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Read this post:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1020071

Reality is benchmarks. And Wine sucks at 3DMark06 which is the de facto standard for DirectX. In fact while I was searching for numbers I found lots of apologists like you trying to tell people that they shouldn't run the benchmark.

I wonder why

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=882&num=5
While the 3DMark series are synthetic benchmarks, they had worked well under WINE 0.9.46 and served their function of comparing Windows XP versus the WINE performance with Ubuntu 7.10. When using the GeForce 8600GT in these benchmarks comparing Ubuntu 7.10 with WINE to Windows XP, Windows was the clear winner by a landslide. Windows XP was noticeably faster and in some cases was nearly five times faster.

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2006/02/wine-vs-windows-xp-benchmarks.html
And not surprisingly, Wine lags behind Windows XP in the graphics test suite which uses DirectX instead of OpenGL.

Plus new games like Crysis don't work.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=658415

The only games that work properly on Wine are OpenGL ones, and that's because OpenGL is hardware accelerated (well so long as you use the closed source NVidia drivers not the freetard ones) on Linux.

So much for everything working in reality. Unless by reality you mean what loudmouth evangelists like you post whenever anyone points out flaws with Wine's approach of emulating DirectX on OpenGL when the graphics card hardware is optimized for DirectX.

Then again, we have a slew of helpful people willing to answer just about any question, no matter how trivial it may seem, over at places like LinuxQuestions.org or the Ubuntu Forums. What I'm really looking forward to is the "Year of the Helpful Experts", where new users can get all the help they need with using Linux without being insulted.

The solution to the ventrilo issue is called ventriloctrl and can be found at http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=2662867&postcount=83 . Getting push-to-talk working is not really the hurdle here, the problem is that when the Wow window has focus, there's no way for Vent to know you hit the key, which is how most people would be using vent+Wow. The post is outdated but the README that comes with the zip file explains what to do.

Hope they get an interface speed increase in Linux (Ubuntu) too. It's been plagued for quite some time now: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-789894.html, https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/174209, and http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-426722.html

Hope they get an interface speed increase in Linux (Ubuntu) too. It's been plagued for quite some time now: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-789894.html, https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/174209, and http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-426722.html

gimp is not an alternative to ps if you use it for professional work.
for example :

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=940757
I've used gimp and photoshop and there are things that still need to be polished in gimp before it can be a real competitor
I like how you can do some stuff in gimp really easy and i definitely like it, but it's not the same.

If you need a Domain Server at your school like I did, here is a link to a great tutorial to put one together. It has been working without flaw since september! It is running on an old Pentium 3 machine and allows for the students to have a personal network drive and shared network drive to use for collaborative projects... http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=640760

Let's start with saying that it's now apparently being improved and the issues fixed:

message by representative of Foxconn China

Discussed on Slashdot

But before that.. well who knows.

<tinfoil_hat_time> Unfortunately, I can't find Comes v. Microsoft antitrust case exhibit 32 anywhere on the 'Net.

Just pretend as if you're running a Microsoft OS and suddenly some of the crashes etc. disappear, apparently.

</tinfoil_hat_time>

Official Ubuntu bug 251338 page

The truth is, "Your mom" has no idea what to do if her wireless driver isn't installed in Windows, so it's not like Windows is easier for her than Linux. She's going to call you either way.

No, my mom is going to call whatever store from which she bought the computer; I don't do Vista. As for any Macs, I've found OS X to require little if any effort to maintain, and I'm comfortable with both it's GUI and CLI. Don't presume to know what anybody's mom other than your own is going to do; it looks, well, presumptuous ;-)

Personally, I ended up installing Kubuntu, as I found Gnome to be deficient (something about the network manager, as I recall, it's been a several months), but I'm also going to take a look at the latest Kalyway and Leo4All images, and see if I can install OS X.

In Windows, everything is always installing and connecting and updating and out-of-date and scanning and it has to tell you all of this RIGHT NOW. Linux leaves you the hell alone.

Adept Updater has appeared in my taskbar 3 or 4 times in the last couple of weeks. In fact, I've found Kubuntu to have far more updates, far more often, then either Windows or OS X. This is not necessarily a bad thing; don't get me wrong. But you seem to imply that it's bad to update often, and that Linux distros, specifically Ubuntu, doesn't. Ubuntu not only updates often, it upgrades every 6 months. This seems neither good nor bad, just different when compared to the policies and life cycles of other OSes.

