What Normal Users Can Expect From Ubuntu 8.10

notthatwillsmith writes "With Ubuntu 8.10 due to be released in just a few days, Maximum PC pored through all the enhancements, updates, and new features that are bundled into the release of Intrepid Ibex and separated out the new features that are most exciting for Linux desktop users. Things to be excited about? With new versions of GNOME and X.Org, there's quite a bit, ranging from the context-sensitive Deskbar search to an audio and video compatible SIP client to the new Network Manager (manage wired, Wi-Fi, VPN, and cellular broadband connections in one place)."

Comments

What normal users can expect

[kidde_valind]

A brown desktop background?

Re:What normal users can expect

[LingNoi]

Brown is Ubuntu's branding. Your artsy fartsy self might not like it but there are many others that do.

Re:What normal users can expect

[Tubal-Cain]

And it encourages those that don't like it to explore the customization features.

Re:What normal users can expect

[solevita]

Indeed.

When using previous Ubuntu versions, the first thing I would do after installation was the theme to something less brown. I downloaded and installed the 8.10 beta the day it was released and it was beautiful - no need to change a thing - I loved it.

Sadly an update replaced the beta's wallpaper with, what I imagine is, the wallpaper for the final release. It looks like crap so I changed to a solid brown background.

Ubuntu are employing people to do design work now and it really shows. Yes, you get a brown desktop background, no, this isn't what Microsoft or Apple would sell you (unless you've got a Zune, I guess), but yes, it looks wonderful.

An operating system is more than the colour of the background image, of course, so I really shouldn't be labouring the point so hard, or feeding the troll; if you don't like it you could change it - don't judge the whole thing on its theme. Having said that, in 8.10 brown works well.

Re:What normal users can expect

[alex4u2nv]

Its either that, or the naked people! (ubuntu calendar)

Re:What normal users can expect

[mackyrae]

I don't like the 8.10 wallpaper so much, but 8.04 had a beautiful wallpaper around alpah 3. The final one wasn't quite as nice, but I still like it. Feisty and Gutsy's brown wallpapers looked like the brown silk of a lady's dress puddling at the floor. Based on that imagery, I think you can tell I liked those too :)

I like Ubuntu's warm theming. Other distros and OSes are so cold by comparison. I like red and orange as well, though, so right now I'm using the Kin Dust theme created by a member of Ubuntu's art team along with a GNOME wallpaper of a red/orange flower.

Re:What normal users can expect

[Greg_D]

One of the problems Ubuntu has from a selling standpoint is that Gnome's look, even with the Ubuntu customized settings, look like a dull hodgepodge ripoff of Windows XP and OS X Panther.

If you can't get people to use your distro because it looks like it's way past its prime, then it doesn't matter how useable it actually is. People need to see past ideology and make something that looks like what people are likely to want to use.

In other words, brown is bad in this instance.

Re:What normal users can expect

[psychodelicacy]

I think it's more likely to be viewed as the color of the earth, sand, wood, that kind of natural stuff. But if you want to think about gay sex instead, don't let me spoil your fun...

Re:What normal users can expect

[solevita]

One of the problems Ubuntu has from a selling standpoint is that Gnome's look, even with the Ubuntu customized settings, look like a dull hodgepodge ripoff of Windows XP and OS X Panther.

If you can't get people to use your distro because it looks like it's way past its prime, then it doesn't matter how useable it actually is. People need to see past ideology and make something that looks like what people are likely to want to use.

In other words, brown is bad in this instance.

Unfortunately I don't think you've really got the gist of this thread, nor used the software in question. The OP was talking about the colour of the desktop wallpaper - let's not bring ideology into this. Also I don't agree with you when you say that Ubuntu looks "look like a dull hodgepodge ripoff of Windows XP and OS X Panther."

Yes, previous brown Ubuntus looked bad, that was the starting point of my original post, but in this instance brown Ubuntu looks good.

And that's ignoring the fact that I've shown 8.10 to a number of people, both highly technical and those who find double clicking hard, all of whom seemed to be impressed by the default look of the software. To repeat myself then:

In other words, brown is good in this instance.

Re:What normal users can expect

[lysergic.acid]

yes, changing your desktop wallpaper is a sure sign of intelligence and creativity. i approve of the logic of your statement.

i mean, changing your desktop from its default background is much more important than configuring your firewall, re-installing device drivers/your personal applications, restoring backed up files & documents, or setting up your network connection.

and nothing says "i'm a tech savvy hipster" like changing your desktop background to one of the throwback stock wallpapers that came with your OS--like a close-up shot up of wet leaves of grass/a frog/a butterfly, wind-blown sand dunes, tranquil autumn leaves, or any of the other kitsch backgrounds that expresses your personality--after all, what better way to show your sense of individuality than by personalizing your computer with a determined set of wallpapers, user avatars, and desktop icons?

so are you the skateboarder, guitar, soccer ball, or the chess pieces?

