Live CD works OK. Is it OK to assume a new install will work?

I've got a Toshiba a505 laptop and tried the live CD with great results.

However, I haven't found any reports on this PC working 100% OK on Ubuntu 10.10 yet. I do have seen (and tried installing myself) some reports that 10.04 didn't work (without some dirty hacking).

In regular circumstances, is it OK to assume that a new install will work if the live CD works? Are there any tools I can run to check compatibility?

Thanks!

Yes and no. The Live CD is a great method of trying Ubuntu before you decided to install it properly, but you also have to remember the Live CD is running off default drivers and not the ones actually in your laptop. So for example, your graphics card will not actually be fully used as the driver for it will not be active.

If the Live CD runs Ubuntu quite well, then you can assume that your machine can at least run Ubuntu, but again, until your hardware is utilized, you will not know for sure.

The best way to find out if your laptop is compatible is to search for your laptop in google with ubuntu in the search query to see if anything interesting comes up. Sometimes, another person may have submitted a bug report or review about how successful there install was and this can be very helpful to you, if you encounter problems.

Hope that helps.

So, up to my knowledge, you will not face a worse situation with the actual installation in comparison with the situation you experienced with the Live CD. You -at least- have that working level at hand. Some special drivers and/or settings of your choice will serve as a bonus.

Also to expand some on James' post, remember that the Live CD will not have any updates or bug fixes... so something that does not work on the Live CD may work after all the updates are installed.