Have you ever tried to enable internet connection sharing? Not that easy. Maybe it's easier in Intrepid (read: GUI), I honestly don't know, but a quick google doesn't bring up anything to suggest it has.

Anyways, it sounds as though you've had better luck in general than I when installing a Linux distro. That's great, and it's certainly promising for the platform as a whole. However, I've run into quite a few problems. Maybe it's just the hardware; I'm not installing on desktops, only laptops. But laptops are a crucial segment; if you want to get onto business desktops, you're going to have to be able to install on laptops as well.

Just my $.0225 (dollar's on the rise again, doncha know :-)

-Peter

"I did just that. No bug."

If you're using the current version, I already told you it appears to have been fixed - or simply stopped because of some other change made. Which as I said means it's still there and needs to be fixed.

"Except all the people who used to be able to reproduce it could no longer do so with the later builds."

So I just happened to be the guy...right?

Please. Do a Google. Other people had this problem. Recently.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-905385.html

Firefox 3 Beta 5 Random Right Click Events (fortunately these guys have a solution - click and hold - and it's still happening in 3.0.3. If they're right about the cause, it's pretty a stupid bug.)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789980&page=2

And remember, I'm using the openSUSE build, not Ubuntu - which means it isn't the distro, it's Firefox.

"I did just that. No bug."

If you're using the current version, I already told you it appears to have been fixed - or simply stopped because of some other change made. Which as I said means it's still there and needs to be fixed.

"Except all the people who used to be able to reproduce it could no longer do so with the later builds."

So I just happened to be the guy...right?

Please. Do a Google. Other people had this problem. Recently.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-905385.html

Firefox 3 Beta 5 Random Right Click Events (fortunately these guys have a solution - click and hold - and it's still happening in 3.0.3. If they're right about the cause, it's pretty a stupid bug.)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789980&page=2

And remember, I'm using the openSUSE build, not Ubuntu - which means it isn't the distro, it's Firefox.

with my ar5007, i've been browsing wirelessly in the 64bit version, thanks to this http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=816780&highlight=atheros+ar5007+64bit

Sorry... I guess what I meant is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of information or support for complete beginners who are trying to switch from windows to linux. Maybe I'm wrong, or it just isn't "dumbed down enough". I'm just frustrated that I tried installing ndiswrapper, madwifi and get nothing but errors (although I'm likely doing something incorrectly, even when following instructions in the below links detail-for-detail...) http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766169 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766529 http://madwifi.org/ticket/1679 http://blog.linuxoss.com/2008/05/ubuntu-804-enabling-atheros-ar5007-based-wireless/ http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=680209 None of those worked.

Sorry... I guess what I meant is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of information or support for complete beginners who are trying to switch from windows to linux. Maybe I'm wrong, or it just isn't "dumbed down enough". I'm just frustrated that I tried installing ndiswrapper, madwifi and get nothing but errors (although I'm likely doing something incorrectly, even when following instructions in the below links detail-for-detail...) http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766169 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766529 http://madwifi.org/ticket/1679 http://blog.linuxoss.com/2008/05/ubuntu-804-enabling-atheros-ar5007-based-wireless/ http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=680209 None of those worked.

Sorry... I guess what I meant is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of information or support for complete beginners who are trying to switch from windows to linux. Maybe I'm wrong, or it just isn't "dumbed down enough". I'm just frustrated that I tried installing ndiswrapper, madwifi and get nothing but errors (although I'm likely doing something incorrectly, even when following instructions in the below links detail-for-detail...) http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766169 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=766529 http://madwifi.org/ticket/1679 http://blog.linuxoss.com/2008/05/ubuntu-804-enabling-atheros-ar5007-based-wireless/ http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=680209 None of those worked.

I think it was 7.10 that first included Tracker turned on by default. At this point Tracker was still alpha software, many users reported it taking up all available resources, and complaints were simply brushed aside. After suffering from my Ubuntu installation constantly freezing due to trackerd, and being unable to disable it without removing it (I disabled it in 3 separate places but it still persisted on restart) I installed Fedora and never looked back. It may not be quite so "polished" but it hasn't sprung any nasty surprises on me.

There's a fix on the thread you gave. I don't understand why you even posted the this because you must have already known there was a fix.. wtf is that about?

Because, the question becomes, why the hell wasn't the fix integrated to begin with? Do they really expect casual users to figure that out?

There's a fix on the thread you gave. I don't understand why you even posted the this because you must have already known there was a fix.. wtf is that about?

