I found an old red hat linux boot floppy that I had kicking around. I forgot I even had it and don't know if I could find the install disks.

The comp will try and boot from the floppy though. I'm pretty sure that my new comp doesn't have any way to hook up an ide floppy drive so I probably can't make one for Ubuntu. If I have to I will open up the new comp and see.

Could I install red hat, assuming I have the disks and then install ubuntu over top of that once i get the linux comp up and running?

Or I am making things way too complicated and should just give up?

After much searching on Google I found that if I press F8 during start up it gives me menu options for which device to boot from. For me, the random numbers and letters choice is the cdrom.

It has detected the cd and is currently stuck at the Where are you? screen.

Hopefully I will have more positive progress to report soon.

Nero.

In addition to needing to hit F8 it would appear I had a bad disk drive. I replaced it and Ubuntu is in the process of installing right now

All is now working fine.

Thank You for all your patience and suggestions all who chimed in.