Hi, Leann! After our out-of-towner, I had some time last week & weekend to give the HH-alpha distro (LiveCD) a test-run -- here's my results, plus some questions: 1. I downloaded v8.04 and burned it... 2. Booted the LiveCD on Friday evening at approx. 10:00pm 3. As it was never very difficult (only unpredictable as to exactly when) to experience a system-freeze with v7.10 -- and it didn't seem to matter what I was doing, e.g., bash/com-window, Firefox surfing, playing a game, etc. -- I decided to simply play mah-jong until either the freeze happened again or I got tired. ;-) 4. After about 90 minutes, I got tired (had better things to do that late at night), so... 5. I left v8.04 running (from the LiveCD), just let it go to screen-saver, intending to get back to it the following morning (Saturday). But I didn't... 6. Instead, I left the PC running (screen-saver) all weekend, only returned to it this evening (Monday), approx. 70 hours later. Eager to see: was it frozen? v7.10 would'a been, without question. 7. Nope, er, yup -- v8.04 was *not* frozen! Hooray -- small victory! 8. I went ahead and ran/played mah-jong again for about 20 minutes, thinking that maybe I could tip it over its edge... stayed solid & working until I shut it down. So, apparently v8.04 is not as prone to freezing as was v7.10 -- Yes, I'm a skeptic, from experience in debugging other kinds of interactive systems. It's very hard to "prove the negative", i.e., "it *won't ever* freeze"... Only long, hard hours of actual use will build that kind of confidence. But there's your early test result -- v8.04 did not freeze on my PC (where 7.10 would routinely, unpredictably freeze, usually within a couple of hours after (re)boot) after a period of over 70 uptime hours, with light interactive use. To me, promising but inconclusive. I'd wonder what the developers would think about this test result... Is it usefully indicative of a solution to this "my system randomly freezes" problem? Can my own testing "technique" (mah-jong!) be improved to give it actually a better shakedown trial? Any advice as to what should be next? Given the unusability of my current v7.10 install on this PC (and my desire to actually start using Linux/Ubuntu with a vengeance, both for personal learning and to undertake my efforts to ultimately replace Windows throughout my home-office & family's PCs): a) Should I next proceed to install v8.04 from the LiveCD, with the understanding that it's an Alpha release? b) If so, what limitations and/or issues should I be prepared to deal with (other than the recurrence of the system-freeze problem under more-than-light use)? In particular, would I be able to deploy various common utilities and applications (e.g., Emacs, Open Office, virt-machines, WINE, etc.), with the understanding that the platform is indeed pre-release and unstable? c) If I understand Ubuntu's release terminology, the Hardy Heron v8.04 is scheduled for final release in early August 2008, right? So my own liabilities would likely include occasional alpha-, and later beta-, release updates, right, up to the final release? And how often might I anticipate interim alpha/beta releases? d) I presume that affirmative answers to the above 3 questions, the decision to install v8.04 as-is, would put me fully in the pre-release testers camp, right? I'm willing, if you think this is a good idea. I'm willing to proceed on this basis, to use v8.04 as an unstable (but hopefully non-freezing) platform just for learning, leaving my own home-office "full deployment" until HH/8.04 is in final release. Let me know, please, what you and the developers think about my questions above... With your guidance, I'm willing to become a part-time field tester, if that helps the Community and HH/v8.04 ... warmest regards, -- Lorin Lorin Ricker 10781 Holden Circle Franktown, CO 80116 cell: (303)916-4772 email: