After something like 30 or 35 Ubuntu 8.04 installations, putting Hardy on a friend’s Asus W3J was a piece of cake. But I don’t take credit for that. It worked amazingly well, and all I did was press a few buttons.

Like a lot of my full Ubuntu installations, I was able to get the system installed in about an hour, added the restricted drivers for the X1400 through the toolbar icon, added the ubuntu-restricted-extras package through Add/Remove, switched to the Toyama University repositories through the GUI interface, bumped up the visual effects, added the Compiz settings manager, added VLC, added … everything, and accessed the command line only once, to add the medibuntu repositories for proper DVD access. If I had been clever, I probably could have done that from the touchpad too.

But everything — visual effects, font smoothing, wired access, wireless configuration, you name it — everything is so easy now. I’m flabbergasted again.

And my friend is positively giddy too. Gutsy blacklists the X1400 — which doesn’t mean Compiz is impossible, only that you have to wriggle a bit to get it installed. And while Gutsy needed some tweaking to get even fundamental video working, Hardy found the proper resolution and the driver and set it all up, from the initial boot.

Again, my hat is off to the Ubuntu developers. You have done well, sirs and madams. One Ubuntu vet is pleased, and one Ubuntu newbie is happy all over again. A gold smilie for the entire team: 🙂