Re:What normal users can expect

[ShieldW0lf]

That's why you immediately install Ubuntu Studio right after installing the base distro. Then it doesn't look so dorky, and you've got all your multimedia needs covered.

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install ubuntustudio-desktop ubuntustudio-audio ubuntustudio-audio-plugins ubuntustudio-graphics ubuntustudio-video linux-rt

Re:What normal users can expect

[d3ac0n]

Um...

Not to try and troll or anything, but while Ubuntu Studio is cool and all, particularly if you are doing sound mixing, wouldn't it be easier to just install Compiz Fusion and then pick from DOZENS of cool skins?

I guess it's just a matter of what you want/need your machine for.

(Although Ubuntu Studio DOES look pretty)

Re:What normal users can expect

[holloway]

And it encourages those that don't like it to explore the customization features

I use babelfish to auto-translate my documentation to French to encourage people who don't like it to submit patches. Ubuntu is simply applying the same principle of ugly defaults to the desktop, brilliant!

Re:What normal users can expect

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

So, it seems like you are saying a lot about the brown, one might even say you are making noise about it, perhaps a brown noise?

Re:What normal users can expect

[ChameleonDave]

What is it with these morons complaining about default colours? The unspoken premise of all their whinges is that the chosen hues are bad, and that if only a different (and obviously superior) colour had been chosen, then there would be no complaints.

What these idiots don't realise is that if it were XP-blue instead of earthy African reds and browns, then a million other idiots would be making exactly the same complaint in reverse.

Fools, please try to understand: a strange quirk of human beings is that we each have a favourite colour. This means that you will never be able to design a colour scheme that nobody dislikes. Your whining is therefore utterly pointless. It's redundant before it even leaves your mouth. I have three machines: they run Ubuntu Hardy, Kubuntu Intrepid beta, and Xubuntu Hardy. They are red-brown, cyan-black, and white-cerulean, respectively. And you know what? They are all perfectly fine. No, they do not "make me hurl with those turd colours"; no, they do not "give me a headache". They're just fucking colours. If the defaults are not in line with your personal inclinations, then learn how to click on the Preferences menu. Fuck.

Re:What normal users can expect

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer this one.

Re:What normal users can expect

[Risen888]

I do like it, and I think it's great branding. It's a color scheme absolutely unlike any other desktop OS. You know when you're sitting down at an Ubuntu machine, and I think that was the point.

Re:What normal users can expect

[mcvos]

In most cultures, brown is associated with shit, scat, gay sex, etc.

Really? I never had any particular color association with gay sex. But perhaps that's because I'm not so involved in that sort of thing.

Newbie Question

[electrictroy]

Is Ubuntu the easiest version of Linux to set up? I like the ease of just clicking "install" and everything automagically takes care of itself. (Like my Windows XP disc.)

Re:Newbie Question

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Ubuntu the easiest version of Linux to set up?

No. Try Mandriva and PCLOS for the easiest - they've still got the jump on Ubuntu for "it just works" with no fiddling. And their Control Center feature is better.

Otherwise I prefer and use Ubuntu. Been using it for three years on three boxes.

Ubuntu /does/ seem to work without fiddling for some people, and no doubt a few will flame here that I'm some sort of Microsoft Shill or whatever, but that's my experience. When I install Mandriva or PCLOS, those just work from GO, and I really wish Ubuntu would have a good look at what they're doing different.

Haven't installed Ibex yet. I was one of the approx 25% of beta testers who had a wretched time, so filled out the bug reports and am now going to wait a month or two past release before trying the final.

Re:Newbie Question

[nine-times]

What version of Windows XP are you using? Any time I've installed XP from a normal disk, it requires at least agreeing to some license agreement, partitioning, formating, configuring your network to some degree, choosing username, clicking "Next" a bunch of times, some other random stupid things I'm preobably not remembering, and then installing several drivers. I'd love a copy of XP that installed as easily as hitting the "install" button.

Anyway, yeah, Ubuntu is about as easy as installing Windows-- potentially easier because it's likely that it will recognize more of your hardware without installing drivers. Also, you can boot up the install CD as a LiveCD and try using the OS before you install.

Re:Newbie Question

[LingNoi]

You never just "click install" on windows xp..

1) Pop in disk
2) First you have to setup a partition to install windows.. lets assume it's an empty disk so you'd press c (create partition) and number the number of disk space for that partition then enter, then you press enter again to install on that partition.
3) Windows installs some files then reboots into a install setup. On this page you setup your computers name, organisation, location and language setup, keyboard setup, etc.
4) Windows installs more files
5) You get to the desktop at which point you have to put in your Microsoft Office disk
6) Follow the installer to get Microsoft office installed
7) Run windows update to install important security updates for Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows xp

To say that is a one click install is horribly misleading.

