I have to disclose that I have never been a real fan of Ubuntu. I've tried it about every release and had more than my share of issues with it. Ubuntu 8.04 was released last month, and the first reviews mostly spoke of how nice this version was, so I downloaded the i386 version to test. Sigh -- it's rough when you have to change a long-standing opinion.

Ubuntu ISO images serve as both a live CD and an installer. Choosing the install option boots an X server and starts the same installer found within the live CD environment. The live CD took 2.75 minutes to boot to the desktop, but things looked promising. The first improvement I found was that I no longer needed the noapic boot option to avoid a black screen at X. The resolution for my Nvidia 6150 Go graphic chip and LCD display was 1280x800 using the nv Xorg driver, and my Altec Lansing MCP51 sound chip was activated and working. I didn't expect the Broadcom 4311 wireless chip to work and it didn't, but the wired Ethernet chip did.