Arrghhhhh - the burn of the Ubuntu iso did not work because the flaky F12 Brasero (which could not be updated) did not write the disk properly, so recycle around the bootstrap loop getting a version of fedora gnome baker which DID write the Ubuntu iso (went for the AMD 64 bit X2 version - that's the processor!) properly! , and - now the Ubuntu (which even accounting for the slow CD p partition is MUCH faster) will not take on the disk prepared by F12 cause it is ext4 but Ubuntu wants an all ext3 disk and F12 defaults to a ext4 / (root) partition, which Ubuntu apparently will not reformat as an ext3......

So now will try the F13 64 bit - downloaded - will not save to the CDR.... !!!!! ... so tried again to a usb stick! and now have run out of CDs to burn onto..... :-(

I have omitted MANY steps... :-)

Such as I have watched F12 'install to completion' then boot, and Panic! cause it could not mount read the disk it had justwritten to and just booted from.... :-) no sensible error of course, so you have to go to first principles of theory to work out why....

I usually as a matter of principle now refuse to touch the latest version as I had my laptop blow away the HD (no physical damage!) after several hours of working to install F10 - the latest version - then find out weeks later that serious bugs were in there - also hassles like the 'default' size /boot needs to be increased - but all the geeks did not get this in their 'tests' as they all used larger than standard size partitions! Also F9 (then latest version) wiped the second HD as it refused to accept that anyone might have 2 HDs in their machine, so it 'dual accessed' the 2 disks simultaneously, and blew away the inode table.... :-) cause it could not deal with the fact that the 2 drives EACH had Vol000 (default) ids.... :-)