Ubuntu on the other hand contains much less steps

1) Pop in disk
2) Wait for desktop to appear and click on the install icon and choose your keyboard, location, username and password
3) If it's an empty disk it'll ask if you want to use the whole disk. No ugly dos based program.
4) Wait for installer to finish then restart taking out the disk.

Re:Newbie Question

[Lennie]

I think he's probably talking about a restore cd or similair.

Re:Newbie Question

[Tubal-Cain]

I'd love a copy of XP that installed as easily as hitting the "install" button.

nLite

You can slipstream in service packs and hotfixes, set all those little options you always change, chose not to install certain components (even Luna), set your CD-key...

Re:Newbie Question

[marco.antonio.costa]

In my experience it's more JustWorkish than Windows. My ancient Bt878whatever capture card and Chinese junk Bluetooth adapter were both a pain to set on Windows. On Ubuntu I just get a recognized capture device and a nice little BT icon on the tray. :-)

Haven't looked back since. Kudos to Shuttleworth and employees.

Re:Newbie Question

[ricegf]

It's actually easier than Windows, IMHO. It boots into Ubuntu without asking a single question, so you can decide if you like it. If you do, double-click "Install" on the desktop, answer the same type of questions as you would on Windows, and while it loads onto the hard drive, you can continue using it.

Or, if you prefer, stick the disk into a computer running Windows, click "Install", and it will install as if it were a Windows application. After installation, when you reboot, you get the usual grub menu to select either Ubuntu or Windows. If you later decide you don't like it, boot Windows and select Ubuntu and Uninstall from Add / Remove Programs, and it uninstalls.

I really can't imagine anything easier. Well, other than buying it pre-installed. :-)

Re:Newbie Question

[bonch]

Posts like yours are always fun because they're always wildly biased. First, you overstate the Windows partition step while over-simplifying the Ubuntu partition step. Second, I love how you include Microsoft Office in the Windows steps just to pad the list, as if most Windows PCs and their factory reinstall discs don't already include some form of Office. You also pad the list with things like "Windows installs more files," as if Ubuntu doesn't also, you know, install files. You even throw in Windows Update, as if Ubuntu doesn't pop up a red triangle on the Gnome menu telling you there are updates to download.

All in all, a biased post that will probably hit +5 instantly.

Re:Newbie Question

[kesuki]

"Any time I've installed XP from a normal disk, it requires at least agreeing to some license agreement, partitioning, formating, configuring your network to some degree, choosing username, clicking "Next" a bunch of times, some other random stupid things I'm preobably not remembering"

any big name OEM install includes about exactly picking your username, waiting while installs tons of garbage, (trial ware everything, stupid OEM software, those drivers you mentioned, etc) and then removing all the crappy software that they preloaded because they got paid $1 to install it, default.

some people don't remove the crappy software, and i don't know how many times i've seen this software not get patched, and wind up letting some hacker get into their system, because they had unpatched software they didn't even know they were running.

the nice thing about ubuntu/kubuntu is that everything updates, if you run the updater. the down side is i've had ubuntu break working systems in updates. ah well.

Re:Newbie Question

[BraulioBezerra]

4) Wait for installer to finish then restart taking out the disk.

And meanwhile you can access the Internet (in most cases) or play some games.

Re:Newbie Question

[jonaskoelker]

You never just "click install" on windows xp..
1) Pop in disk
2) First you have to [...]

Almost correct.

1-5) as you said.
6) Look at the popup that says lsass.exe will shut down your box in 30 seconds
7) Pull the box off the network
8-12) Do step 1-5 again
13) Download antivirus without connection to the network. Pixies and leprechauns are helpful here.
14) Install the antivirus
15-16) step 6-7

Based on a true story. I can't tell you how much I hated windows when I saw the sasser popup.

Re:Newbie Question

[mackyrae]

Uh, Windows install disks don't include Office. He's right on that.

And Ubuntu's version of the partitioner is that it gives a "use whole disk" option and a "drag the slider to show how much of the disk goes to each OS" thing. There is a more advanced partitioner available, but the user doesn't have to see it.

Re:Newbie Question

[LingNoi]

you overstate the Windows partition step while over-simplifying the Ubuntu partition step.

How so? What I said is exactly that. On an unformatted disk you get three options, 1- use the whole disk, 2- custom partiton, and.. wait. there's only two.

I can't figure out what I mean by me over simplifying it because that's what it is, simple.

Since you didn't include an example of what you mean (no need to backup your claims, right) i'll just have to assume you don't know what you're talking about.

