Well if it were software, it would work the same on both systems unless it were a driver dependency problem.
But once you have reached package install, you can be defeated by only a few things and none of them are software. 1. CDRW media used to burn the isos. CDRWs are necessarily a little different in configuration than pressed CDs or burned CD-Rs and consequently have a much higher failure rate for booting or for installing. I do not say they will not work; it is just less likely that they will in this application. They are still great for audio or for data backup. (remember install has to be able to load its kernel modules from a floppy so its driver range is more limited). 2. Burn rate of CDs very high (like 12x) combined with a high-speed CD reader. The higher speed the reader is, the greater its sensitivity to hand-burned as opposed to pressed CD. The greater the burn rate the greater the probability of eccentric tracks and other bugaboos. 3. Modern CDROM drives... The extreme cost sensitivity of the computer market has induced some amazing shortcuts by manufacturers so they can survive. Lower quality to lower cost is an OK credo when the OS is likely to be blamed anyway. IF you can, try a different Drive or try different media ,,, I builmy systems with CDRW drives or DVD drives even though it is more expensive or I go to the trouble to find unused surplus 8X CDROMs to obtain reliability. 4. The hard disk drive. I have seen messages like "Seems like memory missing as the installer crashes" because the hard disk drive wouldn't perform properly at ATA/66. Using a 40-pin cable solved that one but I replaced the drive as soon as I could do so (the 40-pin IDE cable forces ATA/33 or lower). There is a single brand that is notorious for this sort of performance and they explicitly state that their drives are only supported for Windows or Solaris. You can usually buy them for a few cents a Megabyte cheaper, and they are no bargain if you plan to use linux, or anything above a 33MHz data rate over the cable from motherboard to drive. 5. Memory. This is a rare occurrence since usually a memory problem is spotted earlier in the process, but it is relatively easy to test for if you can use your install disk for a rescue boot. Just hit F1 at the splash screen and type 'rescue' without the quotes, Once the prompt comes up, # mount /mnt/cdrom Put a blank floppy in # dd if=/mnt/cdrom/images/memtest-x86.bin of=/dev/fd0 then remove the CD when the process finishes and type # reboot The floppy will run a _thorough_ memory test without disturbing any installed systems. If you have windows on the machine you can use the rawwrite.exe or rawwritewin.exe in the \dosutils directory to make the memtest floppy from the \images\memtest-x86.bin. The use is still the same; just boot from it. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Install is much more likely to fail on the detection section or on installing video drivers and testing them (we remain behind in including drivers for the hardware being introduced and sold as we are sending the distro for pressing--notably the ProSavage built-in on motherboard for some Athlons had no linux driver at release time, or at least none we could include for licensing reasons). Anyway, if it installs on one machine, it should not fail during package installation on another for software reasons. We are under intense time pressure and it is usually easier to part the Red Sea than to change a release date, because the idea is to survive and to provide bleeding-edge software in a relatively easy to use format, but so it is true for all the hardware manufacturers as well, survival before all else. And they have been spoiled by years of bad software so that lowering quality or cutting a few corners in hardware is not noticeable because it doesn't change the default behavior of old windows systems. Linux runs on hardware built to standards. Lots of hardware isn't, and the fact is concealed by pairing the dodgy hardware with software drivers (to "enhance" performance, of course) which are usually only available for windows. Linux, not just this distro, is faced with applying plain vanilla built-for-standard drivers to hardware that needs special drivers to meet the standards. So that is often the source of the problem for which the user is very ready to blame us. Well, folks, we aren't the ones becoming obscenely wealthy from the computer industry.... Civileme
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