I have recently installed Ubuntu 8.10 on a new Toshiba laptop. I
first tried using 8.04 that I obtained from a book I purchased with no
luck. Like your post indicates, I went through the language setting
and such and then nothing!. I found that if I could not run from the
live CD then I had no hope of installation. With 8.10, I made sure I
could run from live CD which has an option to install. I would make
sure that the linux runs from the CD. I found different live CD
versions worked on some computers but not others.