Tried to install Ubuntu 11.10 on a laptop today and all I kept getting was a blinking cursor on the initial boot screen for the thumb drive. I did some digging and found that the thumb drive I was using was either too small or not meant to boot up. The website, http://pendrivelinux.com had a little app that you could install and boot the thumb drive to, to determine whether or not it works as a bootable device here. After realizing that the thumb drive was the issue, I tossed in a larger drive, 8GB and used the installer directions on Ubuntu’s website and was off and running.
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download
