So, it's been a few days since I updated the status of my "Old Windows Desktop to New Ubuntu Server" project. That is because the project is temporarily on hold until I figure out what I want to do. Let me explain...
Where last we left, I was receiving a bunch of error message that we preventing me from booting. Turns out, the next time I attempted to boot, I still received the errors, but the boot process continued and I was presented with the command prompt. Woo-hoo! Ubuntu 7.04 Server Edition was running on my desktop. Next step was to install a GUI over the command prompt so I could find my way around, I am new to Linux, so I need a little more than just the command prompt. Only problem is, I was unable to install a GUI. I did a few searches and followed some forum guidelines, but nothing worked.
Plan two, install Ubuntu 7.04 Desktop and then the server features I need later. I was successfully able to install Ubuntu Desktop, able to connect to the internet, and the first phase of my project seemed complete. Phase two, install MythTV. The actual install was easy enough, just run an apt-get command to install MythTV. The trouble came when trying to get my PixelView PlayTV Pro capture card to work. I don't remember ever getting that card up and running on the Windows box, and I couldn't think of the name of the card at the time to do a search for instructions, so I opened the box up to remove the card and find out what brand it was. When I put the card back in, BIOS was reporting a hardware error.
The BIOS Power menu was recording a 200+ degree Fahrenheit temperature coming from the power supply. Now, at 200 degrees, it should be throwing off some incredible heat, but the power supply was cool to the touch. I was able to bypass the BIOS warning, but the OS failed to load... the system locked up towards the beginning of the boot process. And not just from the hard drive either, the system locked up trying to boot from the Live CD. So, the problem is either the Power Supply sending a false temperature reading to the motherboard, or my motherboard is faulty, and I'm not convinced the memory I have isn't causing problems either, so it's either spend a bunch of money swapping out individual parts or just start from scratch and build a new system.
Right now I'm leaning towards building a new system, but I won't start that for a while. So, my series on Making an Ubuntu Server is now in standby mode to be picked up whenever I make a decision regarding my old PC.
