Due to necessity, I installed ubuntu 7.04 on a hard drive using a compaq computer, then removed and reinstalled the hd into an e-machine. Upon boot, after 5-10 minutes, this message appears: 270.489670 <0> Kernel Panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt. Tried to install ubuntu on top of itself by booting up from an ubuntu 7.04 cd in the e-machine; the bios set to boot from CD. This failure happens much faster. There are a bunch of characters like a memory dump, last entry being 36.790182 Segmentation Fault. The e-machine doesn't seem to like this O.S. change, is there some proprietary bios code that prevents this? This hard drive works in the compaq... nice clean install & update. I'm standing by with a soldering iron, ready to rip out that bios chip--- just give me the circuit board coordinates! Really, any ideas? Its heavy enough to be a canoe anchor...
Ubuntu often does this. I can't get it to install in any way on some of my machines. Try the boot time options like NO ACPI. If I remember right you press F2 for options at the first boot prompt. You would have a better time with debian.. honest.
I tried the netinstall, the daily build, the server and the alternate.. the only one that attempted to install is a very old 5.1.0 which is a joke. it booted to a blank screen after messing me about for over an hour. It seems that ubuntu doesn't like dell machines. Try seeking answers on the ubuntu forums.
