just installed ubuntu edgy on my hp desktop, and now won't boot, just makes a long beep and no start, no bios nothing. maybe a second pause between long beeps. anyone know what's up?

No BIOS even? Wow, didn't think that was possible without hardware problems

If you get no BIOS information, it's bad. And if your BIOS beeps to you (more than the usual short one), it means you do have hardware trouble; your operating system shouldn't have anything to do with this matter since even the bootloader is not even called before BIOS is finishing up. Those beeps you hear are BIOS's way of warning that something is wrong; if you happen to find a manual of it or something, there might be explained what kind of beeps mean what (as far as I know, there are different "beep warnings" for different reasons, i.e. for missing input devices like keyboard etc.)

Next step is to start deducing what part of your hardware might be failing. Does your power source run all right? If you plug out devices you don't necessarily need, like pci cards (modems, soundcards, ...), does it help? Do you have another HD you know is working that you could try with, switch your current one to it and see if that helps? How about your screen, can you test it on some other computer (I'm not sure but it could be BIOS warns you if you have no screen set and it's set up to warn you in that case; unprobable, but possible).

Really no idea with this information. But most probably it is hardware problem, if you don't get the regular memory checks and other BIOS information.

Not improbable, my BIOS on my old rig used to beep like crazy and refuse to bootup whenever my graphics card was loose.

ok, so I went step by step and took every peripheral item out and still the long beep with a second pause. i don't think it's the screen or memory, what else? It's a foxconn motherboard that came with my HP btw

I'm not sure what to say about this... Usually when your BIOS beeps at you it means there's no memory present, but I've seen a lot of BIOSes that beep for a loose video card, too, but other than that i dunno. most BIOSes will POST without any HDD or monitor, and I don't think many BIOSes are smart enough to beep without a processor. The first thing I'd do is reseat the memory and video card (if any), and if that doesn't fix it, try replacing each one at a time.