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Ubuntu 6.06 Reviewed
Mark writes "This year has been a huge step forward for Desktop Linux users. First, Fedora Core 5 was released and featured the new Gnome 2.14. Then SUSE 10.1 showed us how well applications could be integrated to make a desktop look great. Now it was time for Ubuntu to release their latest version: 'Dapper Drake.'" Oh yeah, the inital review is good, too. Worth checking out for desktop Linux users.
I have been checking on Kubuntu for about a year now. I always said Kubuntu is not yet but has great potential. That was mainly because of the work that has already been done and the resources FOSS makes available. Add to that the a rich guy and you get the great potential. I used to throw away the CD I burnt but yesterday was the first time I was not disappointed with it and I even went ahead and installed on one of the desktops I have. Draper Drake is a milestone to Ubuntu and Linux. Great distro over all. It is clean, fast, reliable and robust. I think it will be the envy of many including MS.
I'm a Windows user who's been looking at Ubuntu for awhile. I had tried Fedora and Mandrake in the past, but I just wasn't impressed enough to switch.
All I have to say is: wow! I burned the 'Desktop' CD, booted it up on my Thinkpad R52, and was able to play around in the OS to get familiar with the environment. Once I was satisfied that everything was running smooth (it saw all of my devices, including wireless, with no problem) all I had to do was click on the 'Install' icon on the desktop.
The installer itself was excellent. Like I said having installed other distros in the past this graphical install *in a desktop environment* was excellent. The part that I had dreaded the most was setting up dual boot (I already had XP installed). The installer saw the XP partition (NTFS) and allowed me to resize it and install Ubuntu in the newly freed space (and automatically installed GRUB). This was absolutely beautiful functionality, and I think it will really make a great transitional tool for migrating us lame Windows users over to Linux.
I am a [very] long term Windows user and Windows Admin for a large corporation witl 100,000+ desktops. I love Windows. It is a superb operating system for a corporate environment. Sure it can be a pain in the arse because of updates but its ability to be centrally managed, etc is awesome. There is nothing else that can compete with it on an enterprise level, not even the stunning OS X 10.4. However Ubuntu 6.06 is an incredible operating system. While I am a Windows user I have a lot of respect for a lot of other operating systems. Linux being one of them. Ubuntu is probably the most professional release I have ever used. It installed without a hitch on my 6 months old IBM test workstation. I am very very impressed and I take my hat off to the Ubuntu team. The delay was worth it. Easily. They [the Ubuntu team] have done an incredible job and you have to respect that. I could easily give a Ubuntu system to a new computer user and they be able to learn how to use it for general tasks just as fast as a Windows system. You only have to go to the terminal as much as you need to go to the registry in Windows so it isn't really a battle on ease of use anymore. Ubuntu has brought Linux on par with Windows in that regard. Ubuntu just need to push on hardware support so that if it fails it fails gracfully. X server critical errors need to be replaced with a more graceful drop down to 800x600z256 colours similar to what Windows does. Also the most important thing to get working (other than the graphical interface) is the network. Once you have the network up and running you can get any other driver you need to. Ubuntu worked fine with my network card but I know that it isn't perfect from reports I have read online. I hope that this is fixed in the next release (7.01?). In a nutshell. SUPERB.
More importantly (for me), the first official release of Xubuntu (Xfce) is out.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
For example, I noticed that, in that default installation, there is a boot option for "Recovery Console," which simply gives anyone who starts it root access to the computer without a password. While it can be disabled by editing a configuration file, something like that should never have been added in the first place.
I don't love that, but it's not a big deal for most people. It's certainly not something that should prohibit average desktop users from running Ubuntu. Try holding Apple-S during boot on your OS X machine sometime, it does the same thing.
Besides, if someone really wants your data and has physical access to your unencrypted hard drive, you're screwed anyway.
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
Finally!! For the first time my broadcom wireless networking card works with the open source driver! Follow this guide and it's easy: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=185174
No more ndiswrapper, and now I can use the absolutely amazing knetworkmanager!
I think Ubuntu should have a popup for people not in the USA, to a site like Easy Ubuntu, so they can play MP3s, without editing files and manually downloading codecs. Really, Windows users don't have to do that, why should Linux users be inconvenienced?
Oh You POS
This past week I've install Ubuntu on my old gateway laptop, and help a friend set up (not install) XP on her
new HP laptop.
The Ubuntu install was suprisingly easy. I answered 3 or 4 questions, like my name and my time zone, and
do I want to install Ubuntu on the entire hard drive (I answered yes). After the install finished, my wireless was working
without a hitch, and I had a nice clean desktop to enjoy.
In comparison, the XP setup was mystifying, and it was *already* installed. During bootup, windows kept popping up,
sometimes several unrelated windows at once. First, a registration window came up. While we were trying to answer
the list of questions there, an Anti-Virus wizard popped up. Next a little window came up to tells use that XP had found
my wireless network, but strangely enough the registration app didn't know how to use it.
Next, a Recovery wizard popped up and recommended that we make recovery disks (using 1 double layer DVD, 2 single layer DVDs,
or 13! CDs). Another little window told use to install an XP update, so I completed that first. Then, we took the suggestion of
the Anti-Virus wizard to reboot, and we've never seen the Recovery wizard since. We even went searching the disk and the
help system - couldn't find it.
Wireless never came up by itself, we had to drill into the Control Panel to enable it.
When we were all done, we were greeted by a desktop festooned with icon/ads. There was an icon for Blockbuser,
AOL dialup, AOL broadband, MS Office 2003 60 day trial, etc.
Another point of comparison, when I inserted my USB key in the Ubuntu laptop, a folder appears with a list of files on the key. Nice. Under XP,
before I can even view the contents, I have to choose who to see it. It is a photo album? A slideshow? There were more choices than could
fit in the pop-window, one had to scroll down to see the Ubuntu equivalent option, view files.
In every way I preferred Ubuntu experience, and I'm sure my grey-haired Mom would feel the same.