https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperReleaseNotes/UbiquityKnownIssues They don't mention the problems you found, but they do mention this: Crash if system partitions are not reformatted: [WWW] #47046 If you use manual partitioning and do not check the "Reformat?" box for filesystems you mount on /, /boot, /usr, /var, or subdirectories of those, then the installer may crash while copying files to the target system. The workaround is to make sure to reformat these filesystems (note that /home, /media/*, and so on do not need to be formatted). If you are upgrading an existing installation and want to save existing data, then you should follow the instructions in DapperUpgrades rather than using the Desktop CD's installer. Yes -- that did happen to me. I will try again with the boxes checked to see if that works. Mike