No, 8.10 will support joysticks if you either:

1) Work around it by editing xorg.conf: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=6023212&postcount=5

2) Wait for X.org to get their act together, fix *their* bug then the Ubuntu guys either backport it, or release it as an Intrepid update. Infact, the bug in Ubuntu is targetted to the "intrepid-updates" milestone, so as soon as Xorg manage to fix the bug, it will be a top priority to get uploaded to intrepid-updates

I've seen multiple people, in multiple forums jump on the bandwagon complaining that it should hold back the release, not bothering to read the guidelines on what makes a release critical bug (it cant be easily worked around or documented, which this most definately can)

The only reason I would even consider Real to be an actual peice of software is BBC commits their heart and soul into this relic. BBC Radio will only work on Windows media player or Real Player. Being on Linux...that leaves me with only Real player. Which doesn't REALly work. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=161941

Ubuntu, AIUI, made a deliberate decision to be slightly less anal about rock solid stability and nailing every last bug, in order to be able to ship more up-to-date versions of the applications that most people use day to day. Crashes are undesirable, but having features missing that you want to use is also undesirable. And having said that, Ubuntu is usually pretty bomb-proof too.

Unfortunately, it appears that only a small minority of users have found the latest Ubuntu release (which is also their "Long Term Support" release) "bomb-proof".

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=764847

It is also worth noticing that Ubuntu doesn't officially support their "universe" component (although there are some community members who try to support "universe" packages on a best-efforts basis). This means that the Ubuntu Security Team doesn't scan packages in "universe" for potential vulnerabilities, although "universe" in enabled by default. This is another deliberate decision that Ubuntu has made -- they have decided to be less anal about both security and stability in order to meet arbitrary release deadlines.

Newbies also seem to have no problem at all just copying several lines and entering them at the command line. I guess there is a reason why the Ubuntu Forums FAQ points to a thread that starts with: ATTENTION ALL USERS: Malicious Commands

I recently had a terrible time trying to install Linux on a new Intel motherboard, mostly related to ACPI problems.

Maybe the Linux DSDT table is crap in your motherboard - Sample.

It doesn't lock you out. Or not me anyway. I get a message that says to disable my adblocking software, but the program shows up normally after 30 seconds.

I've had it lock me out, and I've also seen it shows a blank screen for 30 seconds (It does this on Windows). Either way, it penalizes you for using an ad-blocker. In fact, the commercials are shorter than the 30 seconds it penalizes you for using Ad-Block, making Ad-Block completely pointless on that site.

So I return to my point. How can TiVo get around these commercials and no one has made a Firefox Extension that can do the same thing?

Dang, looks like perhaps the Gobby Web site went down under the load. Anyone have a mirror? I just set up a Gobby server and want my coworkers using Windows and Mac to be able to try it out, if clients exist for those platforms.

The Exchange 2007 web services API should make this job easier.

Introduction to Exchange Web Services in Exchange 2007
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb408417.aspx

New Programmability Features in Exchange Server 2007
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb332450.aspx

More discussions:
Exchange 2007
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3891474

http://psankar.blogspot.com/2007/10/write-evolution-plugins-using-mono-c.html
"Exchange Server 2007 has a Exchange Web-Services Interface. IIUC Working with web-services should be a lot easier and featureful when done via Mono than plain C. So implementing support for Exchange 2007 can be done via this Mono plugins (which I am planning to takeup as my ITO task)"

I had the same question and stumbled upon WICD and never looked back. It's fantastic. Install Instructions

If you really want Ubuntu, the best place to look is in the Ubuntu forums. (and yes, I know this looks like RTFM, but the forums ARE very helpful). A quick search shows that your NVIDIA 9800 GT card causes problems with the default kernel in 8.04.

I personally don't like Ubuntu's fussiness with hardware and would suggest trying Mandriva Spring or OpenSUSE 11.

All Linux distributions that existed 13 years ago can be upgraded to the current versions (along with all software and users' settings).

Right because upgrading Linux installations always works every time.

http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1007
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=322418

Also good luck downloading a new installation over the sort of internet connection these machines will have in the third world. And good luck trying to get tech support when it fails on some percentage of the machines when you can't afford an international call. These people pay an absolutely higher price per bit transferred or per minute of transatlantic call than people in the first world pay but earn 10x less. It was literally cheaper to call from Sweden to Thailand than to call from Thailand to Sweden. Their internet access is far worse too. On the other hand commercial software is 'free' because piracy is rampant.

