Wooo, finally managed to install Kubuntu Lucid ( 10.04 LTS ) on this -> The Winchester Killer

Apparently current Karmic/Lucid has issues with SSDs (libatasmart or udev package bugs if not kernel bugs) and my dmesg is full of ATA errrors -> Ubuntu Pastebin

There are a few bugs reported like https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/445852 so hopefully it gets fixed fast before it kills my SSD.

I was hoping to post about the speed, but sadly the install which looked like it would complete in an amazing 3 min flat got stuck for 7 min near the end... but 3 min is sweet.

Also put in place some of the tweaks like mentioned here: Four Tweaks for Using Linux with Solid State Drives | Tombuntu (mainly noatime and tmpfs)... will post some speed numbers once Lucid gets a little stable... its still at "alpha 1" stage after all.

I installed mainly to check out KDE 4.4 Beta 2... awesome release... small smooth animations here and there in the UI... although the progress bar is still jerky and not smooth as claimed on some release page... got to post on KDE forum asking about it...