This post got my attention because I too, got an N810 about a year ago with the intent of getting an understanding of Linux. The rest of my family was very resistant to moving from windows, and I really did not want another PC.

So just this past week, I put Ubuntu on a flash drive. Did it first as a live install, then found pendrivelinux and did a persistent install. I did this will NO prior experience with Linux installs. It was a piece of cake, and generally completely automated.

I am very impressed. So coosbaytv - just do it. I went the flash drive route just so I would not risk wrecking something if the install went badly. Took about 2 hours including the download of all the iso.