launched Ubuntu for trial on live CD - did some gpartitionning and then tried install and ubiquity crashed

Binary package hint: ubiquity

I can't say if it's a partition manager problem.
Apparently no.
The install began copying files and so on.
When it crashed there was nothing more than the small dialog with no information about where the installation process ended
I don't know if it was on trying to install the booting manager
(I've other partitions on the hard disk, including first as Win XP that was recently corrupted by a worm and that I probably succeeded in cleaning)

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.5
Package: ubiquity 1.10.10
ProcAttrCurrent: unconfined
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity gtk_ui
ProcEnviron: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/proc/8509/environ'
PythonArgs: ['/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity', 'gtk_ui']
SourcePackage: ubiquity
Title: ubiquity crashed with InstallStepError in configure_ma()
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-7-generic i686
UserGroups: