Setting up Fedora 7 on a ex-Windows machine (Ottawa)

[James]

On 2 Feb 2008, at 19:17, Brad Paulsen wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-02-02 at 10:39 -0800, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> James wrote:
>> I'm looking for help in getting Fedora 7 to run on a Sony Vaio PCG-
>> GRT796HP laptop that used to run Windows.

> Have you tried installing from the LiveCD?

Hi Brad,

Thanks for your suggestion.

What LiveCD do you recommend that I should use?  I've found these two:

http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/8/Live/i686/Fedora-8-Live-i686.iso
http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/8/Live/i686/Fedora-8-Live-KDE-i686.iso

What is the difference between the KDE and the non-KDE versions?

1) Using Fedora-8-Live-i686.iso, after a certain amount of text  
feedback, I get a screen full of red columns divided by green lines,  
with two black boxes.  This remains for a while; I then get a brief  
glimpse of more text including the word "Werewolf".  The screen then  
changes to a cross between an alert in the Matrix and a neon  
advertisement for pickled Chinese jellyfish.  We then move on to a  
micro-budget sequence from 2001: a Space Oddity.  By the time the disk  
activity has stopped, I get a flashing apricot and saturated blue  
screen.  Pressing the Tab or Enter keys has no observable effect.

My 8-year-old daughter finds all these digital pyrotechnics pretty,  
but they don't help install Linux.


2) Using Fedora-8-Live-KDE-i686.iso, I get the following output:

   ..MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to I0-APIC
   Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 3622
   ... (more in the same vein)
   Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block 3627
   Bug in intramfs /init detected. Dropping to a shell. Good luck!

   bash: no job control in this shell
   bash-3.2# _


3) Trying again with Fedora-8-Live-KDE-i686.iso, I get:

   ..MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to I0-APIC
   Buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block <numbers between  
178736 and 178756>

   --------------------------------------
   WARNING: Cannot find root file system!
   --------------------------------------

   Create symlink /dev/root and then exit this shell to continue the  
boot sequence.

   bash: no job control in this shell
   bash-3.2# _

I've found this page: <http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php? 
pid=100014> where a similar issue is discussed, and a solution is  
proposed.  The difference is that the solution expects the source to  
be on a usb key rather than a CD-ROM.  How can I find where the CD is  
mounted?

I've tried using the find command to locate a file which I know exists  
on the CD-ROM, but bash responds:

   bash: find: command not found

Thanks in advance,

James