I'm trying to install Debian 5.0.5 on my brand new gateway laptop but it complains about not being able to mount or read from the CD-ROM. I was talking to some people and they said that it might be because Debian isn't updated that regularly. This is getting really annoying now and I'm looking for some help. The BIOS is configured correctly but nothing I try is working! Any help appreciated!

Try using Ubuntu 10.04, it's pretty much the same as Debian (Debian based), and has a great area of support. :)

I'm using it now, and I love it. :D

Try installing the testing version instead. Despite the name, it's a good deal more stable than just about anything else (enterprise distros with several decades of support for old releases aside) in the Linux world, especially now that it's frozen. Ubuntu is based on Debian's unstable version (which is the next step after testing, and still pretty stable) FWIW.

I'd also recommend installing from a USB stick instead; I've had trouble before with Debian not detecting obscure laptop CD drives. There is a handy guide available; I'd suggest the unetbootin method, as that's by far the easiest one.

Yeah, I was going to use the USB stick method (for Ubuntu) but my computer doesn't support USB-boot. :/

Thanks guys, I'm not the biggest fan of anything *buntu! I think I'll go with Fedora. I've got a live version of it on a usb key at the moment and I like it a lot. Thanks for yere help!

Quote: Original post by soitsthateasy
Thanks guys, I'm not the biggest fan of anything *buntu! I think I'll go with Fedora. I've got a live version of it on a usb key at the moment and I like it a lot. Thanks for yere help!

Awesome, good to hear! I hope you enjoy your distro!

By the way, I have used Fedora before, and it was pretty fun - so I'm sure you'll have a good time. [smile]

I use Fedora full time on all my computers so post back if you have any more troubles :).

I actually am having some problems with fedora. My machine is 64-bit with 4 gigs of RAM. I shouldn't have any speed issues whatsoever but it's running ridiculously slow! It takes a good 20 seconds to load a web-page where it would normally load it in 5 or 6 seconds!
Any fix?

Hmm I haven't had that problem, though I've heard of others having it. Are other things slow, or just Firefox? If it's just Firefox, you could try this which seems to work for some people.

Dude! Worked like a charm :D
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