The fact is for the sort of people these machines are aimed at, no updates means that security holes will stay unpatched.

And realistically would any software support upgrading on a 13 year old machine? Over that time filesystems will have changed. Linux is about progress, not back compatibility and no one is willing to do the work to maintain old ABIs or filesystem formats. In fact they often deride Microsoft for caring about it.

Even worse, over 13 years instruction sets change. And support for old ones are dropped in new software.

There's loads of scope for breaking Linux updates.

I actually think that given that these machines are going to be passed to technically unsophisticated people with poor communications access, Linux doesn't seem such a good idea.

Of course, being one of many Microsoft marketing people in this thread you can't know this.

Hmm, doesn't that seem a bit of an ad hominem attack to you? Even if it were true how does it affect what I'm saying. Hell, I spend my time working on embedded systems at work, but Linux was too much trouble to maintain at home.

Even for Windows issues. Everyone is very helpful.

"Can I reinstall over myself? If I could just nuke and pave I would be immensely happier, for sure."

You sure can. You can use "guided partitioning" and take over the whole disk if you want an easy, complete fresh start.

Here is a good place to get help:

http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=326

It surprises me that more people haven't jumped over to Amazon. Maybe it's because of ignorance, I dunno... but you can get DRM-free MP3s there, encoded at 256kbit. When I use their download manager, and I have iTunes running, the song/album I downloaded automatically gets imported into iTunes.

Yeah, I don't understand why more people don't know about it. I guess Apple really did a good job of marketing the iPod and iTunes. Linux support on amazon's mp3 service is flaky, but here is a howto for linux users that explains how to get past some of the hassles.

It somewhat works on Linux, but it has issues. Search the Ubuntu Forums for "firefox flash crash" and you'll know what I mean. I currently can't watch Flash without Firefox crashing. After the crash it works fine for ~one-two Videos, then it will crash again inevitably. Also crashes on any other Flash content, like navigation elements. Without a Session Manager (using the one from TabMixPlus) and NoScript browsing would be unbearable.

From what I gathered at the Ubuntu Forums this is an issue with Flash 9 and PulseAudio, hopefuly it will be fixed with Ubuntu 8.10.

So, Flash works on Linux, but not very good, and especially not very good on one of the major Linux distributions.

No, of course you shouldn't be recompiling drivers, only your distro should, and does.
In your case, it's probably not a driver issue, but being a victim of the new auto-configurable Xorg.
I forgot that. Xorg has been an Achiles heel for the platform, stagnating for several years. The good news is that this is supposed to be the only time it gets worse before getting better, because they seem to have found a good way to manage configuration.
This case is a major rearchitecture of the graphics subsystem architecture, and there were some victims. You are one of them.
About having a hard time with support, if you are still interested, I have just a suggestion.
Opinion in a support forum is something that can leave you alone, if it's not very very very informed opinion. Nerds are odd creatures to deal with, but they like being helpful when they don't see you as a menace or a waste of time. That includes saying stuff like "Windows works better in my machine". Remember you are getting other people to help you, at least try not to mess with they hypersensitive egos. Or buy support from Canonical, whatever you feel more comfortable with.

Both your issues seem to be related exclusively to Xorg configuration.

If you are still interested, this thread seems to deal with your computer, and your config: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=563736 . In the last pages they start talking about Ubuntu 8.04, and their stylus. Good luck.

Many others are experiencing issues. This is one of many threads like this on the Ubuntu forums where people are having serious issue with flash (especially compared to earlier versions (before 9.048). Version 9.112 and beyond (and even Beta) still are really slow, consume a crapload of cpu cycles and are in general unusable.

I've been researching this issue (mainly to get Hulu.com videos playable in fullscreen on a Mythbuntu setup) and have found no recourse other than playing the video at normal size, but using Firefox's zoom or turning on Compiz and using the fullscreen zoom to enlarge the video. Even so the video gets choppy occasionally and of course, is kind of a pain.

Right now full screen videos (using Flash's full screen option) use 90% CPU (out of 2 CPUs on an Athlon 64x2 4800+) and beat to death the poor Sempron 2800 I have on my Mythbuntu setup. Funny enough, the puny Sempron can play HD videos at 1080p with little or no issue.

After following countless threads (and the official bug report on Adobe's website), trying every 9 version and 10 beta, and so on I've pretty much given up on getting Flash to behave for now. Don't get me wrong, I believe you when you say it's playing fine for you, but either the issue is genuinely not affecting your system, or you haven't paid attention to cpu usage while playing flash. As always YMMV.

