Me = Linux idiot. I need help. And maybe medication

I really want to give this Linux thing a try, but have found out I know very little. This is the story. I wander over to LinuxISrg and decide on Mandrake 9.0, and download the the following file-"Mandrake90-cd1-inst.i586" and the other two disc. I burn it to cd, restart the computer, set my cd-rom as first boot device, save and exit the bios, I hear the cd-rom make the spinny noises. This next part is where I get stumped.... NON BOOTABLE DISC, PLEASE INSERT BOOT DISC AND YADA YADA YADA. I downloaded all three disc and I'm under the impression the first disc is the install disc. I'm so used to being able to throw in a windows disc and run with it that i'm not even sure how to install linux. What do I need to do to get this installed? I have no idea.

Maybe there are some boot disks you can use. Does the CD show up OK in My Computer?

This is the system in your sig, right? If so, a modern system like that ought to be capable of boot from CD.

While creating the disks, did you tell your burning program to create a cd from an image, or did you just burn the iso to the disk? The latter way will not work, you have to specify that its an image.

DOH! thats what I did. I just copied the file to cd. I'm downloading nero right now

Don't feel alone, I [ and most linux newbies, like me! ] did the same thing. Burning instead of Burning image.

*chuckle*

Off topic but I just got the Red Hat Linux 7.3 Bible and it is loaded w/ info and looks to be very n00b friendly(I'm half n00b i guess, lol, I an use it to program, read mac disks, and surf da web, dats it maybe I'll have my server set up tonight as I instal RedHat7.3)