Toshiba Satellite P200-1K9, 17" screen

This came with Vista installed. I set out to dual-boot it with Ubuntu 8.04 but the banner page offered to `install Ubuntu within Vista like an ordinary application'. I never heard of this before, but WTF. nstallation appeared to complete properly but there was no sign of Ubuntu as an icon or on start menu, etc.

I rebooted and found I had a boot menu with Vista and Ubuntu as alternatives. Selecting Ubuntu gave the usual banner screen with the orange bar going back and forth, and then completing from left to right. But then I get a fuzzy white/grey screen, like mist on a window, which gradually resolves to a uniform dark grey. Nothing further happens. After a while I hit Ctrl-Alt-F2 and got a text console and shutdown. Nothing wrong with the screen under Vista.

Any suggestions? I'm used to dual booting XP/Ubuntu on desktops, no trouble. If it's an Ubuntu specific incompatbility, I'll use any linux in preference to Vista. I'm not concerned that every bit of h/w work under linux, as long as I have a workspace system and basic work software.

Earlier, I'd tried to replace Vista with XP but XP didn't recognize the hard drive(s).

I'm travelling in a few days and don't have much time. Ideally I'd like dual boot XP (in case of strange foreign wireless setups) with Ubuntu/Debian or a RH derivative, but I'll learn any linux I have to.

Mak

Tried now with Ubuntu 8.10 as a separate installation alongside Vista and seems to be working well.

So, maybe the problem was that I used 8.04, not 8.10. Or maybe because I accepted the option of installing within Vista.

Anyway, good outcome achieved.