Published at LXer:

Linux Ubuntu 8.04 virgin no longer, I popped my own cherry last night, installing Hardy Heron for the first time, with some odd installation experiences I can only hope aren’t the ‘norm’. So, what happened? So, Hardy Heron, Ubuntu 8.04, the final release version. You’re finally on my computer. It’s been a long wait – I never did bother with your predecessors Eft, Gibbon and the rest.

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Yeah, I installed Hardy too. Plenty of glitches and I'm likely just going to reinstall Gutsy. Hardy has been a pain so far.

He jumped in without any research and wondered why he had a few problems? Kubuntu 8.04 seems to be fine on my machine.

he used wubi for some reason. From my friends experiances, wubi is a piece of crap, I don't see why he didn't try a normal install

Maybe you get fewer column inches from a known good, stable install

My first Linux experience was with a "Linux for Windows" version of Mandrake 6.x that installed as an image file to Windows 98. Besides not knowing what "another OS" would really be I did not have the faintest how to partition (actually re-partition) my hard drive. There were bootloader issues, I could only boot Linux from safe mode; and my video chipset was not supported. This, of course, made me question if Linux was "up to it". But it was interesting and I went on to learn to partition with Partition Commander and installed Suse 6.4

My understanding is that Wubi is that same sort of thing and I can only think anything that can easily expose people to Linux is a good thing.
But now I am left with the fact that Ubuntu has included it in a official release (I generally have no issue with their packages), and someone posting it is "crap" with no details. So I am on notice it may not be a useful application, but the extreme dismissal with absolutely no detail seems to show a bias. IMO.

This means I must check the space on my Vista install to see if I have enough room to try Wubi myself before saying any more about it.

Okay.
I am posting from a Ubuntu 8.04 Wubi install to Windows Vista Home Basic.
It took maybe an hour or so. Did it work? Obviously, yes (so far ). Was is flawless? Frankly, no.

Since being put on notice there may be issues I was careful with the installation.
I unchecked loading of startup items with "msconfig" and rebooted.
I ran defrag and rebooted.
I inserted the Ubuntu 8.04 live/install CD. I chose to start it and approved it in UAC. I choose to install to Windows. This process was fairly quick. It checked md5sums and installed, then asked me to reboot.

Wubi added a Ubuntu option to the Windows Vista menu but did not overwrite GRUB in my MBR. Points for that.

When I selected Ubuntu in the Windows menu I was presented with a blank (actually very light blue) screen. My hard drive light would flash and then be quiet for a while, flash and be quiet for a while. It did this to various degrees for some time. Towards the end my monitor flashed black a few times returning to the light blue screen. The light on my optical mouse flashed. Then it sat silent with only the light blue screen. CTRL-ALT-x (1-7) were the same. Minus points for this.

I did a cold reboot and chose Ubuntu from the Vista menu. I was greeted with the Ubuntu startup screen and Ubuntu started. So it worked, points for that.

When doing network configuration I had to click on "unlock", then enter my password before I could continue.

I told Wubi to install to 5GB. "df -h" reports I have 2.1GB in use and 2.1 GB free.