With the release of Intrepid Ibex (Ubuntu 8.10), I've decided that now is the time to finally give linux another go.

Having spent the last 2 years avoiding Linux as much as possible since a rogue installation auto mounted and subsequently destroyed one of my Windows partitions I decided to tread carefully with the latest release. Finding out that the install CD didn't like booting on my HP laptop (not a great impression!), I installed it first using VMware using direct access to my external disk.

Once installed, I booted directly off the external HDD and (apart from having to keep a key pressed until loaded, again not confidence inspiring!) Ubuntu found all of my hardware nicely once I'd compiled the NVidia X driver. I've managed to install the essentials (LAMP, Amarok, etc.) and was pleasantly surprised it didn't take too much effort to get the Wireless going with madwifi! I took a (much overdue) backup of my data before allowing Linux to see my Windows partitions, but I'm happy to say that after a little tweaking Ubuntu didn't manage to damage anything!

The installation has been upgraded a few times, and since Intype won't work properly under Wine, and gEdit doesn't really give me what I want, now all I have to do is figure out what I'm going to use Ubuntu for.