I discovered Ubuntu a while back - back in the Warty Warthog days of yore (like, maybe, 3-4 months ago). Ordered some CDs, which was impressive by itself (What? You’ll send me free CD-ROMs? Up to 10? Where do I sign?), received them, and let them sit on my desk (well, OK, I did take a look at the LiveCD, but that’s all).

Well after seeing Russell Beattie and Doc Searls wax rhapsodic about it (not to mention lots of chatter), and after continued pressure by a work friend that’s been using it, I finally installed it last night…and it failed.

Runs through the whole boot sequence and gets to the end, where the screen goes black. PC still running, still responding to key-clicks (in fact, I think I can hear little drum sounds when I click <enter>, maybe Ubutu’s “you-made-a-mistake” feedback sound?), but no video. Probably something to do with video resolution - I didn’t have the time to look into it yet.

Speaking as a devil’s advocate (or a user’s one, take your pick), and with full knowledge that other linux installs have the same issue (assuming it’s the resolution thing, I had the same problem with my first Debian install), why would I want to use this when Windows always knows how to draw on my screen?

Hmpf. Impressed? Not yet….

Not giving up, though. I really want to really like Ubuntu, and I want to get behind a desktop Linux distro for-the-masses, I just can’t…yet.