Installed the subject. Had no DVD drive, so installed from a flash drive. From the moment I finished partitioning the disk and clicked “Install” to when the system reported it was ready and asked for a reboot, it took 7 (!) minutes. Installed on a work machine (3GHz/1GB/160GB SATA). Impressions — superb. Despite it being GNOME, everything is quite decent: clean, though somewhat more involved compared to KDE. Maybe just because it’s less familiar. Will be testing the printer and scanner.
bobuk, you’re a genius!