Jaunty success and good environment now

[Dougal]

I had tried Jaunty as an upgrade after being alerted by the update engine in Ubuntu 8.10. It was a disaster leaving me without a workable Linux distro as I posted earlier.
Today I downloaded and burned the PC desktop version of the install CD.
I have completely given my hard drive space to Ubuntu for the first time after years of dual booting with Windows. Unfortunately, Windows has always come to my rescue when things have gone wrong with Linux. I am not downing the efforts of the Linux community, God no, if we all had the amount of resources that Microsoft has then I dare say we would have a Linux distro that is absolutely perfect in every way compared with the cumbersome environment of Windows. So I am now gambling that Ubuntu is going to do me till I die (tempting fate I know).
I still have no answer from anyone about what they do when their Ubuntu goes tits up. How do you sort things out without access to the Internet?
I will be keeping my Jaunty (and Intrepid) discs handy and be making sure that nothing important is only saved on the hard drive (force of habit now).
The Jaunty install went well and I timed it at 16 minutes - wow!!!
Rebooting to the Desktop takes me approx 40 seconds every time. So a bit better there as well. Using Jaunty is certainly quicker than Intrepid and Windows Vista (for comparison). Applications open faster. Menus open faster with the deliberate delay reduced to something better (must be in the milliseconds now).
Only thing about the new ATi driver though is that the rotating of the cube in Compiz does not show as smooth a refresh of the screen. There are obvious jaggedy edges when zooming back to normal. This did not happen in Intrepid - everything was as smooth as silk. Does ATi regularly make us aware of new drivers via the update manager? The one I am using was written on 17th April 2009 so is pretty fresh. Do we usually tell ATi of our experiences or is this something the Ubuntu guys do?
So far so good though.
I am going to be using Scribus for the first time to build a catalogue of Art that belongs to my daughter and using the GIMP for foto amnipulation. If there are any other progs that you guys would highly recommend I am listening.

[reed9]

I still have no answer from anyone about what they do when their Ubuntu goes tits up. How do you sort things out without access to the Internet?

I always have a text based web browser install (generally links2 and/or lynx), so that if can't get a GUI, I can still browse the web that way. Also, I have a few different live CDs around, so I can always boot into the live CD to get on the web as well, and to do repairs to the system if needed.

[Jonathan183]

You can fix most problems with a live CD, one that can get you on the net to search for help/solutions is just about all you need. If the Ubuntu live CD works for you thats about all you need.

[elija]

I have more tha none PC running Linux (different distros) and if all of them bork at the same time I would use a live cd

[Dougal]

Yep - got the message, Live CDs all round... Ta.

[rokytnji]

I keep a current Puppy CD like a mechanic keeps a wrench in his toolbox. Never fails to boot up on any Hardware I've touched so far.