Before booting you're offered a large number of boot options which can easily be ignored unless there's a problem as, unlike Debian, Ubuntu uses the latest 2.6.8.1 kernel by default. The only option which might be considered without a hardware demand is expert mode, which I would strongly suggest avoiding unless you're both incredibly patient and know what you're doing. Simply put, it's a convoluted path of installer hell, and I wish I didn't need it.
You'll want your / partition to be at least 1.8GB for the installation to complete, and the standard install will take 1.4GB of space. If you're short on space you can boot with 'custom' or 'custom-expert', which only takes about 350MB, and install more software with apt. If you're just short of 1.8GB, you can try booting with the 'archive-copier/copy=false' option, as was suggested on the mailing list. I haven't been able to confirm that option works, but I think you can pass over copying archives in expert mode if it doesn't.
Following the Chosen Path
After a few locale questions and a force loading of modules, I was alerted that my via_rhine network card was detected, but that it appears to not be connected to a network. It hit the nail on the head and offered to let me configure a static network, or to not setup a network at all. It would be nice if the installer were a bit clearer that not setting up a network is in fact properly setting up a loopback interface, like Slackware does.
Next you'll be given the option to allow Ubuntu to auto-partition a given hard drive, or partition manually. I tested this on my 8.4GB /dev/hdd, and it adequately set an approximately 350MB swap, and mounted the rest to an ext3 root. I decided to go back and set a 256MB swap with the rest a reiserfs root. Let me give you a bit of advice, save yourself some trouble and drop to vc/2 to partition with cfdisk.
The first problem is that the partitioner displays in MB, but switches to GB when possible. This makes it extremely difficult to calculate your space provisions. Second, the 'make swap' option is hidden under a menu which defaults to a format option. I won't tell you how long I overlooked it for, expecting it to be found under the mount points menu, but it was long enough that I embarrass myself just thinking about it. You'll still have to mount the partitions with Debian's tools, but at least you can partition with something a bit more refined.
Note that the disks don't use the normal /dev/hdX syntax in cfdisk, but instead /dev/discs/discX/disc so that the first disk is /dev/discs/disc0/disc and the second disk is /dev/discs/disc1/disc. Like Grub's (hdX,X) it's channel agnostic and ignores opticals, and if you ever want to specify a partition replace the last 'disc' with 'partX' starting with 1.
After the partitions are finally given filesystems and mounted, the installer goes on to install packages without any prompts for customization. This takes a good while, rivaling the length of time a Conectiva 10 or Suse 9.1 install will consume. The installer then reboots into your system for stage 2 of the installation.
The Scenic Route, Apparently
After setting up a user account and a PPP connection with pppconfig (which no longer detects my hardware ISA modem's port, like it used to with this same modem), I realized that the installer hadn't yet finished installing software. Instead it had only installed the base system and copied packages off the CD. It took even longer to install and configure the rest of the system, making this, even with it's minimal interaction, one of the longest installs I've been through. Luckily, the Canonical developers have expressed a concern over this two stage installation which is inherent to Debian's installer, and it appears that plans are in the works to do away with it, probably when it goes graphical with HoaryHedgehog. I imagine this will also reduce the 400MB installation buffer mentioned above.
There are two more things about the install which I should note. First, Ubuntu disables the root account by default, instead using sudo and the first user's password. This is no problem for me since it's actually more handy for single commands, and you can still enter a persistent super user session with 'sudo -s'. The problem is that during install, while they mention that you're creating a user account to use instead of root, they don't explain sudo's use at all. If I didn't already know about this before hand I may have missed it altogether.
Second is that the installer didn't give me an option to pass on the boot loader in standard mode. In expert mode, it gives the option to install Grub or Lilo to any partition or MBR you want, or to skip it altogether. In standard mode, it only gives the option to install Grub to your chosen partition or MBR. I don't personally care about not offering Lilo here, since it is indeed more advanced, but I feel every good installer should offer the option to skip the boot loader. It would also be nice to still be given a menu.lst as expert mode did not, since this makes configuration a snap in this age where every distribution uses slightly different parameters.
