I've spent about the last 2 hours trying to get Ubuntu 8.10 installed on my desktop. I opted to use the "Install Ubuntu Inside Windows" feature, which seemed to be pretty straight-forward. Then I found problems. Before I get into those problems though, I want to point out that this was intended to be a quick "Let's install Linux and see how it does on this system" run. From the word-of-mouth reviews I've heard from others about Ubuntu 8.10, I figured it would be a very simple process: Wrong.

First off, let's go to the sound. I like listening to music when I work. The first thing I wanted to do after I got everything running was to listen to some tunes. The problem though is that my on-board sound card isn't supported natively. I'm sure there are kernel patches out there that I can use, but let's say that I'm not the Linux "guru" I am, and that I'm an average user. This would be a very frustrating event and would probably cause the user to be soured on Linux.

In the course of trying to fire up some tunes, I tried to access my RAID, since it holds my MP3 collection. No go. I'm running 2x500GB drives in hardware level RAID-0. The hardware is provided by nVidia, just like everything else in this system. While the nVidia graphic drivers are easily available, the RAID drivers are not. Even a quick apt-cache search nvidia shows nothing RAID-related. I did find one article that discussed how to recompile the kernel to add dmraid, but again, think of the average user.

And lastly, let's touch on the nVidia graphics drivers. I was able to get them installed pretty easily, and I was able to configure my Multi-View monitor arrangement, spanning my desktop across both of my Acer x193w+ monitors. The one super annoying thing I found though was how the effective center of my desktop is the actual center, but instead of opening on a single screen, new windows open right there at the center. I even tried one of the available 3d games, and I couldn't read the menu because it was split by about 2" of monitor bezel.

If we want to look at it with all those issues aside though, the system is running really smoothly and I have no additional complaints (yet). Since I'm not able to survive without my music though, it's back to Windows for now.