Only scattered letters show in system menus

[XpRefugee]

I'm trying out Linux Lite from a live DVD on a Dell Dimension 2350 that previously ran XP.  Only onboard video display.    I see the desktop, and I can see the desktop menus but they are unreadable because most of the letters are missing. Not only in the menus, but also file names in the file manager. But Firefox runs fine.

I suspect the problem is that I didn't see any menus during boot, so I didn't get to choose a language.  Is that plausible? 

What I saw during boot:
Feather, auto boot in 8 secs
A few flashes.
Black screen w patterned rectangle top L, stayed on screen 2-3 secs.
Grey screen with Buddha profile and progress bar.
Black screen for 50 secs.
Cursor appeared on black screen, 3 secs.
Desktop, with feather , 3 icons at top L with garbled labels,and toolbar at bottom.

I have a little experience with Linux: I run Ubuntu Studio on my (much newer) laptop. But this font problem is new to me. Any suggestions? LX terminal is working, so can I fix language with some commands (if that's the problem)? Would I have the same problem if I were to install Linux Lite as dual-boot? (not sure how, since I can't understand the menus).

I have put linux lite on several of these machines i have found that the 1.0.6 version does not have this issue I do not know why???? PAE???
anyway You will have to connect a dvd drive to install it since these machines come with only CDROM Drives
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http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2200144