Second, I love how you include Microsoft Office in the Windows steps just to pad the list

I did that because Ubuntu comes with Office software already on the disk.

You do realise that people use office software don't you?

as if most Windows PCs and their factory reinstall discs don't already include some form of Office

This is nonsense, how can you do a fair comparrison of installing the operating system on a custom pc and come up with "the vendor disk".

It's totally irrelevant anyway because it's still not a click install even with the vendor disk. Which was my whole point in the first place.

You even throw in Windows Update, as if Ubuntu doesn't pop up a red triangle on the Gnome menu telling you there are updates to download.

Yes because it would be irresponsible not to download updates for Windows. It's so important that your box can get owned in less then 4 minutes.

Re:Newbie Question

[binarylarry]

Which he'll get, if he buys something like an Ubuntu computer from Dell:

http://www.dell.com/ubuntu

I bought an Ubuntu laptop from Dell and I'm very pleased.

You get support, a restore disk, "legal" DVD playback support and some very nice equipment.

Re:Newbie Question

[daoine_sidhe]

He'll hit +5 because he's right. I install Windows XP every day, multiple times per day, on every piece of hardware you can imagine. As a matter of fact, what he described as the windows setup (which you claim is overstated) actually left out a few steps. Starting at what he should have listed as step six, you still have to install device drivers (this requires multiple reboots as you cover all hardware), install AV software, product activation (may require a telephone call if you've re-installed too many times, or changed any hardware), windows updates (more reboots)...

He was modded up because he was right. The entire Ubuntu installation, configuration, and applying all updates takes less then 1/2 hr (no, I'm not exaggerating, try it) and is finished while Windows XP is still formatting the disk.

Re:Newbie Question

[Vu1turEMaN]

You install nLite in windows. You create your disk with SP3 and every other thing you'll ever need integrated into it, then you remove what you don't need with it (usually about 200MB of useless junk). A normal SP2 Microsoft disk is about 580MB I think, whereas my SP3 slipstreamed in with nLite + my drivers is only about 250mb after massive compression. Install takes about...ehh...5 minutes, including the reboot.

Then you use the same disk over and over and over again :)

Re:Newbie Question

[cheater512]

Or just use a Linux CD which is effectively the same thing without any mucking around.

Also if you use Linux then you wont be reinstalling your computer very often in the first place.
Typed on a 5 year old Gentoo install. :)

Re:Newbie Question

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what doesn't work for me? Dual monitors. Every time I try to use dual monitors with Ubuntu it gets all confused and ends up giving me two copies of a 640x480 desktop or some crap like that. I've never had it work without writing my own xorg.conf which makes all the video control panel stuff break.

Why can't I just have what I have in Windows - A properly working Xinerama type desktop (not Twinview)? I don't want all my dialogs centered on the seam in the middle and I don't want to maximize across both monitors. Has any progress been made in this area?

Re:Newbie Question

[Draek]

13) Download antivirus without connection to the network. Pixies and leprechauns are helpful here.

Which is why you should always install XP with at least one of the following:

a) Behind a firewall (may not be completely safe, though).
b) With a laptop besides you.
c) With an Ubuntu LiveCD.

Option c) is specially funny though, all things considered, but it's the one I usually recommend. In fact, many of my friends' PCs used to have a relatively small FAT32 partition for LinuxWindows file exchange during install/troubleshooting, before Linux got reliable NTFS support.

Re:Newbie Question

[Falstius]

As a Linux Zealot with Mod points, I'd love to mod your exaggerations down. But, I use dual monitors and it never works as well as it should. On my laptop, I can only clone screens. On my desktop it works well except that compiz gets confused with dual monitors (so I turn it off). The latest Fedora and Ubuntu are making strides but it is still extremely disappointing. I love Linux, I'd never go back to Windows but I really wish dual monitor setup was better.

Re:Newbie Question

[PunkOfLinux]

That only works when the machines are (relatively) homogenous.

Re:Newbie Question

[Velex]

2) First you have to setup a partition to install windows.. lets assume it's an empty disk so you'd press c (create partition) and number the number of disk space for that partition then enter, then you press enter again to install on that partition.

As an interesting anecdote to back up your point: a friend/roommate bought a new computer and got ahold of a warez XP 64-bit install CD. None of the cd keys from my secret stash worked, naturally, so he decided to go buy a legit copy of XP. Because the 64-bit installer had already loaded stuff on the drive (yeah I know real technical language—it's the weekend jeez) the legit disk refused to do anything.

So I got out a handy Linux livecd to nuke the partition table so the legit XP CD would install from scratch. So he was all set.

A few weeks later he motioned me into his room after I got home from work and explained that Windows wasn't seeing his whole drive. I immediately noticed that Windows had only created a 300 GB partition on his 750 GB drive! I mentioned a few tools I could get together to expand the NTFS filesystem, but he decided to just make the other 450 GB a D: drive.

