Need help installing linux on a Toshiba Satellite A215

[1759]

I've had this model for a couple of months - came with Vista, a AMD Turion 64 X2, 200 GB HD, ATi x1200 IGP, and I've upgraded it to 2 GB of RAM, and it runs perfectly fine - however I would like to dual boot it with a linux distro, but I just can't get any to install.

It uses an AMD 690M chipset, and when I run a live dvd, like Ubuntu (x86 or x64), the live session will load fine, but when I go to actually partition the hard drive, it just sits at 0% - resizing the partition infinitely, no matter what distro I've tried (Fedora, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, x86 and x64 variants, alternate cd...). They all see the hard drive correctly as well, a Toshiba model.

I've never had an issue installing linux before, so I'm pretty stumped as what the hold up is - I even checked the BIOS, but there is nothing wrong there. I did find this page, but it only mentions the ATi IGP and Atheros being non-standard, but there are work arounds for those:

http://www.linlap.com/wiki/Toshiba+Satellite+A215

I could dual boot my desktop, or run VMWare, but it's not the same. (virtual

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Carpo]

i have had issues like this with ubuntu beofre on both my old lapto (intel 845) and my amd box (amd 64 x2), simplest way is to bot the disc and select text installer from the menu, it will go though without issue then (hopefuly) or the other thing you could try is to download the alterative installer cd that they do

[Knife Party]

try Ubi-Ubuntu, it install while in your windows session, no partition, no fuss, 98% safe

just google it, its a great way of experiencing a lunix distro for a beginner