liudr:
OK, so far so good. Somehow the CD verify process failed during burning but the ubuntu still booted up. Should I be burning another copy?I'll be exploring software options and enumerate a list of software I have to have running on my computer and some replaceable ones that I can live with a similar software. It is worth trying. It looks like mac though.
Anyone running ubuntu on laptops? I know laptop hardware drivers could be hard to seek.
You can check the MD5sum of the ISO image, and the CD, and compare both to the published MD5. Might not matter, if there's a bad bit here and there in a JPG or a file you're not using anyway. Of course, I don't how you'd determine that.
Once you install (assuming you go with Ubuntu) first thing once that's finished is to open up whatever they're using for package management, update your package cache, and upgrade all your installed packages. I use Synaptic, which is, I think, the default for Kubuntu. If you'd rather just open up a terminal ...
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Well, that works on any Debian-based distro.
Next thing will be to enable the Universe, Multiverse, and non-free repositories. Again, use the gui package manager. You can edit the sources files directly, bit it's easier in the gui.
Actually, you can enable all the repositories first. Just remember you need to apt-get update anytime you add a repository.
Also, the Linux boot process does a checksum on the kernel, and if it's bad, it dumps you into a recovery shell (IIRC, I think it doesn't just quit in a puddle).
Lots of people use Linux on laptops. The hardware compatibility issues are much less so now than in the past. When you consider that HP and IBM both have employees contributing to the kernel, it's not so surprising.
cr0sh:
Hmm - I checked out that link; I'll have to look at what is running under Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, but I think it's Gnome 2 and not 3 - actually, from what I've seen of the next Ubuntu version, it has Gnome 3 - I'm thinking I might investigate XFCE or FVWM this weekend...Thanks for the tip...
NP. Yeah, 10.04 IIRC is still at Gnome2. Not sure about 10.10, but 11.04 is Gnome3 with the Unity shell.