during installation the error message appeared, no activity was on the machine at all during this time

[Paczko]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

as the error message said, the problem was with permission in /proc/

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.5
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: ubiquity 1.10.10
ProcAttrCurrent: unconfined
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity gtk_ui
ProcEnviron: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/proc/17068/environ'
PythonArgs: ['/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity', 'gtk_ui']
SourcePackage: ubiquity
Title: ubiquity crashed with InstallStepError in configure_user()
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-7-generic i686
UserGroups: