Ubuntu isn't the answer for everything. Intrepid and Karmic both suck, I've downgraded many computers back to 8.04 because it is slooowww. Try writing to a USB drive or transfering data between drives. On Karmic I was getting a transfer rate of 35mb average between identical sata drives. Same computer exact same drives and I was getting 100mb average transfering between Slackware and Mint and I was even transfering the same files.
Too many Linux noobs seem to think Ubuntu is Linux. The only good point to Ubuntu is their repositories.