Dell Multi-Boot Problem

[Novice]

Hi, All
A few months ago, I bought a new computer when my old one just couldn't cut it anymore. I got a Dell n-530, one of those boxes they were selling then (maybe still are selling) without an operating system. It was marketed as being for "working in a DOS environment". I added a nice graphics card and Ubuntu makes full use of it. I installed Ubuntu Studio, then added KDE, and a few other odds & ends, and all seemed to be going well. I had the partitions on two drives all laid out in advance, because I knew I was gonna want to install several distributions and FreeBSD.

Then I tried to install another OS. Nothing went right. I am unable to get any OS other than Ubuntu to work - at all. interestingly, every flavor of Ubuntu has done just fine, working as it should. But Fedora 7, Slackware, Debian, Suse, Mandriva, The BSDs (Free, Open, & Net) each found its own way to fail. Some got all the way through the installation, but then refused to boot. One or two of these didn't get all the way through the install program.

I'm thinking the problem must lie in the Dell. I've read, too late, that the processor ( Intel Core 2 duo ) is buggy.

I would love to hear suggestions. Any thoughts on why all the Ubuntu variations work properly when nothing else will? Ahhh - don't ya just love a mystery?

Thanks!

[nounou]

hi,
I have no real clue...but for me it was the oposite ubuntu didn't agree to install on my machine...nor mandriva....until I did a nolapic option on install (or noapic) then it went fine...I had nice freezes a different moment of the installwith any of the os...(that was on a hp laptop)
On my main machine (core 2 duo E6600 chipset P35) no way to install ubuntu 7.04
and having network working...don't know for 7.10 but mandriva 2008 went like a charm...
maybe you would like to look in your bios and make sure there are no funny parameters somewhere.
edit: by the way the core2duo is I think not buggy at all, actually it is the best I ever had...good capacity and low temps,

[Novice]

Thanks, nounou!
At this point, I consider any little clue as better than present status.
I'm off to look up "noapic". Who knows -- that might be it!