^_^ Ok, I am in the middle of trying to install multiple OS's (I have XP Media Center Pro and Ubuntu 7.04) and I realized that NO live cd's would boot.

SO, I decided to go ahead and put some of the things I learned about linux so far:

Life Lessons of Linux:
1. Check the MD5 sum of your linux distro before installing
(Or if your lazy, dont do it, but check this if it fails).

2. Burn your Linux CD's and/or DVD's at the slowest setting.
(Or if lazy, skip this, try it if it fails.)

3. Disconnect everything from you computer except for your mouse, keyboard, internet, power and monitor.
(Or if.. well, you know.)

4. Upgrade your BIOs Firmware in your working OS BEFORE trying to install a new one (Make sure you have the most recent BIOs version...)

5. Use GParted (see link here) and make a dual boot system FIRST before making an all linux one (So that you can look up answers to questions online if something goes wrong). Gparted lets you resize, move, add and delete partitions without loosing data (unless you delete of course)

6. If you are buying a video card, DO NOT BUY ATI. Linux HATES ATI. WINDOWS hates ATI. Nvidia's drivers are SO much better it is not even funny, and ATI will cause SO much pain... oh God the pain.

If you are having problems loading ANY live CD's, try the following:
1. Go into the bios, and press f5 (Or whatever) to reset it. Try again.

2. Go into the bios, and change the default video controller to the onboard video card instead of yours (Yeah, this is what I had to do).

3. If all that fails, and you DO NOT HAVE A FLOPPY DRIVE, try disabling the Floppy drive from bios. This works sometimes.

Other SubNotes:
1. Linux installs things by using repositories. These are web url's and so forth that you give your OS. Your OS can then see thousands of programs, and you can pick and choose any updates you want! Also, since your computer knows where it came from, it can auto detect updates FOR those programs. More logical than our XP Add/Remove program which doesn't add... it really is a Remove Program if you think about it.

2. Most Linux OS's are free. Almost all Linux programs are free. Just fyi.

3. Linux is a category, NOT an OS. There are THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of types of Linux, and there is also other systems like Unix and so forth.

4. Video cards are tough to install, ESPECIALLY ATI VIDEO CARDS. However there are lots of tutorials available online for almost all OS's.

5. To do things in command line with the power of admin, type sudo.

Offer any lessons you learned from linux, and I will add em with your name!

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