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Ubuntu 6.10 is Out

cloudmaster writes "Apparently they were watching me to see when I downloaded the 6.10-rc release isos, as I did that last night, and the full release happened this morning. :) Neat stuff, including Firefox 2.0, Gnome 2.16, myth 0.20, faster booting thanks to upstart (sort of a replacement for init, among others), etc. The announcement and download pages are up. I've got *my* torrent running..."

42 of 386 comments (clear)

  1. Easy upgrade from Dapper by fracai · · Score: 5, Informative

    gksudo "update-manager -c"

    --
    -- i am jack's amusing sig file
    1. Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper by fracai · · Score: 4, Informative
      --
      -- i am jack's amusing sig file
    2. Re:Easy upgrade from Dapper by bodger_uk · · Score: 3, Informative

      Also available is kubuntu (for those that like their desktop KDE.

      Links to the CDs / Torrents here:
      http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php

      Automatic update procedure is as follows:
            1.In Konqueror go to /etc/apt, right click on sources.list and choose Actions -> Edit as Root
            2.Change all instances of dapper to edgy
            3.Launch a console with K-Menu -> System -> Konsole
            4.In the console run: sudo apt-get update
            5.In the console run: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and follow the prompts to upgrade
            6.In the console run: sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop python-qt3 python-kde3 ubuntu-minimal and follow the prompts to install
            7.Reboot your computer

  2. Firefox? by jdavidb · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's got Firefox 2.0? I wanted IceWeasel!

  3. Re:Can I by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Informative

    Can I now dist-upgrade my Ubuntu Dapper to Edgy?

    I think so, I was going to do (on the command line)

    sudo sed -e 's/\sdapper/ edgy/g' -i /etc/apt/sources.list

    sudo apt-get update

    sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

    * Go to bed / work *

    Which will update my sources list, update the repository and then upgrade. At least, that's what I think it'll do. If anyone has any corrections then let us know.

  4. Ubuntu Do What Debian [C/W]ouldn't... by vain+gloria · · Score: 5, Informative

    I say, here's fun! Official word from Mozilla on why Ubuntu shipped with Firefox branded Firefox, rather than Iceweasel.

    Plaudits to the Ubuntu guys for getting this release out so quickly. Wonder if I should stick with 6.06 and its LTS or upgrade?

  5. Debian? by Klaidas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why is there a Debian icon here? Yeah, I know, "ubuntu is based on debian", etc. But if the distro is THAT popular, you might wanna get an icon for Ubuntu too.

    1. Re:Debian? by SexyJesus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. Ubuntu has been the most popular distribution on distrowatch for more than a year now.

  6. Re:Can I by grazzy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also the documentation recommends running sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
    Thats because if the first command fails you shouldnt run the second for whatever reason.

    Ubuntu is the next best thing since sliced bread, and everyone should atleast try it out. I upgraded my 5.10 (no idea how I managed to install that) the other day to 6.06 this way - it went without a hickup. I love ubuntu :P

  7. Some early impressions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Upgrade from Dapper via the net too around 1 hour (DSL) and went very smooth. During the updating process the system worked fine, but some strange things started to happen due to new versions of apps and libraries slowly filtering in (e.g. funny fonts, missing icons).

    After the reboot ...

    Dapper was already a fast system, Edgy feels even faster. In particular, bott time is shorter, the Gnome menus come up quicker. The Murrine GTK+ theme I had installed from outside of the normal repositories was broken. Fonts were not fully hinted (looked smeared) in Firefox and gnome-terminal; this was fixed by explicitly switching to full hinting in the fonts preferences. These have been the only regressions I've noticed so far.

    The new Firefox 2 is certainly nice, e.g. spell-checking in text fields, not slow as molasses anymore on framed pages, etc. Departs further from GTK look & feel with the (literally) shiny new tabs. Epiphany has acquired adblocking capabilities, but is still not installed by default.

