I am having difficulty installing SL4.4 on a new machine.  The
relevant hardware details are:

Motherboard + processor: Intel D965SSCK Core 2 Duo 6300 2MB cache
Hard disk: 160GB - ST3160811AS -  7200rpm Serial ATA Seagate
Network card: Intel PCI 10/100/1000MB Ethernet card (the motherboard
    also has onboard networking)

When I boot from the boot CD and press Return at the boot prompt, the
install hangs at

PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)

Searching the archives suggested typing "linux all-generic-ide
pci=nommconf" at the boot prompt, though I am not clear what these
options mean.  This got past the freeze, but it seems that there is
also some kind of trouble with networking.  If the onboard network
socket is connected up, networking does not appear to work at all (the
machine is not pingable).  If the network card is connected up, the
machine is pingable but won't get past the "FTP Setup" screen in the
install process.  Using the http install option instead gave an error
message: "Unable to retrieve... stage2.img".

I also tried installing SL305 on this machine as I have installed it
on several Dell Optiplex GX620s with no trouble in the past.  There
was no freeze early on (and no need for special options) but I had
much the same networking problems - not pingable using the onboard
networking, "Failed to connect to FTP server" using the PCI network
card.

Any clues on what is happening here?  Also, can anyone explain why it
seems that there are so many hardware pitfalls one can encounter while
attempting to install Linux?
Eva.