Comment 21 for bug 38442

This is ridiculous.
As lucianolev said: 'I think this issue is critical, as it would stop many people from using and installing Ubuntu.'

Um yeah. I've been doing this for a very long time, and must say that its a really dumb design choice to code your installation screens (Desktop Ubuntu) larger than your lowest default resolution setting of 640x480. After downloading, burning the Desktop .iso, and installing to a blank HDD off of the CD - I couldn't install Feisty on a laptop which had previously run Dapper and Edgy just fine.

Some might find my comments inflammatory or insulting, but I find the design oversight for the average user (at FIRST CONTACT of Ubuntu in many cases) to be an egregious failure in Desktop Feisty, and a serious roadblock to it's adoption.

For myself; trying to install Feisty and find a workaround to get past the 2nd (timezone) installation screen, I ended up going to the Ubuntu forums, and unnecessarily wasting a bunch of my time researching a problem. I eventually work my way here, to discove the root cause appears to be a very basic design oversight of making the installation dialogs larger than the lowest compatible 640x480 VGA screensize. I was a bit more insensed to read commentary from the devs LAST YEAR, essentially saying that it hasn't been worth their time. Thanks for wasting my time on this then.

There are many more people having the same problem, and many (if not all) with unrecognized/unsupported/old video hardware at installation will be affected. That's a bunch of folks, gents. Especially those in the linux community who pride themselves on applying old hardware to other uses. If you are promoting the latest release of Desktop Ubuntu as a better, more user-friendly alternative to M$, then you are failing your potential user base terribly and have a responsibility to do better than this. This is not the way to expanding new-to-Ubuntu mindshare by making the installation process an insurmountable obstacle.

Re-read your workarounds. They are not within the grasp of even the intermediate user, and certainly beyond reach of novices. I'm a pro, and it had me stumped for quite awhile. I almost gave up, save for my stubbornnes and geeky need-to-know. Only the persistent and the professional will research, inquire, and most importantly post these issues to you. The maxim is; for every 1 person you hear from, that took the time to write, there are 10 more that you didn't. The technical folks are the ones you will hear from, but how many thousands more will simply give up in frustration quietly over this?

A quick search of installation problems from the Ubuntu forums will show you this.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2790181#post2790181
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=2755914#post2755914
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=465569

I could probably find many more forum instances that relate to this but might not identify this underlying core problem correctly.
But really, should the basic user have to?