This brand new Toshiba NB300 netbook refuses to install Ubuntu 10.10. There seem to be some problems with interrupts and CPU frequency scaling, according to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/638434 . I worked around the freezing installation routine by passing “nohz=off” to the kernel at the PXE prompt. The latest maverick kernel doesn’t seem to have this problem, only the one that ships with the installation media.
After installation, the “nohz=off” will be in the grub configuration, so the system will keep using it. However since this option slows down the system, I recommend to either upgrade the kernel to 2.6.37 or to upgrade to the 11.04 (natty) prerelease. On the newer kernel, there are no more freezes and the nohz parameter is not required anymore.