I have a little experience with Redhat Systems, and my first stab at Ubuntu is to try and get the automated installer working. I had no problems getting through the PXE and preseed.cfg process, and can do an unattended installation using this tutorial:
http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-unatte...all-preseed-p5

When my system comes up I have 2 problems.

1) My keyboard layout seems to be off. When I sit at the keyboard, I get little diamonds for anything I type except the numpad, which prints numbers. However, I can use SSH to connect, so I am able to use the system the way I intend to anyway. I appear to be in run level 2:
Code:
root@ubunut-installer:~# runlevel
N 2
The preseed config file is set to en_US for the keyboard, so I'm a little confused.

2) My /etc/apt/sources.list file uses the my own mirror of the CD image I put on my local network instead of a public mirror. I need to change the soruces.list to use a public mirror because these systems will not be on the same network as the local mirror when these servers actually get put to use. I also can't install things like 'elinks' from atp-get, but not sure if that's just because I missed a step somewhere:
Code:
root@ubunut-installer:~# apt-get install elinks
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package elinks
I suppose you'll want the preseed file and my sources.list, not sure what else though. Here they are:

preseed.cfg
Code:
d-i debian-installer/locale string en_US
d-i console-setup/layoutcode string en_US
d-i netcfg/choose_interface select eth0

# Any hostname and domain names assigned from dhcp take precedence over
# values set here. However, setting the values still prevents the questions
# from being shown, even if values come from dhcp.
d-i netcfg/get_hostname string ubunutu-test
d-i netcfg/get_domain string fiber.net
#d-i netcfg/wireless_wep string

### Mirror settings
# If you select ftp, the mirror/country string does not need to be set.
d-i mirror/country string enter information manually
d-i mirror/protocol string http
d-i mirror/http/hostname string PXE
d-i mirror/http/directory string /linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/
d-i mirror/http/proxy string

# Suite to install.
#d-i mirror/suite string testing

# Suite to use for loading installer components (optional).
#d-i mirror/udeb/suite string testing
d-i mirror/suite string hardy

### Partitioning
# If the system has free space you can choose to only partition that space.
# Note: this must be preseeded with a localized (translated) value.
#d-i partman-auto/init_automatically_partition \
# select Guided - use the largest continuous free space

# Alternatively, you can specify a disk to partition. The device name
# can be given in either devfs or traditional non-devfs format.
# For example, to use the first disk:
#d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/discs/disc0/disc
d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/sda

# In addition, you'll need to specify the method to use.
# The presently available methods are: "regular", "lvm" and "crypto"
d-i partman-auto/method string lvm

# If one of the disks that are going to be automatically partitioned
# contains an old LVM configuration, the user will normally receive a
# warning. This can be preseeded away...
d-i partman-auto/purge_lvm_from_device boolean true

# And the same goes for the confirmation to write the lvm partitions.
d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true

# You can choose from any of the predefined partitioning recipes.
# Note: this must be preseeded with a localized (translated) value.
d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe \
select Separate /home, /usr, /var, and /tmp partitions

# This makes partman automatically partition without confirmation.
d-i partman/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition \
select Finish partitioning and write changes to disk
d-i partman/confirm boolean true

### Clock and time zone setup
# Controls whether or not the hardware clock is set to UTC.
d-i clock-setup/utc boolean true

# You may set this to any valid setting for $TZ; see the contents of
# /usr/share/zoneinfo/ for valid values.
d-i time/zone string America/Denver

### Apt setup
# You can choose to install non-free and contrib software.
d-i apt-setup/multiverse boolean true
d-i apt-setup/universe boolean true

# To create a normal user account.
d-i passwd/user-fullname string Kai Meyer
d-i passwd/username string kai

# Normal user's password, either in clear text
#d-i passwd/user-password password insecure
#d-i passwd/user-password-again password insecure
# or encrypted using an MD5 hash.
d-i passwd/user-password-crypted password $1$kqoeOB9Z$LROkVUK36wsN22pYiYvkv.

# This is fairly safe to set, it makes grub install automatically to the MBR
# if no other operating system is detected on the machine.
d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean true

# This one makes grub-installer install to the MBR if it also finds some other
# OS, which is less safe as it might not be able to boot that other OS.
d-i grub-installer/with_other_os boolean true

### Package selection
tasksel tasksel/first multiselect standard, lamp-server

# Individual additional packages to install
d-i pkgsel/include string openssh-server

### Finishing up the first stage install

# Avoid that last message about the install being complete.
d-i finish-install/reboot_in_progress note
#xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/autodetect_monitor boolean true
#xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/config/monitor/selection-method \
#select medium
#xserver-xorg xserver-xorg/config/monitor/mode-list \
#select 1024x768 @ 60 Hz
And my eventual /etc/sources.list:
Code:
# deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy main restricted
# deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-updates main restricted
# deb http://PXE/ubuntu hardy-security main restricted
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of the distribution.

deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy main restricted
deb-src http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy main restricted

## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-updates main restricted

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy universe
deb-src http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy universe
deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-updates universe
deb-src http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-updates universe

## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu 
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to 
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in 
## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu
## security team.
deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy multiverse
deb-src http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy multiverse
deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-updates multiverse
deb-src http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-updates multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'backports'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
# deb http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
# deb-src http://PXE/linux/ubuntu/releases/8.04/os/ hardy-backports main restricted universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's
## 'partner' repository. This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is
## offered by Canonical and the respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu
## users.
# deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu hardy partner

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security multiverse
I'd also like to know if the preseed file has a post-install script section. Fixing the sources.list should be a matter of a one liner for perl but not sure how to do it.

Thanks!
-Kai Meyer