Ubuntu Studio on E1505n

My laptop should be here in a couple of weeks and I'm still trying to justify why I bought it more than just saying to help out dell/linux relations.

So I came up with needing Ubuntu Studio for my budding music production interests. How would this effect the partitions that dell has setup? you think all the restore functions would be screwed up, or could I just install it as a boot option and keep my factory install then just boot into whenever I want... for some reason for me problems start happening when I have more than one instance of linux installed so I don't know much about it... anyway, any ideas or comments would be cool.

thanks

Rather than dual boot with Studio, which is sketchy at best, why not just leave the partitions alone and install the programs which come with Studio through Synaptic? You've already got the Ubuntu base, all studio is is extra software. Just install the extra software.

that was my 1st thought, but from what I read it manages the kernel differently to give media priority or something

Do some googling to find out exactly what the difference is been standard Feisty and Ubuntu Studio. Chances are it isn't so great that it can't be surmounted with a little bit of work.

From what I've read Dell has the system partitioned four or five different ways. I've also read horror stories on this forum about people who have tried to dual boot two separate Ubuntus on the same disk. GRUB doesn't take well to it. It may take some work, but I really think you would do better to just build Studio on the existing Ubuntu Install. You can even get the themes from gnome-look.org. This would be the least risky of the two options presented to you.

I originally installed the Kubuntu disk for feisty. I am now running true Ubuntu (gnome), right down to the GDM. All it took was synaptic, knowing where the default display manager script was, and some time and patience. I can't imagine Studio would be much harder to put together.

yea, I guess I'll just have to wait till my laptop comes in to figure it out.... this is gonna be the 1st computer that is actually gonna be a spare, so it doesn't matter what I mess up.... all the others have been either my primary, work, parents, or friend that can't wait to yell i me cuz i broke his comp.