Moral of the story is that installing Windows is, as you suggest, not just hitting some big red "Install" button.

Re:Newbie Question

[williamgrant]

Multi-monitor almost always works fine with the Intel and ATI drivers. The nvidia blob still doesn't support XRandR 1.2, so you have to use their thpecial control panel, which tends to break things.

Re:Newbie Question

[therufus]

Except when you load nvidia drivers which instantaneously render your Gnome useless and leave you with a blinking cursor.

I just installed 8.10 half an hour ago. It loaded up first time and even detected my monitors 1680x1050 resolution. Then a popup told me that I can use nvidia restricted proprietary drivers to improve performance. I clicked it, it installed the latest (177) drivers and told me to restart. I did.

Now X is broken and I'm going to re-install all over again.

Re:Newbie Question

[celle]

You forgot a few lines under windows:
8) Installing drivers for the various third party cards(nvidia,ati,linksys, etc).
9) Updating third party drivers from their various websites.
10) Installing disc based third party applications(games, antivirus, etc) and net applications(skype, anti-malware, etc)
11) Updating disc based third party applications from the net.
There's often several reboots during steps 8,9, and sometimes 10.

And two under ubuntu:
5) Update ubuntu from net.
6) Installing various third party applications from repositories.

It's definitely easier to install Ubuntu than WindowsXP.

Re:Newbie Question

[Eythian]

I use twinview on my laptop all the time, switching between dual and single a lot. The problem with it is really a Gnome issue. If you start up with a single monitor and switch to dual, Gnome doesn't think of it like two monitors, and so panels span both, windows maximise across both, etc.

The solution is to add 'Option "twinview" "1"' (or whatever it is) to your xorg.conf and the first time you use dual monitors after starting gnome, logout and login with the second monitor attached. Then it works.

You'll need to use the nvidia control panel to set up the monitor layouts etc.

With the exception of this (which is really less of a problem than it sounds, it meant that every couple of weeks I'd have to log out and log back in), twinview works fine.

In Intrepid, even this isn't necessary. Plug in a monitor, turn on twinview through the control panel, and it's all happy. Twinview is pretty much just an nvidia implementation of xinerama.

The reason it doesn't work like all the other cards is thanks to nvidia. Nothing that can be done until they see the light and make their drivers free software.

Re:Newbie Question

[sketerpot]

Huh. That happened to me, but I just started it up in some kind of safe mode where it started X without loading unusual drivers, and I uninstalled the nvidia stuff. Pretty easy. No reinstall needed.

If all else fails, you can usually just press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to switch away from a broken X and get a terminal, then use "sudo apt-get uninstall nvidia-glx nvidia-glx-new" and restart.

Re:Newbie Question

[Risen888]

Everyone else is probably going to rip you to shreds for this, or if you're lucky try to give you a solution that by now you've discovered on your own anyway.

I won't do that. I'll say this instead: The stress you describe in your post is in no way related to "X being hard" or "Y being easy" or the technicalities of an install process or anything like that. What you experienced there was the fear of breaking out of your comfort zone and moving into the unknown. That's natural, it's part of what makes us people.

I remember that "are you sure?" moment from my first Linux install very well. I had to stare at that "Yes No" dialog for something like twenty minutes. Two or three cigarettes were smoked. I was petrified thinking of all the horrible things that could happen. And looking back on that now, that stare-down with my monitor didn't have a damn thing to do with partitions or installers or even the prospect of losing all my data. I was just scared of the unknown, as you were, and that's fine. Then we faced that fear and now we're more self-sufficient people because of that. So go us.

Re:Newbie Question

[Risen888]

If two ACs argue on /. do they make a sound?

Re:Newbie Question

[tylerni7]

Now obviously most of us here with at least a bit of linux experience know that you can just go edit the xorg.conf file or switch back to the old drivers and have xorg configured from the command line automatically, but the problem is that most users of computers can't.
The average user will think their computer is broken if they suddenly don't have a GUI interface, and there is no way in hell you'll be able to get them to fix it 'manually'.

I love linux and don't plan on switching my OS anytime soon because I don't mind dealing with these issues. But we need to understand people won't switch to linux when clicking an option on a dialog box will bork their graphics interface. Linux still has a ways to go before it can overrun the desktop market, but it's getting closer, and hopefully the newest Ubuntu release will get some more converts.

Re:Newbie Question

[LingNoi]

Your problem is that you're just not reading anything I write....

You word it so that the Windows partitioning step looks like it involves more steps than the Ubuntu stage, when both systems have a partition stage. You even have the user create a new partition for some reason when their disk is most likely already partitioned, and all they have to do is press Enter.

