The installation happened pretty quickly, and with just a couple of quirks, worked out of the box.

Unlike previous installations, I did this one from a bootable USB thumb drive. This started as part experiment as a buddy wanted to install Ubuntu on a laptop with a failed optical drive. If you've got a running Ubuntu (may work from LiveCD, but I suspect since you need the ISO, probably not) in the System>Administration menu is a quick and nifty "USB Startup Disk Creator" tool that will take an ISO and device (the thumb drive) and allow you to make the thumb drive boot with Ubuntu, ala the live disk, but with some write-also abilities. Also, it is SO MUCH faster, it begs to become the medium for enticing new users to the OS. But I digress.

I booted the system and ran Ubuntu without affecting my hard drive (so the menu says), thinking to continue chatting with co-workers while it installed. Unfortunately, it didn't recognize my wifi adapter (or at least load the driver). Not a big deal, but I had to move to where a wired connection was available. A quick click and the system recognzied the network was there, got an IP address, and happily announced I was wired in.

I popped open the new chat client, Empathy, and configured the Google Talk account for the company's domain. Unlike Pidgin, the old chat client, I had to complete the configuration and get the "whoops, can't connect" message before I could do the simple additional step of setting the server to "talk.google.com" and allow the client to access the network. I'm sure that's because it isn't required if you're just a regular Google account user instead of working with a Google Apps domain. After that quick change, my contacts popped in, and I was up and running.

I popped open the Synaptic Package Manager and added a couple of vital and favorite apps. First I added sshfs so I could mount the folder from the other system where I'd copied away the old contents of my home folder. Then while I waited for my Downloads folder to copy, I also added Terminator, an terminal replacement that, among other things, allows you to split the window with new connections and not just pop open new terminal windows or tabs.

Once the download completed, I killed the GUI and added the NVidia driver. Small twist I noticed before when I had updated over 9.04 was that some of the scripts formerly in /etc/init.d were now "services" and instead of doing /etc/init.d/gdm stop, I did service gdm stop, and then ran the NVidia installer. As the NVidia installer started, I wondered to myself if the default installation had the necessary bits to compile the kernel module. It did, the module installed, and I rebooted the system (I could have done a service gdm start, but I wanted to be sure it would work from boot).

Greeted with smooth, full-color graphics, I set about getting the wifi working. There were two restricted drivers offered, so I picked the more specific looking one, but was rewarded with no connection. I removed that first driver (happily all without rebooting), and tried the other. This one did requrie a reboot, so I allowed the system. Upon return (which seems quicker than previously...so far), I was greeted with a list of nearby wireless networks whose SSIDs are broadcast (I should go around the neighborhood and help the neighbors more tightly secure their connections, but that'll be a task for another day). I chose to be connected to a "private" network, put in my SSID and key, and as happily as before was connected to my wireless network.

I again popped my account information into Empathy, and pinged the co-workers with whom I had been interfacing before. I toyed with Empathy for a few minutes, and based on my brief experiences, other feedback, and a little research, I decided there were things in Pidgin that I liked enough to bring it back. I opened the package manager again and added Pidgin and some of the plug-ins that are in the list. A little time to download and configure, and all was well again. A couple mouse clicks on my favorite settings and plug-ins, and IM is what I expected it to be again.

Now, in addition to a browser window open to make this blog post, I've a terminator window open with a few different "splits" all working hard to copy files from my back-up folder on the network, and the Synaptic Package Manger running an update to get the latest and greatest. Bandwidth is a little less with the wifi than on the wired network, but the I/O hiccups between the few simultaneous copies and the slower speed of the Internet connection (versus the LAN) allows for everyone to run at just about full steam.

All seems well enough. Just gotta wait for the copies to finish, and a few installs to run, and I should be back in business.