installing linux

hi every body ,that is my 1st post to that great website
i faced a proplem while i just started instaling linux,which was a message says cd room is not supported ,or no cd rom found ,i have dell inspiron e1505 ,and i have the dos driver for my cdroom so the question is ...how i can use that driver to let linux installer to detect my cdroom?

Linux normally supports out of the box any CDROM drive. Unless you have something really exotic, you don't have to bother with any driver. Which Linux distribution did you try to install and in what stage of the installation did the error occur?

Linux normally supports out of the box any CDROM drive. Unless you have something really exotic, you don't have to bother with any driver. Which Linux distribution did you try to install and in what stage of the installation did the error occur?

Actually I've used 3 versions of linux before and they've never been able to support my CDrom's or Drivers for most out of the box equipment.

But their are special patches you can buy off linux vendors to fix this problem. Just Google it and do the research for the particle patch or software you might need to buy.

There are plenty of resources on linux out there.

But having said that this is the very reason I just stick to windows just because its less hassle for compatibility.

i used different versions of linux like mandrake, suse, redhat. and installed so many systems in our college hostel. but never fetched such problem!
looking forward for the problem!!

yeah ive run into problems using mandrake and redhat and OS X linux

but it also depends on the machines hardware my pc isnt stock at all its 100% custom made so i run into conflicts over my agp graphics cards and things of that nature.

can any one sent me the details about the linux installation ... now my computer is working in winXP .. i need to change the operating system in linux...do i formate my HDD for installing LINUX