Slashdot Mirror
Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" Is Out
Many readers are sending the news that Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon has been released. Download options include mirrors and torrents. Wired has a review based on the release candidate: "Gamers and hardcore media hounds may still feel left out... but we found playing music and watching movies in the new Ubuntu to be every bit as pleasant as it is under OS X or Windows... Wi-Fi, printing, my digital camera and even my iPod all worked immediately after installation — no drivers or other software required... I did have to install additional codecs to get MP3 and Windows Media Audio support."
Indiana University's mirror is still going strong:
ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/linux/ubuntu-releases/7.10
- or -
http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/ubuntu-releases/ (separate server)
Ubuntu release days are fun for mirror operators. It lets us test our hardware and bandwidth.
(Internet2 connected)
As always people... Don't use the download link from the main page. spend the extra time to get a .torrent like [URL:http://ubuntu.gds.tuwien.ac.at/cdimage/releases/gutsy/ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso.torrent]
Currently: 1938 seeds, 4389 peers. and it's going *very* quickly.
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
I did some calculations from the torrent tracker statistics page
Over the first 3 minute sample I took, I calculated total torrent pool bandwidth at 6.5Gbps (gigabits per second).
About 10 minutes later (as of right now) I completed a 5 minute sample and calculated the bandwidth usage to be 7.2Gbps.
The tracker is going up and down a fair bit under the load, but those statistics should be fairly indicative of the number of people downloading Gutsy Gibbon via the official torrents.
I would just cite emacs, but since you seem to be interested in something more...graphical...I'll just list these three:
* Eclipse
* KDevelop
* Netbeans
Palm trees and 8
Ubuntu is a shoot off of Debian. Debian's logo is a red spiral. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:LinuxDistroTimeline.png A fun little history lesson.
In Xubuntu:
Applications->System->Upgrade Manager
Click on upgrade distribution.
Done.
And probably part of the cost involved licenses for mp3. The question is, will canonical at some point in the future buy a license for everyone who downloads Ubuntu. How much would something like that cost?
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
That disc is not a part of the distro -- it isn't on the distribution disc, and that disc cannot ship as part of a GPL package. It is common to maintain non-free repositories (Livna, for example) or sell non-free add-ons (as Mandriva does), but they must remain separate from the distro itself (Red Hat is so worried about legal trouble from Livna that they don't even officially mention it, and it is hosted in France). The GPP's point was that he had to go and install extra software to get MP3 support; getting a non-free disc from Novell counts as installing extra software. The system doesn't have MP3 support out-of-the-box, and it cannot, until the MP3 patents expire.
Palm trees and 8
What still is an issue is DVD encryption. Sadly DeCSS can't be legally obtained in the US. Much as I am opposed to software patents, some practical solution needs to be given, while we continue to struggle to change the patent system. Paying a few bucks for legal DVD playback in the US seems the only feasible option at this point, and Ubuntu should facilitate this somehow, if only by providing links to third parties that provide this service (e.g. Fluendo I believe were working on this).
I'm using Eclipse with CDT to write some C++, but it's "code completion" broke almost immediately and now not only doesn't offer completion, but sometimes offers completely wrong things. It can't jump to function defined in the very same file, can't do that from simple right click, it's message parsing is a bit weird (I had to read whole error from GCC myself to find out what is wrong) etc.
Definitely not comparative to VS.
Unfortunately the summary doesn't link to a good list of features.
The release notes for the beta version give a good overview of what you can expect:
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/gutsybeta
With 3D desktop effects and NTFS write support enabled by default, and fast user switching and improved X configuration, this is one of the most significant Ubuntu releases in a while.
We've just tried this one out as soon as it was released, and there was quite some differences in installation on our modern laptop hardware compared to 7.04 at least. Proprietary graphics driver installation couldn't really be much easier from what I can see -- besides by making it automatic, but I suppose there are reasons other than technological ones behind that.
...) really seem to be picking up some pace lately. And we're just months away from KDE 4. This is exciting times to follow for sure, and for the first time I'm starting to become a believer in "Linux on the desktop".
:-)
After the few guided clicks to get that done, a reboot later and suddenly Compiz was also activated without any user actions needed. Hmm, so how do you configure those 3D effects then? No way we could find, but from reading an online computer magazine, we found out that the Compiz Config Settings Manager wasn't included. We installed that one, and it then integrated nicely into the Desktop Settings as a new "Custom effects" option. Why that one wasn't part of the distro by default is still unknown to us though. It seemed like an obvious choice to let the user customize the window effects?