  8. Re:Can I by grazzy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A small success story;

    The company that I hire my office from has been running redhat for ages, they're getting problems installing their in-house software to the newer versions of redhat because they are using cups instead of the older lp/lpr/lprng systems. Knowing this I started synaptic (the ubuntu package manager), searched for LPRNG with one of the senior guys behind my shoulder. Choosed to install LPRNG, synaptic automaticlly disabled cups and change the appropriate settings. 15 minutes later we were printing useing their sed-scripts from the 80's again.

    I think I can safely say that I singlehanded arranged for a bunch of new ubuntu installs with that 20 minutes of my time.

  9. Of course... by Reapman · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now that I finished installing 4 Ubuntu systems this week this would happen...

  10. MythTV on Ubuntu by KefkaTheMad · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does anyone have any thoughts about MythTV on Ubuntu vs. other distros?

    I'm a relative Linux noob, having only been using it for half a year. I ran Myth 0.19 on Fedora Core 5, but broke it somehow when I upgraded to 0.20. I ran into some sound bug that I couldn't figure out, so I took the easy way out and installed KnoppMyth, which has worked like a charm. However, I'm not in love with Knoppix, so I'm thinking about running trying Myth on Ubuntu.

    As a relative noob, I really loved using Yum on FC5, but I haven't had as good of an experience with Apt on Knoppix. In my limited experience, I've had more issues with dependencies using Apt than I did with Yum. I know Ubuntu is also Debian-based and also uses Apt, but I've heard it's very noob-friendly, so I was wondering what merits there would be in switching from KnoppMyth to an Ubuntu-based Myth system.

  11. Upstart faster how?... by karot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    faster booting thanks to upstart (sort of a replacement for init, among others)

    I just had a look at "upstart" and some of its configuration documentation, and while I understand "traditional" rc script processes (such as sysvinit, and the variations on that) I cannot see how upstart will speed anything up. It still seems to be a serialised startup process, and the documentation does not make it clear how to specify startup dependencies ("IP before NTP", or "spamd before sendmail"), so there is no implied optimisation behind-the-scenes by using parallel startup.

    Have I missed something, or is this just a move to an event-driven RC process "because I can" ?

    --
    Enjoy Y2K? Roll-on Year 2037!
    1. Re:Upstart faster how?... by sarathmenon · · Score: 3, Informative
      It still seems to be a serialised startup process, and the documentation does not make it clear how to specify startup dependencies ("IP before NTP", or "spamd before sendmail"), so there is no implied optimisation behind-the-scenes by using parallel startup.
      Check gentoo's startup scripts and their structure - they feature a lot of cool modifications like soft boot levels, and an exhaustive dependency structure. I don't know why other vendors aren't adopting it, but its worth taking a look and there is nothing gentoo specific in the whole structure. (I will probably be modded troll for this.)
      --
      Microsoft: "You've got questions. We've got dancing paperclips."
    2. Re:Upstart faster how?... by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "It still seems to be a serialised startup process"

      It is. For Ubuntu edgy, a "compatibility layer" has been implemented to allow upstart run the old sysv /etc/init.d scripts

      This is because changing everything in a single release was too much. For the next release, they'll replace the old scripts with true upstart scripts and then the switch will be complete (and still there'll be compatibility for the unported sysv scripts available in extra packages)

    3. Re:Upstart faster how?... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It still seems to be a serialised startup process, and the documentation does not make it clear how to specify startup dependencies ("IP before NTP", or "spamd before sendmail")

      From the documentation, it looks like you can do exactly this, by specifying that spamd be started when and before sendmail is started. You can also have sendmail start whenever spamd has finished starting. It looks to give you the ability to inject dependencies in either direction. Example: If sendmail is already installed and configured to start at system boot, the spamd installer just needs to add "start on sendmail/start" to it's own startup script, and upstart will call it before calling sendmail's startup script. Or you can go the other direction, and have sendmail's script use "start on spamd/started" to run sendmail's startup script after spamd's startup script finishes running.

      However, the most useful aspect seems to be the fact that it can process events at any time, not just startup/shutdown. Such as starting an iPod sync daemon only when an iPod is connected, and stopping it when the iPod is removed.