If you buy a new hard drive and install windows on it, it is not partitioned to NTFS. I'll quote what I said since you didn't read it, hopefully you will this time..

2) First you have to setup a partition to install windows.. lets assume it's an empty disk so you'd press c (create partition) and number the number of disk space for that partition then enter, then you press enter again to install on that partition.

You see those words? "empty disk", this was so that everyone knew what I was talking about.

you cite Ubuntu's inclusion of OpenOffice as an advantage while pretending that versions of Office don't already come preinstalled on PCs or even on the OEM Windows recovery install disc included with the PC.

and what the fuck has an OEM disk got to do with any of this, it's a cheap answer. An OEM disk (if you're lucky enough to have kept it or not have a custom PC) does not come in the retail box of Microsoft Windows.

Guess what also comes with an OEM disk, that's right! Ubuntu.

And if it doesn't, OpenOffice is a free download for Windows too. I really don't see the point is of even bringing it up as an advantage.

Because it's one less piece of junk you need to install before you can start doing your work.

"Click install" is obviously a figure of speech used to illustrate the ease of installation.

Ease of installation?! What a joke and did you even check out some of the other comments? I was being very restrictive in my list of steps, yet you lack any kind of thought in your response as though when people reinstall windows they don't need to take any of these steps.

You start making up hypothetical situations of people having OEM computers with special install disks. I notice that when you give these lame situations you never give a balanced view of Ubuntu either..

Where is the OEM version of Ubuntu in your response? You're comments are simply more bias then my original comment in this thread.

(typing this on a Mac sitting next to a compiling FreeBSD box),

Oh right I get it now, you've seen the ubuntu article and in typical BSD and Mac user fashion come to troll. Get the fuck out.

Re:Newbie Question

[quantumphaze]

Dual screen works mostly fine for me here on my Intel 945GM laptop (though I don't use DS often).

The only problems is the limited virtual desktop size of 2048x2048 for Compiz so I can only have the second screen above/below, and that I have to play with a setting in ccsm to get Compiz to draw windows across both screens correctly.

If it helps your Compiz problem the setting in question is under General>Display settings, untick detect outputs and add outputs for each screen or just one to make windows maximize across both screens (eg: 1280x1024+0+0 1280x800+0+1024).

The 2048x2048 problem requires me to edit the xorg.conf to get Metacity to draw a bigger desktop if I want side by side screens (but no Compiz). I read that it's a hardware limitation and the workaround never worked for me.

Re:Newbie Question

[lien_meat]

It's true. Dual monitors in linux with gnome have been a real pain compared to Windows or OS X. I've always hated the fact. HOWEVER, I'm excited, because ibex does things with dual screens right (or at least tons better) on my laptop that previously in hardy didn't work right at all. Details: 1.) Hardy wouldn't let me switch to dual screens if I started up with just the laptop screen unless I killed X (by whatever method) and then logged back in. NOW, I have to kill X the first time after it sets up a virtual screen for me, and then it's fine after that. 2.) If I fullscreened or maximized a window in hardy on a dual screen setup, it would maximize across both screens usually (but not always...). This isn't the case now, and everything but flash vids will fullscreen in the window they previously existed in (with the exception to flash...which has a bug, and will go on your primary display...grrrrrr) 3.) In hardy, my dual monitor setup would have to be tweaked manually to be useful, because the screen resolution gui did NOTHING on my chipset. This seems to have been fixed. It worked just fine with NO xorg.conf tweaking. Your millage will probably very, but I really hope not cause I'm really quite satisfied. I'm running a pretty well supported dell inspiron 1525 with intel 965gm graphics (also known as x3100) with both 32 bit and 64 bit ibex beta, latest updates.

Re:Newbie Question

[mechsoph]

It's not that hard. You just add one line to your xorg.conf (something like "Virtual 2048 768" to the Display Subsection of your Screen section). Then you do a `xrandr --output VGA-0 --left-of DVI-0'. This gives you one X screen split across your two monitors. I have this working fine on multiple machines with the open source radeon drivers. The only hiccup from compiz is that if your total screen size if bigger than the maximum texture size of your card, you get some strange artifacts in the extra screen area. It's still quite usable, and a reasonable workaround is to just stick some window there pinned to all workspaces (I use an Eterm tailling /var/log/messages pinned using devilspie).

It used to be possible to run each monitor as a separate X screen using a little more hackery in the xorg.conf file. I thought that was nicer than using a single screen; however, Xorg broke that sometime in the past 10 months. Now trying to make that work (at least with the radeon drivers) will cause X to crash, which is really just pathetic.

