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Dapper Drake Hits Ubuntu Servers
linuxbeta writes "Ubuntu 6.04 (Dapper Drake) daily builds have hit the Ubuntu servers. Dapper's goals: Substantial polish and integration, software discovery and installation, make network-wide enterprise updates easy to manage, consider LSB and related certification standards and support for deployment of Dapper on mission-critical servers. Screenshots have already surfaced."
I sure hope that they've fixed the VIA C3 bug that was present on the last distribution, 'Breezy Badger'. I tried installing it on an 800MHz C3 system and it was unstable to the point of being unusable. I can't remember the exact details, something about the C3 missing one of the Pentium instructions.
Ed Almos
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
If you don't like GNOME, like myself and many others, feel free to try Kubuntu. It offers all the goodness of Ubuntu, but replaces GNOME with KDE.
Of course, you can still install and use GNOME software, although I don't know why you'd want to do that when you've got the power of KDE available to you.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The Ubuntu development releases are often quite stable, even while undergoing constant changes and development. If you want to be on the cutting edge, while still having a quite stable and usable system, the Ubuntu development branch is very useful.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Well having done over 400 Debian installs and 1 Ubuntu install (Breezy Badger), I feel comfortable saying that the installs are different. Sure you have the comfortable and simple Debian CUI, but you do not have to answer any questions! I think the entire installation asked me about 4 questions. It is easier than a Redhat install, but you get the advantage of the Debian package pool and the Debian package system. One oft overlooked feature of Debian is the sheer number of quality tested packages available. The installer works as well as Redhat's but you end up with a better system that has much more software easily available through apt. Ubuntu has a long way to go before it can come close to Debian's track record, but I think it's off to a good start.
Speaking of fonts, try XLinSans as a desktop and application font. To me it's absolutely beautiful. At http://temcat.narod.ru/ you'll find a DEB for it made by me from AltLinux RPM package.
I would be more than willing to use GNOME, but many improvements would need to be made. That does not appear to be happening. That could be because they're unaware of the major problems with their product. I will alert them, as well as potential users, to such problems.
Indeed, you are correct. The GNOME file selector used by Firefox 1.0.7 is quite terrible. It isn't as intuitive as the file selectors offered by KDE, Mac OS X and even Windows. But more importantly, it doesn't offer any additional benefit to account for the lack of intuitiveness.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
The microsoft web fonts are available on any debian-derived distribution in the "msttcorefonts" package. The list is: Andale, Arial, Comic Sans MS, Courier New, Georgia, Impact, Times New Roman, Trebuchet, Verdana, and Webdings. Unfortunately, Tahoma has not been authorized by microsoft for redistribution, so you'll need to manually move it from a Windows installation if you want to use it. It would probably be better to use one of the excellent free fonts included in Ubuntu, because then you can redistribute the font you're using if you want to. The Bitsteam Vera family are my personal favorites.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
I like the brown theme too.
It has a 'let us stick together and respect the nature' feel.
However (unrelated to Ubuntu) I agree with a comment above about the gnome file selection dialog.
It is terribly unintuitive and ugly. I have initiated a lot of people to GNU/Linux, and I've shown both KDE and GNOME. Some like one, some the other.
However I noticed that novices which chose GNOME spend a lot more time in GNOME file selection dialogs.
Priority one for the usability of a file selection dialog is shortening the:
"where is this file going to be saved?" thought process.
The KDE f dialogs seem to make a much better work there.
At first it seemed this was the case to me as well, but I have found that many (all?) of the items in "multiverse" - including Mplayer, dvd libraries, etc - don't show up in the basic/default package installer. If I search there, either nothing appears or it shows up grayed out. If I switch to the "advanced" mode and search, everything shows up (with multiple versions even) and I can get it all installed. The only thing not available in the repository was libdvdcss (think that's the name) due to legal issues but libdvdread spit out some instructions when I ran mplayer on how to install that with a supplied shell script.
I was quite pleased - I have a 1GHz desktop leftover from work that I installed 5.10 on, and once I found the above got Mplayer working easily. In far less time (not to mention frustration) than I've ever spent before I was watching and ripping DVDs. Very nice. This machine is now probably destined to replace my "TV computer" out in the living room.
I haven't used it enough yet to comment on anything else, it seemed quite speedy enough to me considering the computer. I'm just about willing to install it on the laptop - that'll be the real test for me.
The Ubuntu developers don't make it particularly easy to find, but they do have DVD releases to download, which include much more software than the traditional CD image.
Anyway, it's discussed on his page in the Ubuntu Wiki:
So Dapper = last "brown" release.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."