[vox-tech] Strange Install Fail

[Bob Scofield]

After successfully installing Ubuntu 10.10 on my laptop I can't get it on my 
desktop.  I've made two attempts.  I get a message about some codecs 
(whatever they are) missing.  

The install seems to go well. The problem starts when I try to log in.  After 
logging in, the screen appears to try to take me to the desktop, and then it 
reverts back to the login screen.  After the first install I could actually 
see the desktop begin to appear before the screen reverted back to the login 
screen.

The following evidence led me to concluded, erroneously I think, that I had a 
memory problem.

In addition to Windows, I have a third Linux partition where I have Kubuntu 
with KDE 4.1 or 4.2.  When that system upgraded to kernels after 
2.6.28-15-generic the same problem of not getting past the login screen 
happened.  Thus I was unable to get past the login screen with these kernels: 
2.6.28-17, 2.6.31-20, 2.6.31-22.  But I've got no problem with 2.6.28-15.  
(Yesterday I removed the three problematic kernels to make the GRUB screen 
less messy when I did my installs.)

According to Windows, I've got 1.46 MB of RAM.  Here is the output of 
free -t -m:

            total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1487        430       1056          0         16        254
-/+ buffers/cache:        159       1328
Swap:         1027          0       1027
Total:        2514        430       2084

So I doubt memory is the problem.

After this failure I reinstalled my old Kubuntu and I can get past the login 
screen with kernel 2.6.24-28-generic.

Does anyone have an explanation for this strange problem of not getting beyond 
the login screen?  I'm obviously no expert, but I keep thinking I've got a 
hardware problem that will not allow me to run the more recent kernels.  And 
that is preventing me from installing Ubuntu 10.10.

Thank you.

Bob