PowerPC Ubuntu Help

[Doc Ruby]

We can also expect the PowerPC distro to fall further behind, unless the outside community helps the ubuntu-cell project, which has taken over from the main Ubuntu project (run by Canonical,Inc) in maintaining that architecture's distro. Which means not just PS3 Ubuntu, but also PPC ubuntu on other platforms, including rack servers and workstations, and embedded PPCs that might use a stripped-down downstream distro (but benefit from Ubuntu's APT repos), or any other Cell machines, from workstations to supercomputers.

If you've got a PPC machine, please try installing the current ubuntu-cell snapshot, as the project explains. At the very least you can file bug reports. If you can, you can patch some bugs. That's why the source is open, after all. And what the community is really for: not just getting free SW, but giving something back so everyone can get some free SW, including you.

Re:PowerPC Ubuntu Help

[JackieBrown]

Not be be a fanboy, but you can use Debian for a PPC supported distro.

What about Kubuntu 8.10?

[jdb2]

I recently upgraded my Kubuntu 8.04 install to 8.10 and although there are many new features, specifically the main one being KDE 4.1.x, I experienced constant segfaults, lock-ups, and crashes, mostly associated in some way with KDE4 . Also, there were the "little" bugs , a multitude of minor but very annoying UI glitches. So, I went back to my old 8.04 install. I don't see how they could have managed to fix all the above problems in just a few weeks.

I'm sticking to 8.04 until I hear otherwise.

jdb2

Re:What about Kubuntu 8.10?

[Daengbo]

For the real grammar Nazis: s/Nazi's/Nazis

Re:kubuntu?

[Kjella]

KDE4. No more KDE3, if you want that stick with hardy. So if you have already made the jump with KDE4 packages on hardy I'd guess "not that much", if you haven't well better read up on all the news in KDE4.

I think it was a troll for the moderators.

[khasim]

#1. As you mentioned, you need to unmount a partition to modify it.

#2. "...the garbage the LiveCD left on your drive."
But the LiveCD does not leave anything on your drive.

#3. "...because the liveCD requires the NTFS partition to be mounted..."
But the LiveCD does not require that any partitions be mounted.

I think that it was just a troll and one of the moderators did not know any better and mod'ed it up.

Re:kubuntu?

[kesuki]

kubuntu 8.10 is coming along too, i've got the beta running, because the 8.04.1 update hosed my system. broke the x.org server, sigh.

8.10 kubuntu although still in beta has been pretty stable, there was one program that crashed on me, but didn't affect me, and there is an annoying bug with trying to configure the ethernet manually using the 'tray icon' (it won't ask for a password, and the ethernet can't be configured without a password) although, it seems like that icon is mysteriously gone today (there were some 27 updates today) plasmoids are really cool, they let you put useful widgets anywhere on the desktop, on the system bar, etc. but there aren't very many plasmoids right now.

Re:I love the antivirus tag, so funny!

[LingNoi]

Unless there is a rootkit in an ubuntu or debian package you're not making a lot of sense.

Even if there were you got the name and email address of the people who made the package and also the people who were responsible for checking the package.

You can even take that package and compare it to the original upstream version using diff.

You are just talking bullshit. Hence why you're probably posting anonymous, because you know you're talking nonsense.

The one Ubuntu feature I want most:

[Cordath]

Proper Bluray media support.

I don't care if I have to pay for it. I just want to be able to play all Bluray media, including stuff with only HD audio codecs that are currently unsupported in Linux.

Now, I know some of you think this is unnecessary fluff. However, if Linux wants to compete with Windows it has to tackle the crucial stumbling blocks that force people to continue using Windows. Linux has lots of great home theater software and many aspirations towards filling that niche, but they amount to a hill of beans without support for all HD media.

Re:The one Ubuntu feature I want most:

[Mascot]

I see a few stumbling blocks between Blu-ray and Linux being licensed to play it.

1. The distro would likely have to rewrite most of the driver architecture to support the required media path protection.

2. It would almost certainly have to go closed source.

Somehow I don't see that happening.

Personally, I'm not touching Blu-ray with a ten foot pole due to the DRM. DVDs were bad enough, but at least they would never tell me "sorry, I don't like your TV so I won't let you watch me". Once region free DVD players became the norm, I was ok with spending money on them. As for Blu-ray.. Until they are willing to sell me a product I feel comfortable buying, I'll enjoy HD content via mkv on my Tvix.

Re:The one Ubuntu feature I want most:

[Kjella]

It's a problem, but I'm not sure it's a technical one. Even though AACS is trivially broken by AnyDVD, Cyberlink probably doesn't get a HD license for Linux because of piracy BS. They do sell a regular DVD player in the Ubuntu Store if you didn't know. On the open source side there's some progress going on, but it's slow work and to be honest I don't think there are that many Linux PCs with a Blu-Ray drive. But there are interesting developments going on, hardware acceleration is coming soon to ATI cards. If we want to talk multimedia, I'd much rather get rid of flash.

