Hellish Heron!

Well, like the Ubuntu fanboy that I am, I decided to upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) today, the day after it was released. I had installed it on a windows system already (using Wubi), so hey, why not? What could possibly go wrong?

I've wiped out my primary hard drive, I've burned three disks so far, and I've tried to install (eg, gotten to the point where it says that it is installing) three times. I have spent perhaps three hours on this project, and I have nothing to show for it except a lot of frustration.

Oh, and it's about to reach the point where it failed the last two times.

If I manage to get it to work, expect updates. If I don't, expect updates with pictures of the destruction of the now-useless hard drive, and ubuntu CDs.

I refuse to sleep until this works. That may be a bad thing.

Actually, it looks like it might be working this time. If it does, I'll say tomorrow.

Scrap that. Failure at 69%, with the following text:

"Failed to copy files; faulty CD/DVD or hard disk?

The installer encountered an error copying files to the had disk:

[Errno 5] Input/output error

This particular error is often due to a faulty CD/DVD disk or drive, or a faulty hard disk. It may help to clean the CD/DVD, to burn the CD/DVD at a lower speed, to clean the CD/DVD drive lens (cleaning kits are often available from electronicsc suppliers), to check whether ithe had disk is old and in need of replacement, or to move the system to a cooler environment."

Gods. I am too tired to deal with this ...

More editty goodness!

After that, instead of attempting to do something usefull, like, perhaps fixing the problem, it boots into the live CD with full Gnome and all that. Or tries to. A bit ... unhelpful, maybe?

On the other hand, I has a full gui now. So it may be a good thing.

And so, trying again from within the gui. Attempt number 4, hour three and a half, maybe. I spent about an hour watching doctor who, and before that I had a shower, so the three hours figure might be a bit off. Still, more time that it should be taking.

Searching around through the ubuntu forums, the issue seems to be fairly common. Solutions include manually partioning it, and other stuff which, I must admit, is a bit too complex for me to attempt at 11. Added to that the fact that the instructions are almost non-existant, my final opinion is that 8.04 is simply not very user friendly. Perhaps I'll be able to come up with a solution tomorrow, or someone at the ACCRC will know what to do, but I'm expecting to have to drop back to 7.10 for at least a while.

Damn it.