Otherwise, I think Compiz didn't lag or anything even once when maximizing windows or rotating the desktop, etc, and this was on a laptop without a *that* hot graphics card. So we were impressed about how smooth the UI was. No interruptions from some service suddenly kicking in to work a bit like every user of Vista has no doubt grown used to take for granted by now with the SuperFetch, System Restore, Search Indexer etc services. They seem to kick in at the most inappropriate times -- not even when the computer is idle! Come on! Maybe Ubuntu's new desktop search indexer make it suffer too, but nothing we could see anyway.
After doing this, we unplugged the network card, and voila, it automatically discovered our WLAN. We didn't have to do anything, really.
So let's try open the (already mounted and ready) NTFS drive with Windows Vista on it? Oh, we can simply drag a file there now too -- cool! NTFS-3g apparently installed and ready.
We seemed to have to install Windows Media Audio support though and as we're still quite some Linux amateurs, we have still not got around that part as the work day is over. It's been fun experimenting though, and getting up to date with what a modern "desktop Linux" distro can offer. Looking at the feature list of Ubuntu 7.10, and summing that one up with the new features of GNOME 2.20 gives one a mighty impressive list of new features compared to just 6 months ago.
Linux desktop development (GNOME, KDE, desktop distros,
I have some pretty high demands of novice usability though, which makes me hesitate still as for some distros. E.g. SUSE Linux 10.3 had a few quirks on my home stationary computer. Its NVIDIA driver install having me to use the command prompt and special "SUSE for NVIDIA" instructions is unacceptable for amateur usage IMHO, although I finally got it done. It also even failed to install the distro to the hard drive the first time around, because it couldn't mount the SATA drive it had just formatted (??). A reboot, and then it could do it like it was no problem at all. *shrug* That also gave an early feeling of "still aimed for geeks" that I'd so much like it to see it move away from.
But back to Ubuntu 7.10 -- so far no problems here, and I was left with an excitement to play with it more after the day.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Hardy Heron.
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
Nope. The update-manager app can do it, and can be launched from menus. Further, if you have it looking for updates automatically it will tell you that you have something by showing up in the system tray, and offer you to click a button to upgrade to the new release if you care to.
That being said, being able to click a button somewhere to upgrade your operating system isn't much of a requirement for user-friendliness. If someone is very clumsy with computers, there's no harm in staying with 7.04. I've seen the Ubuntu community gladly help people running versions 2.5 years old. If it ain't broke, no need to fix it.
Yes, but you try to open an MP3 and it immediately asks "hey do you want codecs so you can play these?"
You click yes, it does some quick downloads for you and off you go.
Seems painless to me. I would rather "pay" a few seconds of my time than $$ for bundling it the OS.
IIRC, the deCSS problem wasn't a patent one, it was a DMCA one; that is, deCSS is a deliberate attempt to circumvent a copy protection scheme without a contract with the copyright holder. Of course, I don't know if someone also patented the algorithm, which would make it more of a double whammy.
Palm trees and 8
That disc is not a part of the distro -- it isn't on the distribution disc, and that disc cannot ship as part of a GPL package.
Why is a Linux distribution only permitted to have GPL packages? There's nothing in the GPL that requires this (in fact, it goes so far as to state that it _isn't_ a condition).
The GPP's point was that he had to go and install extra software to get MP3 support; getting a non-free disc from Novell counts as installing extra software. The system doesn't have MP3 support out-of-the-box, and it cannot, until the MP3 patents expire.
Why is it not "out of the box", if that disc comes in the box with the software in the first place? And the process is integrated into the installation? When I installed SuSE, by the time it rebooted and brought my system up I had MP3 and MPEG compatible software installed. There's no _legal_ need even to have a separate disc, although SuSE does so for convenience (i.e., so that you can easily make a copy of the distribution without the non-free stuff). A similar result in a single disc distribution could be achieved with a script that made a copy of the disc with the non-free content stripped out.
I think the point is that this is a flaw of the distribution, not a necessary flaw. MPEG patent licenses aren't expensive. You could get discs to retailers with all this stuff included on them and retail them for less than $20. And they would have a significantly better "out of the box experience" for the user who wasn't experienced with Linux.
OK, you know how you are prompted to install updates from time to time, right? Usually for security or bug fixes or whatever?
This is essentially the same thing, except you're installing newer versions of packages rather than just ones with fixes applied to them. You won't need to edit or format partitions or anything like that. It's just another package update, really, but a BIG one that will take a long time, and which will occasionally ask you "do you want to replace such-and-such configuration file, which appears to have been altered, with the new one", and unless you recognize the file you'll just want to say "yes, I want the new one" to all of those.
