Ultra n00b question

Having just read Neal Stephenson's "In The Beginning Was The Command Line" I decided to get a taste of Linux. Knoppix seemed like a good place to start.

Now, this may be an incredibly stupid question, but - please - be gentle. :(

I have Knoppix on a CD, and I get to the initial boot screen. I press enter, and I see a screen with the Penguin in the top left.

...and that's it. I waited 15 minutes and nothing changed. Just a black screen with a Penguin in the corner. Am I not doing something?

Here's my system info, which may (or may not) be relevant:

Processor
Model: 1x AMD Athlon(tm) Processor
Socket/Slot: SOCKET A (Other)
Frequency: 1200 MHz
FSB Speed: 133 MHz
Vendor: Advanced Micro Devices
L1 Cache: 128 KB
L2 Cache: 256 KB

Mainboard
Model: <A7M266>
5 x PCI: 32 bit
1 x I/O Riser Card Slot: 32 bit
1 x AGP 4X: 32 bit

System BIOS
Vendor: Award Software, Inc.
Version: ASUS A7M266 ACPI BIOS Revision 1004A
Date: 06/12/2001
Size: 256 KB

Video System
Monitor: ViewSonic P775
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce2
Screen Resolution: 1600x1200 32 bit

Physical Storage Device
Hard Disk: WDC WD800JB-00FSA0
Hard Disk: QUANTUM FIREBALLP AS20.5
CD-ROM/DVD: HP CD-Writer+ 9100
CD-ROM/DVD: MATSHITA DVD-ROM SR-8587
CD-ROM/DVD: Generic DVD-ROM SCSI CdRom Device

Logical Storage Device
Main ( C: ): 76308 MB (25855 MB Free) NTFS
iPod ( F: ): 19587 MB (3811 MB Free) NTFS

try the failsafe method of boot up (when you get to the boot screen type failsafe) if that works then some peice of hardware is causing the problem. BTW which knoppix version are you useing as sometimes people get the earlier versions.

v3.3

Thanks, I'll try that.

Check that the CD itself is not corrupt - when the boot screen comes up, press 'F2'. This will diplay all boot codes - use the one for testing CD, e.g. if that was 'testcd' you'd type 'knoppix testcd'.

>Knoppix testcd gives me the same problem. A black screen with the penguin in the top left, and nothing more.

>failsafe Shows me a bunch of loading code, which then stops at:

pty:256 unix98 pty configured

And then stops.

your iso could be corrupt. try to burn at a lower speed.

check the md5sum, so you can check if your dowloaded file is ok

try another distribution:

slax
feather linux
damn small linux
mandrake move
overclockix