drive's filesystem is not being recognised by GRUB.

Either that or try SuSE!

I re-formatted the hard drive to NTFS and get the same message. I'm done with it for a couple of weeks, just too frustrating. After the big Linspire let down I have to forget about until the urge hits me again.

I re-formatted the hard drive to NTFS and get the same message. I'm done with it for a couple of weeks, just too frustrating. After the big Linspire let down I have to forget about until the urge hits me again.

Sounds like Linux doesn't like your disk controller.

If you posted the specs of your machine, with definite information on the controller, I'd try to help you. However, if you're going to shelf it for a while, I'd understand also. Assuming you have windows on your machine, install Sisoftware Sandra and it'll tell you exactly what you're running.

You formatted the hard disk, which means you probably made a partition of all available space. When you want to install Ubuntu or any other distribution of Linux able to resize partitions it first have to check bit by bit the whole partition before it can resize you formatted partition.

Linux is a total different OS, it not uses NTFS or FAT files systems therefore it is not needed to have a partition on the hard disk. And formatting the partition as FAT or NTFS is only a waist of time.

Some Linus distributions are so "big" because they offer all software available, for distributions like Ubuntu you need to download everything what is not commonly used. Compared to MS Windows it is not that bad, most Linux distributions come complete with multiple office suites from which you can select one.

If you compare MS-Windows and all cd's needed to get everything what Linux distributions like Fedora or Suse offer you probably end up with more cd's then 5.

You formatted the hard disk, which means you probably made a partition of all available space. When you want to install Ubuntu or any other distribution of Linux able to resize partitions it first have to check bit by bit the whole partition before it can resize you formatted partition.

Linux is a total different OS, it not uses NTFS or FAT files systems therefore it is not needed to have a partition on the hard disk. And formatting the partition as FAT or NTFS is only a waist of time.

Some Linus distributions are so "big" because they offer all software available, for distributions like Ubuntu you need to download everything what is not commonly used. Compared to MS Windows it is not that bad, most Linux distributions come complete with multiple office suites from which you can select one.

If you compare MS-Windows and all cd's needed to get everything what Linux distributions like Fedora or Suse offer you probably end up with more cd's then 5.

I use two fixed hard drives. I never liked to partition a drive because I alway figured if the drive dies the partitions will do no good anyways.

This is what the program shows;

SiSoftware Sandra

General Information

Controller : 1

Bus : 0

Target ID : 1

Logical Unit No. : 0

General Capabilities

Channel : Slave

Type : ATA

Removable : No

Model : ST380013AS

Revision : 3.18

Serial Number : 5JV72A5S

ATA/ATAPI Approved Version : 6.27

Cache Size : 8MB

Drive Geometry

CHS Geometry : 16383 x 16 x 63

CHS Total Sectors : 16514064

LBA Total Sectors : 156301488

Number of ECC Bytes : 4

Capacity : 75GB

Translation Mode Geometry

CHS Geometry : 9729 x 255 x 63

Bytes Per Sector : 512 byte(s)

Properties

IORDY Support : Yes

IORDY Disableable : Yes

LBA Support : Yes

DMA Support : Yes

Features

S.M.A.R.T Support : Yes

Security Support : Yes

Power Management Support : Yes

ACPI Power Management Support : No

Power-up in Standby : No

Packet Command Interface : No

Removable Media : No

Look-Ahead Buffer : Yes

Write-Back Cache : Yes

Host Protect Area : Yes

Microcode Update : Yes

Acoustic Management : No

48-bit LBA : Yes

Device Config Overlay : Yes

Active Features

S.M.A.R.T Enabled : Yes

Security Enabled : No

Power Management Enabled : Yes

Look-Ahead Buffer Enabled : Yes

Write-Back Cache Enabled : Yes

Host Protect Area Enabled : Yes

S.M.A.R.T Information

Version : 1.01

ATA Commands Support : Yes

ATAPI Commands Support : Yes

S.M.A.R.T Commands Support : Yes

S.M.A.R.T Data

Raw Read Error Rate (01) : 23192 (Threshold 6; Worst 72; Maximum 59)

Spin-up Time (03) : 0 (Threshold 0; Worst 98; Maximum 97)

Start/Stop Count (04) : 124 (Threshold 20; Worst 100; Maximum 100)

Re-Allocated Sector Count (05) : 0 (Threshold 36; Worst 100; Maximum 100)

Seek Error Rate (07) : 39885 (Threshold 30; Worst 84; Maximum 60)

Power-On Time Count (09) : 7808 (Threshold 0; Worst 92; Maximum 92)

Spin Retry Count (0A) : 0 (Threshold 97; Worst 100; Maximum 100)

Power Cycle Count (0C) : 2936 (Threshold 20; Worst 98; Maximum 98)

Drive Temperature (C2) : 48 (Threshold 0; Worst 48; Maximum 61)

ECC Corrected Count (C3) : 23192 (Threshold 0; Worst 72; Maximum 59)

Pending Sector Count (C5) : 0 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 100)

Un-Correctable Sector Count (C6) : 0 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 100)

CRC Error Count (C7) : 0 (Threshold 0; Worst 200; Maximum 200)

Write Error Rate (C8) : 0 (Threshold 0; Worst 100; Maximum 253)

TCA : 2 (Threshold 0; Worst 98; Maximum 251)

Environment Monitor(s)

Disk Temperature : 48.0°C / 118.4°F

Transfer Modes Support

Block Size : 16

Width : 16-bit

Maximum PIO Mode : PIO-4

Maximum DMA MW Mode : MWDMA-2

Maximum UDMA Mode : UDMA-6

Transfer Modes Active

Current Block Transfer : 16

Current Active Mode : UDMA-6

I'm going to need the controller's information.