BTW, any hints not covered in the forums greatly appreciated. Getting fullscreen flash working is the last step in getting a web video based MythTV setup working.

Many others are experiencing issues. This is one of many threads like this on the Ubuntu forums where people are having serious issue with flash (especially compared to earlier versions (before 9.048). Version 9.112 and beyond (and even Beta) still are really slow, consume a crapload of cpu cycles and are in general unusable.

I've been researching this issue (mainly to get Hulu.com videos playable in fullscreen on a Mythbuntu setup) and have found no recourse other than playing the video at normal size, but using Firefox's zoom or turning on Compiz and using the fullscreen zoom to enlarge the video. Even so the video gets choppy occasionally and of course, is kind of a pain.

Right now full screen videos (using Flash's full screen option) use 90% CPU (out of 2 CPUs on an Athlon 64x2 4800+) and beat to death the poor Sempron 2800 I have on my Mythbuntu setup. Funny enough, the puny Sempron can play HD videos at 1080p with little or no issue.

After following countless threads (and the official bug report on Adobe's website), trying every 9 version and 10 beta, and so on I've pretty much given up on getting Flash to behave for now. Don't get me wrong, I believe you when you say it's playing fine for you, but either the issue is genuinely not affecting your system, or you haven't paid attention to cpu usage while playing flash. As always YMMV.

BTW, any hints not covered in the forums greatly appreciated. Getting fullscreen flash working is the last step in getting a web video based MythTV setup working.

The original poster of this article is experiencing bugs with his or her distribution, *not* merely with Flash. There are several issues at work here.

a) Flash 10 RC is the first version to support "windowless mode" flash content that several sites use. Unfortunately, there is a bug in Firefox that causes "windowless mode" content to crash. It is not a bug caused by Adobe Flash; un fact, the newest version of swfdec (which also added support for "windowless mode" content) also causes Firefox to crash. This fix is due for release in Firefox 3.0.2 and a workaround is available for older releases already. See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/239182

b) Ubuntu Hardy was the first release to integrate PulseAudio, but its default configuration can cause a lot of trouble for users. PulseAudio provides ALSA plugins that enable plain ALSA applications to work correctly with PulseAudio; these plugins are supposed to be enabled by default. Some (buggy) applications do not work correctly using these plugins, including Flash 9 and Audacity. Hardy was released without these plugin enabled, causing many audio mixing problems for users. See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/198453

c) It appears the original poster is using the libflashsupport library, which is a workaround to enable PulseAudio support in Flash without the need for the ALSA plugins mentioned in point (b) to be enabled. There is a bug in Flash when using the libflashsupport API; closing and opening new flash streams will result in a crash (such as navigating from one Youtube page to another). See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/192888

d) Flash 10 has fixed its ALSA implementation, allowing it to work correctly with the PulseAudio ALSA plugins as mentioned in point (b) - this means that the (buggy) libflashsupport library is now redundant.

Note that all the above bugs contain links to the upstream issues when applicable. For those too lazy to follow the individual bugs, I have posted a guide to configure PulseAudio (and Flash 10) correctly for Ubuntu users, complete with testing packages. See: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789578

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5587712&postcount=472. This guy has for a long time been working on getting flash working perfectly in ubuntu 8.04 and following the linked guide makes it work perfectly for me.

The Effectiveness of the Ubuntu Forums

(The link this person gives in his blog post)

I swear to christ, reading that page made me want to kill a kitten.

After checking out all your postings on the Ubuntu forums I have come to a conclusion.

Not only are you whining about Kubuntu feisty (which was released in 2007 before gutsy and hardy) you're spitting in the faces of all the people who helped you.

A forum moderator actually told me I was an idiot for owning ATI hardware, to which I replied "it is the laptop my wife bought" to which he later replied "then you should divorce the bitch." I expect better from moderators. It is the single worst community I've ever dealt with. I really got spoiled on the Gentoo forums. I really love reading those.

I assume you mean this thread in which you're asking for help with your wife's laptop. All I see is people trying to help you of course don't let that get in the way of a good lie, I'm sure you'll just come back with "it was deleted" or some other crap.

So lets recap..

1) You're talking about two releases ago.
2) you lied about the support you got offered.

After checking out all your postings on the Ubuntu forums I have come to a conclusion.

Not only are you whining about Kubuntu feisty (which was released in 2007 before gutsy and hardy) you're spitting in the faces of all the people who helped you.

