Hey, I am currently trying to install a linux distro for the first time. I have a computer all ready running vista 32 bit home premium, an intel core 2 duo E8400 proc, an nvidia geforce8800 gt, an soundblaster xi-fi xtreme gamer, a seagate sata hdd and a sony ide dvd burner.
I succesfully installed debian from the net install cd, but then when i boot into it for the first time it hangs on the following messages:

ide-cd: cmd 0x5a timed out

hda: lost interrupt

I am new to linux and don't know what these mean, although I suspect it's something to do with my dvd drive. Can anybody help me?

You can temporarily unplug your optical drive and see if it works, or you can give Fedora or Ubuntu a test drive.

Fedora and Ubuntu are two of the best desktop distributions.

Debian is excellent but is primarily a server distribution.

http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/downloadmirrors

GL

splashmonkey, you are correct, it appears to be an optical drive issue.

As linux_0 suggested, you may want to disconnect the drive to see if that fixes the error message. Usually, this message is seen on an IDE channel where you have two devices or one that is incorrectly configured. You may want to switch device settings from CS to MS/SL or vice-versa and see if there is any improvement, I know it shouldn't make a difference but I have seen it solve problems in the past. You also may wish to review your BIOS settings in regards to the drive/channel in question, specifically UDMA/PIO and other akin settings.

Hope this helps and doesn't speak too harshly of the Linux experience (first time I've seen this problem, had to do some research on it myself).

As bmouring said it could be the drive jumpers or BIOS settings, it might also be a compatibility issue with the chipset.


Some very new IDE chipsets may have compatibility issues with Debian, especially if you are running an older version.

The latest version of Ubuntu { 8.04 } and Fedora { 9 } usually has better support for the latest hardware.

@splashmonkey in case you were unware of this both Fedora and Ubuntu have live CDs which you can use to check them out before actually installing anything on your computer.

GL

ok guys thanks for all the help so far...but now i have a new problem. I installed Fedora 9, but after i boot for the first time my monitor goes blank and just says "Signal out of Range 81.3 kHz/65 mHz" how do i fix this

Try ALT CTRL BACKSPACE ( not delete ) that will kill and restart the X server { Graphical User Interface ( GUI ) } .

Sometimes this will correct the signal out of range condition.

You can also try ALT CTRL - ( minus = adjust resolution down ) and ALT CTRL + ( plus = adjust resolution up )

If all this fails hit ALT CTRL F1

Log in as root

username "root"

password is whatever password you used during the install and is case sensitive just like the username

Once you get to the command prompt type in:

Then

When the graphical window opens select your monitor from the list, lower the resolution a bit if necessary and exit

When you go back to the command line

If it works, exit the GUI and go to runlevel 5 again or reboot ( ALT CTRL DEL )

The runlevels are:


# 0 - halt (Do NOT set initdefault to this)
# 1 - Single user mode
# 2 - Multiuser, without NFS (The same as 3, if you do not have networking)
# 3 - Full multiuser mode
# 4 - unused
# 5 - X11
# 6 - reboot (Do NOT set initdefault to this)


Runlevel 3 is the text only mode.

Runlevel 5 is X11 which is the GUI with all the nice graphical windows.

GL

ok i can get the monitor to display but its flickering constantly and quite hard on the eyes, how do i fix this?

all right ive got everything fixed! thanks so much for the help!!

Sweet

If you want the faster proprietary drivers for your 8800GT the easiest way to grab'em is to install the livna RPM and install them with yum.


Applications -> System Tools -> Terminal


At the command prompt run "su - " and type in the root password to become root. The password does not appear when you type it and there are no *'s or anything, this is for security reasons.

Your prompt should now look like [root@your_computer ~]#

Now let's install the fastest mirror pluggin to speed up software updates and installs.

and fetch and install the livna RPM

Finally try to install the nvidia drivers

System -> Shutdown -> Restart


If all goes well you should have the nvidia drivers after the restart.

If something goes wrong you can log in as root using text mode as you did previously and "yum remove kmod-nvidia"

GL

splashmonkey,

Glad to hear you sorted out most of your issues. I guess when you initially posted about what distro, I should've asked a little about the hardware itself. As you found out in the other thread, you can get X-Fi working through some work, so once you get a working on-board sound setup (so you have something to fall back on), you might want to try getting X-Fi working since you seemed to kinda get some nitty-gritty experience. As always, we can provide assistance if you decide to take a walk on the wild side, so to speak.