You were correct that /tmp is a place where you can temporarily store
files. The mistake was in rebooting, and assuming they would still be
there. I think there is a configuration option that controls whether
/tmp is cleaned on bootup, but I don't recall the details ATM. I'm sure
google knows though.

I really don't know the structure of Linux and
it didn't even occur to me that a openable/writeable directory
would do that to data. No important work lost, just time so I'll
chock it up to a lesson learned and next time put it in a home
folder.

though they may be a preference setting to tic that disables the

empty of /tmp on reboot. If I had my Ubuntu PC here I could check it for a
more positive answer. Or put a tmp directory in your /home directory for
saving
temporary files.

Marty

Sorry, I don't use windoze, so I'm no help there. Is windoze already
installed?

As for ubuntu, why do you want to install an outdated version? Support
for 8.10 ends in a few weeks, and almost nobody is still running it, so
it will be hard to get help. I recommend you go with the current version
of ubuntu, 10.04, which will be supported for 3 years. (the server
version will be supported for 5 years).