where is it freezing? what distributions have you tried and what versions?

well i had ubuntu 7.04 installed. And when it booted it would load to the third bar on the loading screen and would freeze there.

try a different distribution. not every distro will work the same with all hardware. this is why i cant stress enough that it is up to the user to find out which distro they like, not to have the most popular pushed down everyones throat like its MS Windows or something. what works for one person may not work for another.

Try Knoppix. Make sure that SATA/IDE is set to legacy mode and ACPI aka power management is disabled.

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

 

Try SimpleMEPIS 6.5, it can be downloaded from mepis.org. If the live cd will boot ok then it should work fine after being installed. Have you tried booting the Ubuntu live cd?

Message Edited by ByCo on 07-24-2007 04:37 PM

I agree with sakuramboo on this comment, I have an Optiplex SX280 and not all Linux packages work in fact Debain and Solaris would not configure at all on this machine. My own pref is Mandriva/Gnome first followed by Suse 10.2 as far as Ubuntu goes I would only put it on my childrens computers. For Dell to limit distribution to only one OS on machines they select means that they still do not get it.

Trying Live distributions should be a first step.

http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

Freespire is another I would try.

http://www.freespire.org/

 

 

 

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@Tux_Head wrote:
as far as Ubuntu goes I would only put it on my childrens computers. For Dell to limit distribution to only one OS on machines they select means that they still do not get it.

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Elitism and name calling belongs in Redmond, not here.

The point of ubuntu is to help people transition from windoze. I have a few converts. Only I push kubuntu on them.

That Dell does any consumer linux at all is more than admirable. And shows they "get it". Do you have any clue about customer service? Probably only Vista is more difficult to give support to. Dell had to engineer their computer and distribution to match -- and then generate the support for it. Not a trivial task.

dell used to offer desktops and laptops to come pre-installed with GNU/Linux back in early 2002, yet Microsoft twisted their arms to get them to stop. dell HAD IT and let someone with more say in the industry (which happened to be the biggest competitor to the adoption of GNU/Linux) dictate to them what they should offer.

http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/66081

I have a used Optiplex C110 with 512 MB memory. I tried Xubuntu and Ubuntu (live and alternate) with no luck. Suse and Centos were washouts. Knoppix won't boot. PClinuxOS didn't do much. gparted runs. Ubuntu 6.06 and 6.10 and Debian Etch (netboot) installed with no problem. I volunteer for a charity repairing and setting up donated computers. For some reason gparted won't run on some of the machines we get in. Ubuntu 5.04 Live (I think if I remember correctly) runs on some of the machines that gparted won't run on. It's a fact of life. If you want to run Linux on some of the machines, you might need to try several distros to find one that works. Earl