  12. With Strigi! by oever · · Score: 4, Informative

    The universe now contains the desktop search with the fastest file-indexer: Strigi! This is a huge improvement over Beagle in terms of resource usage and with the added ability to search for files no matter how deeply nested in packages, archives or mail, it's clearly the best file searching tool for Linux.

    --
    DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
  13. Re:apt-get dist-upgrade by johansalk · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's also nice, once the iso burned, which is a 2 minute job, to have a CD around.

  14. Re:Can I by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow, I bet all the girls are after you now, you hot stud.

  15. Re:Can I by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I updated Kubuntu from 6.06 yesterday (as detailed in the RC press release) and after rebooting the system stop working (frozen at the end of the boot process).
    Should it happen to you, I did this:

    1. reset
    2. hit ESC when prompted at boot
    3. select safe mode from the menu
    4. run "startx" on the commnad prompt. KDE should start.
    5. Update the system with Adept (system > package manager).
    6. reboot.

    Everything is fine now.

  16. Et tu, Kubuntu? by CheeseTroll · · Score: 4, Informative

    Kubuntu 6.10 has also been released. New features + installation/upgrade instructions are here: http://kubuntu.org/announcements/6.10-release.php

    --
    A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
  17. GNOME slower after update? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just tried updating like that, going from an Ubuntu 6.06 system running GNOME 2.14. But now that I've got GNOME 2.16 installed, I've hit some major performance problems.

    The most serious problem is that it now takes 12 to 15 seconds for a new window to open. Even running a GNOME app from an xterm exhibits this problem, so it's not a problem with the GNOME deskbar. Applications like xterm, xedit, and Opera, which do not use GTK+, do not suffer from this problem. They start up almost immediately. Mozilla Seamonkey, on the other hand, also suffers from this long delay, I presume because it is using GTK+.

    I need my workstation to actually function, so I have installed KDE, and it's working fine. I think it's significantly more responsive than GNOME 2.14 was. I wish I had time to debug this problem with GNOME 2.16, but I don't. To me, it's just another example of the decreasing quality of the GNOME and GTK+ code. Ever since Miguel left to work on Mono, I've been running into more and more problems. This incident is completely unacceptable, so I think I'm done with GNOME. KDE has really progressed lately, and I think it even now offers me more than GNOME ever did.

  18. Cake? by neaorin · · Score: 5, Funny

    I guess the cake sent to them by the Vista team got lost in delivery.

  19. Re:Slow News Day *YAWN* by ElleyKitten · · Score: 3, Funny

    Hey, at least this time we didn't get 8 previous stories "Ubuntu 6.06 releases next week!" "Ubuntu 6.06 releases tomorrow!" "Ubuntu 6.06 releases later todaay!"

    --
    "What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
  20. Re:So, they replaced init. by beezly · · Score: 5, Informative

    It doesn't take much to find out via the ubuntu wiki - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReplacementInit has lots of information on the whole implementation.

    With regards to launchd, that page says;

    The four candidates were Solaris SMF, Apple's launchd, the LSB initserv/chkconfig tools and initNG.

    The first two of these suffer from inescapable licence problems, which is relatively unfortunate as both have features that are somewhat appealing though neither quite fix our problems. Having whichever system we use being adopted as a Linux-wide standard would not be possible if we chose either of these two systems.

    and also from discussion further down the page;

    NabLa: [WWW] Apple's launchd has been [WWW] released recently under the Apache license. Would that resolve those "inescapable licence problems"? Looks like a very interesting possibility now.

    • ScottJamesRemnant: it still doesn't meet our requirements, so would be only a base for our own work. We've already implemented enough that it'd be a backwards step to start again based on launchd. Also the new launchd licence may not be GPL compatible, so it would still not be ideal
    • jec : I think that the licence (apache 2.0) is GPL compatible. But if work is already advanced on your own solution, then great! Just hope that Redhat/SuSE/Debian will adopt it...
    • ThomMay: it's not - [WWW] the FSF mark it as incompatible.
  21. No, that's not true by StressGuy · · Score: 3, Funny

    If you pay peanuts, you get elephants...you only get monkeys if you're willing to shell out some serious banannas. Rabbits can be had if you're willing to come up with the lettuce and, if you've got the cheese, you'll attract the mice - who will scare away the elephants you only paid peanuts for in the first place.

