I'm having some trouble installing Ubuntu 7.10 on my old PC. I downloaded Ubuntu, compared the checksums, and burned the ISO to a CD, per the instructions on the Ubuntu site. Everything here is fine, so I place the CD in the drive and switch the boot order in the BIOS to boot from the CD first, but when I proceed to boot my computer back up, it loads up the beginning screen that asks "Start or install Ubuntu, Start Ubuntu in Safe Graphics Mode, OEM Install, etc." and I select "Start/install Ubuntu." Well, the logo appears with a loading bar beneath it, and after about two minutes the screen goes completely black after the bar loads all the way, and it doesn't do anything at all after this. I looked at the help screen and it said that I need over 300 megs of memory for it to work, but I only have 256MB in this old thing. I'm currently downloading ver. 6.06 LTS of Ubuntu to see if that may work.

If anyone could help out I'd greatly appreciate it. If I didn't provide enough info please let me know. Thanks in advance.

Well I do believe you've pinpointed the problem yourself. When booting into LiveCD mode, it does not have a swap disk/file & can only rely on main memory of which you do not have enough so it can't even start.

After trying several different things to get Ubuntu to work, I got Xubuntu and managed to install it successfully. Thanks for the reply.

also, just as a side note. I installed ubuntu without any problems(and also booted the livecd without any problems) with a pc with 256mb. But I'm glad you got it to work.

also, if you want gnome as a desktop, the sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop(or kde-desktop) command should be enough.

Maybe try burning the ISO again at a slower speed? 256Mb is OK {though the minimum} to install Ubuntu.

XUbuntu is harder for noobs - Ubuntu itself has a much easier interface {not so many Command Lines!} and the Add/Remove Programs is a godsend.