Can one get to new hardware?

Just bought myself a new computer. Not a superpowered one, but a decent (compared to my old).

• Abit A-N78HD (with internal GF8200 and HDMI + HD Audio)
• 4GB DDR II
• 320 GB Harddrive (sata)
• DVD/RW (sata)
• AMD Athlon X2 5000+

Now to the not so fun part, installation.

Booted up Ubuntu 8.04 and somewhere in the middle of booting there was CRASH. Searched google and ubuntuforums, came up with a solution. All fine, booted to gnome, installed the computer.
Finished installing all my needed packages and addons, lastly I installed nvidia drivers for the GF. Rebooted and guess what? Yes, dreaded crashes..

More searching, and came up with the solution that the thing I needed to do was compile a new kernel. Did it by the book and everything went fine. Happy with that I proceeded to install nvidia drivers again, but this time they didn’t install. After rebuilding the kernel (with a new set of options) the drivers did install, but even before I installed them, the compter crashed again.

Gave up today (thinking I could bare with windows until Intrepid is released) I installed windows, but that didn’t go smooth either (after a few reboots, failsafe mode and biosupgrade) I am finally enjoying my speedy computer.

Also I did discover kernel.ubuntu.com today, and downloaded a new kernel (which I am gonna give a try tomorrow) because I can’t stand the thought of being without linux

Just needed to let some steam of, why can’t hardware just work?

blittan signing out