    On the other hand, if I need to get rid of an ass, I'll just tie a carrot to a stick and lead him away.

    --
    A goal is a dream with a deadline
  22. Re:Can I by kripkenstein · · Score: 3, Informative

    I ask this seriously: what OSes have you been using that makes you think a clean install is the only "safe" upgrade? I've never done a reinstall-upgrade on a Debian or FreeBSD box, for example. Not once.

    Well, you often hear people talking about odd problems after upgrading, on the ubuntu forums for example. A clean install fixes things. It's very hard to pin down the relevant issue in such cases, and they seem rare. But still, I prefer to clean-install Ubuntu (as I will do later today for Edgy).

  23. Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet by misleb · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Yes, I'd rather have the 2.6.18 kernel in my distribution (like in FC6), than Firefox 2.0. It's a little easier for me to install a web browser than a kernel.


    Unless you can get a package for Firefox 2.0, it isn't necessarily easier to install a browser. More people care about having Firefox 2.0 than a real-time kernel, by far. So you are in the minority.

    -matthew
    --
    "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  24. Re:Easy upgrade from 6.06? by mbrubeck · · Score: 3, Informative
    Here are the official upgrade instructions:
    If you want to upgrade from 6.06 LTS to 6.10, run the following command (either via ALT-F2 or a terminal):

    gksu "update-manager -c"

    The -c switch tells it to look for upgrades at all. By default the 6.06 LTS release will not offer that automatically because of its long support cycle and high stability.

    If you have a working network connection, it should then inform you about a new release and offer to upgrade your system.
  25. Re:No realtime 2.6.18 kernel yet by Chanc_Gorkon · · Score: 3, Informative

    Realtime support should make things better latency wise with audio. Lots of audio specific distros out there will go away once this is mainstreamed.

    --

    Gorkman

  26. Re:Can I by blazerw11 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I ask this seriously: what OSes have you been using that makes you think a clean install is the only "safe" upgrade?

    I believe that if you upgrade Ubuntu from release to release you'll be fine. However, I didn't do that. I upgraded Dapper to Edgy Knot 2. It worked, but over time as the bug fixes came in, it became difficult for X to start. I often had to power cycle 5 or more times before it worked. I even went so far as to enter a bug in Ubuntu's launchpad for it. Well, I did a clean install of the RC and it's all fixed now. My best guess at the problem is a remnant configuration file or something that didn't get appropriately upgraded or removed in the initial Knot 2 dist-upgrade.

    So, in other words, for patient people, you should never have to do a clean install. For us impatient freaks, well, I guess we should know what we're getting into.

    On a side note, my crappy Celeron 2.4ghz laptop with an even crappier old Intel graphics chip can run the AIGLX and Beryl Window Manager pretty nicely. Cool (possibly excessive) 3d and transparency FX on a computer that Vista's install program laughs at.

    --
    A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
  27. Still no 3D desktop? by cciRRus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mandriva 2007 and Fedora Core 6 now come out-of-the-box with 3D desktop support (XGL/AIGLX + Compiz). The 3D desktop not only serve as a great piece of eyecandy, it (e.g. cube desktop and Expose clone) also makes the GUI friendlier and more efficient. As a Ubuntu user, I'm a little disappointed that Ubuntu 6.10 does not provide 3D desktop support.

    --
    w00t
  28. Re:Shipit change by TheStonepedo · · Score: 3, Informative

    The process has not changed. Dapper, 6.06, is marked LTS for long term support. It has 3 years of support for the desktop flavor and 5 for the server, according to Canonical's website. Think of Edgy as a testing distribution; it has all of the new gizmos and doodads but will only be around for 6 months. It would not be practical to ship CDs of 6.10 if they will be obsolete long before support ends for the stable 6.06 version.

