installation issues 10.10

[Semi_Nerd]

I'm new to ubuntu. I heard from some friends that it was the way to go, so I decided to try it out. I followed the instructions on the site to the letter. Once the CD had it loaded, I rebooted. It came up w/ the screen asking if I wanted to install or try it first. I hit try it, and after sitting for ten minutes, it came up w/ a totally hashed up version of my current desktop. I tried hitting install, and got the same thing. When this didn't work, I started from scratch, downloading from the website and then rebooting once it was on the disc. I'm currently on win 7, w/ a system I built myself. It's got an x64 3.2 GHz CPU, 1TB HDD w/ 2 partitions, blue-ray drive, 4 GB DDR3. I know it can handle this, so why isn't it working? Any suggestions would be nice...

[chessnerd]

The Ubuntu Try It/Install It screen doesn't work too well in my experience. When the CD first boots up, you should see a little symbol that looks like it says "Human equals Keyboard". When this is up, press any key on the keyboard to go to the original selection menu from the pre-10.04 days. From there choose your language and then choose "Try Ubuntu without Installing" and see if that works better.

Also, and this is just a personal preference, I'd recommend going with 10.04 because it is a more stable release that will be supported until April of 2013. I haven't had great luck with 10.10 and so all of my systems with Ubuntu run 10.04. However, given that you seem to have a pretty new system, 10.10 might offer better hardware support. The choice is yours.

Finally, welcome to Ubuntu Forums. I hope you find your experience with using Ubuntu to be enjoyable.

[Semi_Nerd]

thanks. shortly after posting I downloaded 10.4 and it works great. I'm actually using it to reply. maybe the next version will work better...

[chessnerd]

thanks. shortly after posting I downloaded 10.4 and it works great. I'm actually using it to reply. maybe the next version will work better...

I'm glad you were able to get Ubuntu to work. I also hope that 11.04 will be a strong release because I plan on upgrading my desktop to it (I have a wireless card I use with it that 11.04 finally supports).

Some background on Ubuntu releases: With Ubuntu, there is a release every six months, numbered by the year of the release and the month (10.04 was released in April of 2010). When a release comes out, it can be either a regular release or an LTS release.

LTS stands for Long Term Support and those releases, in addition to being supported for twice as long, are typically more stable. Every two years, there is an LTS release (8.04, 10.04, 12.04, etc.) that is supported for 3 years after that.

The regular releases are, in some ways, a testing ground for new features, so they tend to be more advanced, but also can be buggier.

They don't have to be buggy, though, and some regular releases are great. I personally found 9.04 to be quite stable, and loved using it, but I had problems with 9.10 and 10.10.