Video drivers: not sure, but Gutsy prompts you to install restricted drivers with a little icon up by the clock (in Gnome, don't know about KDE). So, if the upgrade breaks your restricted video drivers (I suspect that it will, as I doubt that the Ubuntu folks feel comfortable including non-free drivers in a mostly-automated major update) then it should just prompt you to re-install them the first time you log in, after a reboot.
As for the resolution thing: if you manually edited any files (probably
If you did not manually edit a configuration file to get your resolution how you want it, then my advice is to either stick with what you have, or just give Gutsy a go and take the risk. It might mess it up, it might not. Probably not, in fact, but it's possible. In any case, the forums and IRC support will still be there if you need them, and should be able to help you get things back in order should the upgrade cause any breakage of any kind.
I already have all I need from XP, Ubuntu has a loOOoooooooong way to go to even reach that humble benchmark
You forgot to describe what that 'humble benchmark' is, but in any case it depends on what your needs are. What do you feel is lacking?
You may need Photoshop, DRM or games, so you use XP.
I need 100% legal software on a low budget; a rock solid, cross-platform programming environment; audio routing across almost any 2 audio applications. I don't want to wait for minutes and minutes when searching for a file- I want it NOW. XP just doesn't cut it for me.
Interesting enough, more and more software that started out as Open Source software for Linux only is becoming available for XP. Do you use Firefox? Thunderbird? Gaim? Gimp? Audacity? Open office? Free software is becoming an increasingly realistic alternative to closed software.
If you like that philosophy, you may want to order in a free live CD and take it for a spin. It won't cost you anything- you won't even have to install anything.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
If you download the alternate installer, you can encrypt the hard drive in the install process. I haven't done this myself, only heard about it.
My feisty's update manager shows that there's a new distro release and it provides a button to "upgrade" and it's upgrading as I type this.
Res publica non dominetur
Not true.
The -d flag gives you the latest development release - which will be newly unstable 8.04 any minute now. You may be able to cheat with the -d flag (and get 7.10) for a couple more hours, but in general update manager will automatically show a new distro version when it's ready - probably tomorrow.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
My new Dell laptop (Inspiron 6400) arrived just today. The perfect chance to install the latest Ubuntu.
I'm very impressed. Wireless networking worked out-of-the-box. Battery support works out-of-the-box (if I remove the power cable, Ubuntu will switch to power saving mode just like Vista would; battery meter is shown by default). I can plug and unplug USB mouses at will. Partitioning the system is painless because it supports non-destructive NTFS resizing out-of-the-box. I have absolutely no idea why so many people are complaining about Linux laptop support.
I know you said "out of the box", but for those who are looking to add it (as I was a while ago for use at work), Ogg Vorbis support for Windows Media Player can be found here.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
OK, you do that, and if the FSF has no problem with you doing it, then I'll be surprised.
Pretty much every commercial distribution does this. Linspire/Lindows was pretty much founded on the idea of including licensed components.
You cannot make a Linux distro with non-redistributable code included in it, that is the point of the GPL.
The GPL only applies to individual programs, not entire Linux distributions. You could legally make a Linux distro with just the Linux kernel, and closed-source userspace.
Trust me. Ubuntu is very noob friendly. I had to install windows on a machine the other night and I had forgotten just how long it takes and what a pain in the butt it is to install all those extra drivers from CD. Ubuntu is up and running in about 5 minutes. Easy. You should give it a go. You know you want to....
Check the list ;) or add your own...
Ubuntu Names Repository
Technology tips and tricks.
Everyone, please stop using Azerus. Deluge is a native gtk bittorrent client that supports encryption and is speed-comparable to uTorrent. It is in "Add/Remove Programs" in 7.10.
Sean
I live in a giant bucket.
Yup, I upgraded already to 7.10 from 7.04 via the recommended update-manager and after finishing the update and restarting my computer my ATI 3D acceleration stopped working :(. There is no way to blame the closed source drivers since my chipset is (supposed to be) supported by the open source ATI drivers and are not supported by the closed source drivers...
Everything was working "almost" (as has always been the case with Linux for me) in my laptop with Ubuntu 7.04 (I had to press twice the wireless network button after turning on the computer, no suspend, USB keyboard does not work after hibernate resume, etc etc etc...),
After the upgrade, the wireless works very well (no need to press the button to deactivate and reactivate wireless) but now the 3D DRI rendering is not working...
