The graphical installer is still beta imho. The "alternative" iso, is better. Thats the curses based one. Likely it was ATI issues that borked your live install session.

Tried the alternate cd.

Got as far as detecting network devices and loading kernel drivers. Then crashed.

Ubuntu is gone.

One thing I am having trouble with is enabling 3d acceleration, the ATI drivers I downloaded from ati only give me the control panel for it and just seem to not do anything.