Help with 8.10 install, please?

[SanDiegoSeahawk]

Hi,

I know there have been multiple postings for this question but I am at a loss. I am trying to install a new 8.10 system. With the standard install CD, (which I've downloaded from several sources and burned) I am dropped into the BusyBox with an (initramfs) prompt.

I've tried the alternate CD as well and I get a black screen with a blinking cursor in the corner.

I have a couple of large IDE drives and 4 1TB SATA drives. Somebody mentioned that the blinking cursor may be related to this.

I'm not a linux newb by any means. I've been messing around with Linux for years. I currently have GenToo installed on this computer and it works fine. I was interested in moving to a more mainstream distribution but I can't even get out of the starting gate with installing Ubuntu, its very frustrating.

My video is VIA S3 so I suspect that may be an issue with a graphical-based install but I can't seem to get Ubuntu to even do a command line install from the alternate CD.

This really is either very frustrating or very embarrassing.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Mike

[SanDiegoSeahawk]

Looks like I just wasn't waiting long enough. I just the ascii "choose language" screen.

My bad.

Mike

[SanDiegoSeahawk]

Related question:

Given my video hardware (VIA S3), should I assume that I need to do a command line install of Ubuntu and then install the VIA drivers and get X working after the fact? Its been a while but I think thats what I had to do with Gentoo.

Thanks,

MIke

[SanDiegoSeahawk]

For the record, I got quite a bit farther.

I ditched the alternate install CD and tried the "all_generic_ide" kernel parameter with 'safe graphics mode' and its installing fine (so far).