Installation happened without any freezes or failures. Sound was picked up. Contrary to expectation, it seems to have found the Wireless device as well, though the wireless has not yet managed to hook up to the network. (Vista could, so I know the laptop is capable of it.) Ubuntu's GNOME seems well designed, too; Windowsish, lots of easy to find administrative options. Though a sour note: each one seems to be its own program, and after closing one option you have to go back to the menu to get the next one.
By default, you have to enter your password at bootup. Or even at waking up after sleeping. Oh yeah -- it picked up the battery, and goes to sleep when I close the lid. And the sound buttons work. And I just plugged in my external USB hard drive, and that opened up in the file manager automatically. *Win*
Of course, I'm in GNOME, and I'd like to play with other window managers. But hopefully FreeBSD can cope with my mother's desktop, and I can try Enlightenment there. Though I suppose I should think about keeping XP on it, just for network setup ease.
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