When starting vidalia, I received the following error: Vidalia detected that the tor software exited unexpectedly. Please check the message log for recent warning or error messages.
I found http://www.noobrescue.com/blog/vidalia-detected-that-the-tor-software-exited-unexpectedly which said
Code:
sudo killall tor
would fix this for the current run, and it did. So I'm now considering following the procedure to fix it permanently as described in that page.

Of course, I'm wondering why is it not working in the first place, why does it require fixing? Couldn't the person who put together the ubuntu package fix this? Or someone who someone who works on vidalia?