[NBLUG/talk] Installation problem

[Alan Bloom]

I used to have Ubuntu Linux dual-booted with Windows XP Pro but some 
time ago, after one of the automatic Ubuntu updates, the network card 
stopped working.  (It still worked fine under Windoze.)  I spent many 
hours trying solutions I found on the Internet but was never able to 
solve the problem.  I think it was version 11.something.

So now I am trying a clean install using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.  I already 
have two partitions set up on the hard disc and I want to install Linux 
on the second partition.  I tried using the installer program from the 
Ubuntu web site, but that insists on placing it in the same partition as 
Windows (as a Windows directory).

If you just do the normal download from the Ubuntu web site, what you 
get is a .iso file.  I tried putting that on a thumb drive and booting 
from that (the computer is set up to boot from USB).  When I do that I 
get a "boot:" prompt, but when I hit the ENTER key, I get an error 
message, "Could not find kernel image: linux".  I tried extracting the 
.iso file to the same thumb drive but it wouldn't boot from that either.

I also tried to store the .iso file to a CD-ROM but it is 4 or 5 Mbytes 
too large to fit on a CD.

I would be happy just to purchase the 12.04LTS CD from Ubuntu if I could 
be sure it would work.

Again, what I am trying to accomplish is to install Ubuntu into an 
already-existing partition on the hard disc.

Thanks,

Alan