Oh well... at least in my experience that is the way Linux has behaved in all my computers.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
sudo apt-get install build-essential debhelper fakeroot && sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
I did not say this; I was not here.
My Broadcom wireless card in my Dell laptop worked as soon as I installed Gutsy (well, actually starting with an earlier Tribe/Beta of Gutsy).
For the record- despite hours and hours of tweaks and NDISWrapper suggestions from the Internet, I had never been able to get this card to work prior to now. I had just written off wireless access while running Ubuntu.
Now- works like a charm!
Can somebody please mod this doofus down as flamebait? I refuse to believe anyone is genuinely this ignorant about the GPL.
Yeah, or Apple would be distributing GNU code with OS X, overtly, and just demanding that you not redistribute Apple's code. OH WAIT. THEY ALREADY DO THAT BECAUSE IT IS LEGAL.
I'd be surprised if someone hasn't already released an MP3-playing toothbrush.
you asked for it... http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/exclusive-video-hasbro-tooth-tunes-mp3-toothbrush-210116.php
At work, I run Windows most of the time, due to having to run a few Windows apps almost all the time -- yet I do still actually have a good reason for virtualizing it, as soon as I get around to it.
btw MS has done something rather sneaky with vista and virtualisation, if you want to use KMS activation (which is an easier option for large deploments than MAK activation because individual machines don't have to contact MS and there is no need to request limit increases on your key) then you have to have at least 25 machines running vista direct on the hardware.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Yes, but you can still get a semi-official PPC version here: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/7.10/release/
Go to http://happypenguin.org and look around.
Isn't this what eBox is supposed to do? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBox
Cedega is getting more and more behind plain Wine lately. They used to have better D3D support, but Wine has it better for the last year at least. The fact that they stole the codebase originally and kept it locked, and now can't properly maintain it, shows.
Just boot the livecd and find out. No formatting needed.
LTS was always planned for 8.04. This was announced when 7.04 was released in April.
I remember hearing that this version of Ubuntu would always put you into a Desktop with the VESA driver if no other drivers worked. I'm stuck with the VESA driver because my ATI Radeon 9200 PCI has never been able to work in Linux for me. FGLRX hasn't helped at all.
Maybe you should just plug it in, like you do on OS X. Rhythmbox will start up and the iPod will show up in it. Just drag and drop onto it. Unlike the Mac, you can even copy from the iPod to the Linux machine.
The Update Manager only checks the servers on a once-a-day (or thereabouts) cycle. If the update happened 1 second after your Update Manager checked the server it will not find out for another 24 hours. Added into this is the fact that the updates may take time to propagate to the server you are using. It may be that they stagger notifications to reduce load or that they are holding off the notification altogether while the servers calm down*: now is about the worst time to be trying to download updates to Ubuntu.
( * that's a lot of "maybes" because I don't know. I do know that last time I got the notification about 2 days after release )
While that means that you're not getting Gutsy the second it's released, does that really matter? This is not a security release: any essential updates will already (assuming you installed them) be applied to your Feisty install. As you've noticed if you want to update manually right away (and bugger the servers) you're quite welcome to do that.
On the Gutsy Apps vs. Feisty apps, doing what you suggest would mean either that copies of Feisty would gradually become Gutsy regardless of whether the owner of the system wanted to upgrade, or installing a pre-release version of the OS. Unfortunately this also means the chance of some breakage: that's the choice available. A release is not just some arbitrary point in time - fixes continue (on all packages) right up until that date. A lot of fixes will be worked back into Feisty (bugs for example) but it wouldn't make sense to keep adding features to an old release - that's what Gutsy is: Feisty plus new stuff.
Having said that it perhaps would be nice to be able to upgrade "stable" packages ahead of time / before general release. This would work for other in-release fixes too: some people are more comfortable with breakage than others. It would probably ease transition and bug fixing if things could be rolled out to these people first - but that's a whole bag of complexity for someone to fix.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
here's one. $16 and the reviews say it works with ubuntu fine.
this is not hard.
you might like XMMS, BMPx, or Audacious as Linux replacements for Winamp.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
> Where are all the linux developers making nice stable non 'flair' programs?
"apt-cache search ipod" returns a nice list of programs, some of which are marked as command line:
python-gpod - a library to read and write songs and artwork to an iPod
gnupod-tools - command-line tools for the iPod family of portable music players
libipod-cil - CLI library for accessing iPods
Where are all the linux users that do a basic search of the documentation before whining on slashdot?