Firstly, thanks for the info up front about what you are using. Most people
do not provide this.

Secondly, I have never used Audacity so take what I write with a grain of
salt. I would look at the settings for Audacity. I would look at the buffer
size and the directory settings. Maybe the defaults are too low for your
hardware. I am not sure how much RAM or drive space you have. However, in
other applications when this happens I usually look at the settings. Linux
is fussier than Windows about many things including locations for things and
permissions. The settings may reflect the differences in OS. It might be
worth comparing Wine Audacity with Ubuntu Audacity settings. This is just a
hunch. As I said I have never used Audacity.

Finally, Audacity has forums and a wiki that might be worth looking at.

yes I double checked settings.
I have 260 gigs of disk space and 3 gigs of ram.
I'll just have to keep searching for forums I guess.

The default setting are different than WO/S. The linux version does not come
with MP3 default. You must install LAME.

yep, lame was one of my first discoveries.
been exporting as mp3 for over a yr.

Have you tried running the 1.2.6 stable version? That could very well
solve your problems... Presumably you also tried lowering your
sampling frequency?

If it is a resource handling issue with the linux beta, common fixes
can include lowering sample rate to </= 48000Hz, changing to a bit
depth of 16, record as mono, turning off autoscroll and meter, and
making sure your swap is mounted (check with "swapon -s") and large
enough.

I think you're right, I'm going to try 1.2.6, everything else is in order.
Now I have to find some time.

Have you checked the Record Timer?