On Sun, 19 Mar 2006 12:04:15 -0800, elmarsadice wrote:

> COLM people,
> I am trying to learn to use Linux and have downloaded the BasicLinux
> program for the sunsite. My computer is a pentium 2 machine with 300+Mb
> of ram. I went through the instructions a given in the readme and got to
> the point where I can boot with the first fd but it will not load
> automatically. I must do a root hd=/dev/hda1 before it loads. I loaded
> lilo as prescribed but when I try to boot from the hd I just get a bunch
> of encoded gibberish and then it hangs. Anyone out there have any
> suggestions on how to get around this. I have used Knoppix on CD-ROM to
> verify the directory on the hda1 but it won't let me in. I get the
> permission denied message. Any help is appreciated in advance.

I've never heard of Basic Linux. You might want to use a mainstream Linux
distribution like Fedora Core, Suse, Mandriva or Ubuntu all of which have
excellent installers are less likely to screw things up. I'm using Fedora
Core 4, but nay of the distributions that I mentioned work well.