Dimension XPS T boxes won't run Karmic

[jso2897]

I have a couple of old Dell Dimension XPS boxes - a t500 and a t700. Thye have 500 & 700 mhz PIIIs, respectively. Karmic won't boot on either of them, when installed on the HD. It just starts Grub, and then states that it has an error, and that there is not able to load.
It's too bad, really, but I guess I'll have to give them up eventually anyway. They run great on 8.04, and that's supported until spring of '11, so I'm not going to worry about it. I guess they can't support legacy stuff forever.:(

[EvilPhoenix]

you tried it with Jaunty (9.04) to see if its a problem with the computer itself?

By the way, pentium 3 processors are SLOW. (off-topic)

[jso2897]

you tried it with Jaunty (9.04) to see if its a problem with the computer itself?

By the way, pentium 3 processors are SLOW. (off-topic)

Yeah - they run fine on Hardy, or XP. It's something with the old BIOS and Grub2, I'm thinking. Jaunty ran on one of them, anyway, before I upgraded it to Karmic. It's too much of a coincidence for two computers of the same make, model, and age to give the exact same error message. I'm not too upset about it. They run fine on XP and Hardy, respectively, and XP is supported until '14, and Hardy until '11. By then, those PCs will be over 12 years old. At some point, I'm going to have to let them die.

[jso2897]

So I got it to run on one of my old Dells - 500mhz PIII. It wouldn't run on a fresh install, so I loaded 8.04 onto it, and upgraded to 8.10, then to 9.04, and finally to 9.10. It boots, and appears to be running stably.
First time I've ever had an upgrade work better than a fresh install.