My life of woe with ubuntu

[gaspros]

Hello Ubutnu world, I am a somewhat experienced windows PC user. I have built my first PC yesterday and I wanted to load up the latest and greatest Ubuntu on it. This is a brand new machine I put together on the cheap and I plan on using it as an HTPC with XBMC or somesuch.

My specs are as follows:
Intel Pentium Dual Core E6500 CPU, 2.93 GHz, FSB 1066MHz, Socket LGA775
ASRock G41C-VS M/board - Intel G41+ICH7, COMBO DDR2+DDR3, 1333 MHz FSB, PCIE, int VGA, SATAII, 5.1Ch
2GB DDR3 PC-10600 (1333MHz)
500GB Hitachi 7200rpm PATA HD

So I try loading up Ubuntu 9.10 64bit version and it gets precisely nowhere. Just crap on the screen (numbers and codes) with something about end trace, then it just stops.
This is a live CD install and also tried the regular install. Get nowhere, same thing.
So I figure that maybe x64 is not such a good idea. So I burn another CD with x86 on it.
Same process. Live CD and the regular install. I end up at some command prompt which I have no idea what to do with. There is nothing on the screen that says something obvious like error or failed to load or anything. Just some instructions on how to find help. After hours of reading everything I can find I try typing in startx which then gives me a completely blank screen. Yeh!!!
So maybe 9.10 is just too new and not ready for prime time. So 9.04 x86 burned and ready to go. Blow me over with a slight breeze it boots. It installs. It looks good. It does things, many things I am impressed this is what everyone is talking about. Wow.
It tells me there is a new version and that I should update, I agree lets get the latest new and improved. Sometime later after a reboot splat. Same crap.

Lots more reading and I am guessing its got something to do with the motherboard or the onboard Video which is G41 chipset and Intel gma x4500.

So can anybody help.
I am thinking rollback (except I dont know how) or re-install 9.04 and never update it!
Or go out and buy Windows7 but damit I dont want to let this thing beat me!

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Alias1407]

Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10) was the release that changed Ubuntu, you could say that Karmic Koala (in my opinion) was the worst Ubuntu distro ever released. Sure it looked pretty but didn't function as an OS. My suggestion is run a 32-bit 9.04 version of Ubuntu and don't upgrade to the newer OS. I'm running that right now and it's absolutely fantastic.

[gaspros]

OK, thanks for the advice. I will reload 9.04 since it worked. I will try and avoid upgrading anything related to the operating system. Last time I checked it did seem to want to upgrade a whole lot of other stuff which seem to be programs so I will have to try and see.

If anybody else has some specific help for my hardware configuration running on Ubutnu 9.10 I would like to know what you did to get it to work. If you got it to work!!

[Alias1407]

You can upgrade the programs running on Ubuntu 9.04 without needing to upgrade to the latest version. If the update manager pops up just don't click "A new version is available, Upgrade Now"

I would avoid Ubuntu 9.10 at all costs. For some people it works great and for others (such as myself and many of my friends) it fails to function as an OS.

[gaspros]

Can you rollback or do I have to re-install? I can access Grub and select the previous version which works. Is there someway to rollback or make it so it auto selects the versions that actually boots?

[Alias1407]

If you can access it from GRUB then you can edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to put the version you want at the top of the list. Otherwise you will have to re-install.

[gaspros]

I can access Grub , So I will try doing this. Will let you know how it goes. Thanks

[mastablasta]

You could try the 10.04 beta.
There seems to be an issue in 9.10 that for some reason it doens't install on computers where 9.04 worked flawlesly. the workaround was to use alternate install. installing without graphical interface, so you can load propper drivers before starting up the GUI. not sure if it would work in your case.

also you could just buy an older model of video card that is compatible with Linux. they are cheap and a whole lot better than the newest intel chips (although as i know intel GPU does have Linux support).

[quinnten83]

Can you rollback or do I have to re-install? I can access Grub and select the previous version which works. Is there someway to rollback or make it so it auto selects the versions that actually boots?

<snip>
i have 9,10 installed on several computers and they all have been working like a peach.
run a checksum on your live CD's.
<snip>
If ubuntu isn't working, try another distro. look on distrowatch.com.
check ubuntuguide.org to see if any of your problems are addressed there. Seems to me you should not be having that many problems if you are running on intel chips, altough there is an intel bug, but i thought that was with the graphics card. If you are adventurous try with lucid beta. Maybe the bug affecting you got solved in that version.

[gaspros]

Sure Ubuntu 9.10 works on many a system just not on my current config. I have really spent hours looking around in these forums and reading the newbie advice. I will try the places you suggested but I dont want to try other distros. Might give Lucid a try though probably via the live CD after I have re-installed 9.04. I did find that Intel have updated drivers on one of their sites. I seem to be running xf86-video-intel 2.9.0 and there is a 2.10.0 out but I can find out how to install this. Seems I would have to compile the source myself and I am just not upto the task. Still trying to figure out how to edit Grub right now to save the re-install.