    --
    I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
  29. I just downgraded to ubuntu 6.04.1 by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its not ready yet. I have summarized my experience here 2 days ago.

    Initramfs has been updated several times a day and reports of usb drives double mounting, not mounting, and randomly unmounting are quite huge, many wifi cards no longer work, multiple midi files can crash xmms, firefox 2.0 randomly crashes, and other issues means its not ready yet in my book.

    Also in my journal I mentioned gpart crashed during a resizing of my ntfs partition. That was quite scary but I did not lose anything. According to launchpad it has not been fixed yet so Windows users beware.

    Ubuntu is my favorite and one of the most stable distro's out there. However I highly advise ubuntu users to wait a few weeks before upgrading to this version.

  30. Re:Can I by thepotoo · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hey, well, the girls might not be after him, but a million Anonymous Cowards on Slashdot sure are.

    --
    Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
  31. What does a version release *really* mean? by suggsjc · · Score: 4, Interesting
    In the grand scheme of things, what does it really mean to release a new version other than just having a continually increasing number? Why make it such a big deal?

    I ask this seriously and also in jest. Why not just have
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
    give you the latest and greatest? There has already been discussion of the "best" way to go about upgrading (dist-update, whatever). If instead of having repositories that were "version" specific, why not just have "current" repositories. Then as *everything* progresses, it all gets updated along the way?

    Is it just the dependencies issue? Or am I missing something more? Just seems like since Ubuntu is aimed at making it the most user-friendly distro, "version" updates could follow suit.
    --
    When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
    1. Re:What does a version release *really* mean? by xenocide2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Firstly, some changes to Ubuntu are more fundamental than a new version. Upgrading glibc is still a version bump, but affects almost every package. Additionally, new versions of gcc itself produce potentially different objects. Releases allow for a coherent whole to be formed.

      Additionally, releases allow for planning and coordination. Sometime programs aren't exactly C++ standard compliant, and sometimes the compiler isn't either. Changing the compiler version can occasionally introduce subtle bugs or build failures. By staggering freezes, you give people deadlines to work with / around. Imagine not knowing whether the kernel would support a specific feature your program wanted (like wpa_supplicant and NetworkManager).

      Finally, the release system allows for simple testing and bug fixing. Sometimes upstream will fix a bug and introduce a new buggy feature at the same time.

      --
      I Browse at +4 Flamebait

      Open Source Sysadmin

  32. Re:Can I by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful
    looks like it will be a while. has torrent sources been thought about for apt?

    Apt just barely has concurrent downloads and you're worried about torrent sources?

    In order to really make use of torrent, apt would have to be much more asynchronous. It should determine an overall order for packages, create multiple install jobs based on dependencies (so if you're installing two things and each one has five different dependencies, then apt should be allowed to install one while the other is downloading) and so on. Apt does none of these things so a torrent would be a waste. However, it might be reasonable to make major release upgrades through an automated process of torrenting an ISO, mounting it, and doing the update.

    Probably not, though.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  33. Dapper isn't dead. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually you probably did the right thing, Dapper is the "Long Term Support" version -- basically the 'stable' line, while Edgy is the first of a number of smaller builds that will be released, but do not totally supplant the LTS version.

    If the PCs were all your personal machines then of course you can do what you want, but if they're ones that have to work reliably and you're expected to support, you probably saved yourself a lot of trouble by going with Dapper.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  34. Re:Can I by dotgain · · Score: 4, Funny

    And he should comment out "* Go to bed / work *" since the asterisks will expand to every file in the current directory.

  35. That isn't normal by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've been plugging memory sticks, external hard drives and my compact flash camera into my PC since Ubuntu 5.something (now on 6.10 and 6.06 on different PCs) and they always magically appear as you'd expect. I'm sure it would be interesting to get to the bottom of whatever is causing problems on your particular installation but I don't think it's the 'normal' experience by any means. A jump to 6.10 may be worth a try but if it's a configuration issue rather than a problem within an actual package upgrading may not fix what's wrong.

    --
    Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park