Beware of the Train

1100: collect delirium from IT department, now with new hard drive fitted.
Rest of day: move office, attend lectures, etc.
Evening: Attempt to find Ubuntu CD.
1930: start download of Ubuntu iso image on sharleen (wormwood_pearl's laptop). Go to juggling club.
2200: return from juggling club. Download 2% complete.
Midnight: finally find a server that doesn't stall after transferring less than 60 MB. Go to bed.
0300: wake up (hurrah for insomnia!). Check download. Download complete (w00t!). Fetch CD, set CD to burn. Go back to bed.
0309: get up, remove CD from writer. Pat sharleen gently on monitor. Take delirium upstairs, plug in, turn on, insert Ubuntu CD. Answer questions (of which the most difficult is "What is your name?"), wait, answer more questions, wait, recall ESR's comments about "the most obnoxious thing an installer can do".
0326: base system install complete, rest of installation copying underway. Go back to bed. Give silent thanks for the bed- and foot-warming powers of girlfriends.
0340: unpleasant drive seeking noise stops. Think "bloody hell, that was quick." Get up again. Watch last few percent of installation.
0350: boot into Ubuntu. Note with approval the icon warning me that I'm using closed-source hardware drivers. No network connection. Take delirium downstairs to plug into router. Wireless connection appears before I get there. Decide to test web browser by checking Reddit.
0405: block Reddit from computer.
0435: download of updates complete. Finish LJ post.
0445: Go back to bed.
0500: wormwood_pearl wakes up, completely oblivious to all the events of the last two hours.

So there you have it: Ubuntu is so easy to install that it can be done entirely while asleep or half-asleep, and the most difficult part is downloading the CD image.

What are you all waiting for?

Edit: actually, there are two nonobvious things you need to know about installing Ubuntu. One is how to get multimedia (DVDs, MP3s, etc) working: for legal reasons, this has to be done as a separate step. It's completely straightforward, and instructions are here for the current version of Ubuntu (just Google for "[version name] multimedia" if you're running a different version). The other is how to install software that doesn't come with the base install, like typesetters or CAD software or weird programming languages or mind-mapping software or ham radio software or... anything you like, really. You do this using the "package manager" Synaptic (or its command-line cousin apt-get), which you'll find in the System menu. Synaptic is great - it allows you to search for software that does what you want, then you can select it, and it will download and install the software you've selected and all the other programs and libraries it depends on, and all the programs and libraries that they depend on, recursively. Cool, eh?