A forum moderator actually told me I was an idiot for owning ATI hardware, to which I replied "it is the laptop my wife bought" to which he later replied "then you should divorce the bitch." I expect better from moderators. It is the single worst community I've ever dealt with. I really got spoiled on the Gentoo forums. I really love reading those.

I assume you mean this thread in which you're asking for help with your wife's laptop. All I see is people trying to help you of course don't let that get in the way of a good lie, I'm sure you'll just come back with "it was deleted" or some other crap.

So lets recap..

1) You're talking about two releases ago.
2) you lied about the support you got offered.

I authenticate my Debian, Ubuntu, and Mac OS X systems to a Windows 2003 AD using standard LDAP and Kerberos with no problems. I use the same, AD username/password and UID/GID across all systems - all maintained in AD (using the free MS SFU).

It was a little tricky to set up (I'm not a system administrator by trade), but there are plenty of instructions on the Internet to walk a Linux-handy person through the process.

Mac OS X Leopard is just drop-dead easy to integrate; it has built-in mechanisms to do so.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=1189857&postcount=8
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ActiveDirectoryHowto

You probably won't need books or irc. Linux is getting pretty accessible these days. The best thing is to have a buddy who is already comfortable with Linux. Lacking that, I'd recommend taking a look at the very noob-friendly Ubuntu forums and Ubuntu wiki. You should probably start by toying around with a virtual machine in windows, where you won't have to worry about things like drivers. You could also try playing around with a live boot CD.

After that you can take the plunge and install Ubuntu to the bare metal. In case something (eg: wifi) doesn't work, it's a good idea to have a laptop with internet access and a USB flash drive at hand when you start. Also make extra careful special sure you don't kill your mission critical Windows partition. Not yet anyways :D I got another old hard drive for Linux while I was still getting used to it, and disabled the Windows hard drive whenever I was going to do something maybe possibly risky.

Don't expect everything to go super smooth - there will be some hang up somewhere. Even if it's more user friendly than Windows, it's different, and there is stuff to learn.

Willy - Take a look at what the original poster at Ubuntu forums said:

Ubuntu forum thread. Starts at post #114.

If he is correct in what he writes, then it doesn't seem much like speculation.

Perhaps if someone else has linkage to a sound refutation of his claims, it would be a good thing to post here. I've seen comments that TheAlmightyCthulu's claims were 'debunked', but the comments didn't say where, or have links.

You probably want this, or a variant of this for your distro: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=789824

Also bear in mind that Network Manager can be a pain in the ass and might be the cause of your trouble. On my laptop it routinely forgets my AP name and WAP password, so I have to open it up an re-enter the password every time I reboot Ubuntu.

In the past few minutes, the UK technical manager for Foxconn has posted on ubuntuforums.

He sounds genuinely sorry, and says that the bios will be fixed next week, and they will look into their testing procedures.

It looks like maybe OP just had the bad luck of getting a support person who didn't know enough to pass him up to another support level.

My email to FOXCONN:

After reading this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249 I am appalled at the responses attributed to your company to a serious complaint about defective DSDT tables in your ACPI implementation in the BIOS of the above-mentioned motherboard.

I agree with the premise of this article that it sure looks like the defect is intentional. Foxconn's alleged responses do nothing but reinforce that suspicion in my mind. Whether that is the case or not, Foxconn's responses (if accurately represented in the article - if not please email me with your side of the story) are unacceptable to me.

A customer of yours finds a defect, troubleshoots it on his own, and offers you all the information you need to fix it, and you respond with contempt, disrespect, and dismissal? Not good business practice! Unless you can convince me otherwise, from now on FOXCONN is synonynous with "Linux incompatible" and, as a Linux user, I will be boycotting all FOXCONN products and encouraging others to do the same.

Have a nice day!

Stan D. Freeman
freeman@maininator.com

Cheers. I also found these Acidrip patches. PS In case anyone missed it, I really meant to ask about the front end GUI/script tools rather than the engines. PPS I'm actually using Mandriva.

I use ubuntu daily in at least 3 different computers since 6.10.
7.10 was very solid, this one... Is not.
Just look at this massive thread at ubuntuforuns:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=768200

I'll not list all the bugs that I've found because I'm tired of it... And yes, there are people that don't have or didn't notice them (yet).
I'm not abandoning this distro because I like its philosophy. I'm willing to continue my little contribution, but with releases like this, it seems more like a UbuVista or BugBuntu and no eye candy will hide it.