All good now - using LVM definitely fixed the eMMC issues. 14.04 and 15.04 both work great.

For Mac Users - create the USB per this... (remove the obvious quotes that shouldnt be there!)
1 - Download Ubuntu Server (tested with 14.04 / 15.04 / 15.10)
2 - Open the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities/ or query Terminal in Spotlight).
3 - Convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option of hdiutil e.g.,
"hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img ~/path/to/ubuntu.iso"
Note: OS X tends to put the .dmg ending on the output file automatically.
4 - Run
"diskutil list"
to get the current list of devices.
5 - Insert your flash media.
6 - Run
"diskutil list"
again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2).
7 - Run
"diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN"
(replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2).
8 - Execute
"sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m"
(replace /path/to/downloaded.img with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./ubuntu.img or ./ubuntu.dmg).
Using /dev/rdisk instead of /dev/disk may be faster
If you see the error dd: Invalid number '1m', you are using GNU dd. Use the same command but replace bs=1m with bs=1M
If you see the error dd: /dev/diskN: Resource busy, make sure the disk is not in use. Start the 'Disk Utility.app' and unmount (don't eject) the drive
9 - Run
"diskutil eject /dev/diskN"
and remove your flash media when the command completes.

--done--

Good, thanks for sharing.

so, got to ask - when are BT and WiFi coming to this board?

WIFI is ready, you can get one with Realtek8188CUS chip to run without installing any drivers.
www.jaguarboard.org/index.php/products/b....html#specifications

BT is not ready yet, i did not find a good chip which can work fine on linux system. If running on Windows, there are many usb BT dongles in the market.

wiki.ubuntu.com/Cirago_BTA-3210_EDR_BT_v2.0_Micro_USB_Adapter
this is the one I use - it works ootb with BlueZ, no issues.

These are external though - I was more meaning in the future are you planning to pur WiFi and BT4/LE on the board itself... this would make it probably the best IoT Board out there....