Re:The one Ubuntu feature I want most:

[Directrix1]

Does VLC not support this yet?

Re:The one Ubuntu feature I want most:

[Jorophose]

If you don't mind making backups of your bluray discs, I think K3B et al can burn BD-Rs.

In that case, get yourself a copy of SlySoft AnyDVD HD. I'm hoping SlySoft will eventually work with Wine to get this running on linux (I don't think they'll make a real port any time soon) because it's totally worth the money. A buddy of mine bought it a while back after buying AnyDVD. Stuff's great; especially AnyDVD, because some DVD players are peculiar (although, I think it's more because most people have started using DVD+R and that might be the real problem...) but it seems to work with them anyway.

AnyDVD HD won't let you play blu-rays straight, though. I don't think anything will at this point. However, I'm hoping that if you broke the encryption, you can play them straight off the disc with mplayer. With ATI hopefully bringing a working UVD2 with the next catalyst release (or mplayer/ffmpeg/gstreamer/? patching, because they might have released already), things are really rocking for linux. Then it's just a matter of getting the PVR-2250 to work for Linux, and you've got a Godly mythbox =).

(DumpHD works great and is Java but you need the keys. They can be found, but yeah you're stuck looking for them when newer discs come out. However, might beat paying/cough for SlySoft's AnyDVD and then the HD upgrade (sadly HD doesn't come seperately). I think it can do BD+ just fine. And it's Java so it works for linux right now...)

Re:The one Ubuntu feature I want most:

[rzei]

According to Wikipedia's page it'd seem the following codecs need to be supported:

• mpeg-2
• mpeg-4 avc
• vc-1

VC-1 is Microsoft's shit all over again, and I don't remember libavcodec supporting it yet, if ever.

Even when you've got support for all the X codecs required by BD you'll still have to crack the encryption (you bought it right? ... instead of downloading a hdrip).

The 8.10 wallpaper looks like...

[Anonymous Coward]

...someone's in the process of cleaning dog shit from a floor.

Re:The 8.10 wallpaper looks like...

[kv9]

and have the dog shit coincidentally spread out in the form of an (intrepid?) Ibex.

more like Intrepid Goatsex if you ask me.

Bluray == laserdisk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just download 720p / 1080p divx like the rest of the universe.

Very little apparently

[dlevitan]

I'm using Kubuntu 8.04 right now. The article claims "The last six months of development have brought tons of new functionality that make running Linux easier for all users". I hardly see anything awe-inspiring. Here's my perspective as a current KDE user:

1. GNOME: I see nothing revolutionary or even exciting here. Ekiga is their picture for this. That's definitely a niche app. Better bluetooth support and resolution controls are good I guess. I've had the on KDE for a few years now I believe.

2. X.org: Hotplugging mice/keyboards "works now"? Well, it works now for me with 8.04. They must've had to dig deep to find something like that. So does resolution switching and xrandr support for multiple displays (which is a huge deal, but has already been around for a year).

3. New kernel: always good for my laptop which typically get a few more things running more smoothly with each kernel release

4. Network manager: Anyway who has a 3G connection probably has a laptop. And laptop's need network profile. I need one for work and one for my apartment. Ubuntu doesn't support these and this article doesn't mention anything new. Everything listed is minor improvements. Personally, I have to use wicd, which is decent, but isn't quite as well integrated as networkmanager.

5. Guest account: I see no point for this. Either you trust the person or you don't. And you can create your own guest account if you really want to and switch to it. At least I can do that from KDE. I suppose one click is nicer than click, type in guest/guest, and log in. So maybe a worthwhile feature, though hardly earth-shattering

6. Flash video: Eh, what was stopping things from working before? I assume this just means version 10 is supported. Which is great, but 64 bit support is still lacking so I'll still have problems with it. No, not an ubuntu problem, but I can complain anyway.

7. Secret hidden folders: Just use truecrypt. This doesn't even encrypt your home directory based on the article. And you need to go to the terminal to set it up?

8. Config-less x.org: Now this is nice. Hopefully it'll work well. I haven't had to use an xorg config file for a few years now beyond the default, though to support multiple monitors I've had to include a virtual screen line. Hopefully this will fix that problem.

Personally, I'm more intereted in Kubuntu dropping KDE3 in 8.10. KDE4 can be set up well, but it certainly doesn't support everything that's in KDE3 and still isn't quite as smooth (though I actually like it a lot).

Re:Very little apparently

[Chlorus]

2. X.org: Hotplugging mice/keyboards "works now"?

What's truly sad is that Windows 98 had that feature, and it took the Xorg people so long to implement it. Its XFree86 all over again.

Re:Very little apparently

[Seraphim_72]

Here's my perspective as a current KDE user:

Would a KooKie and a glass of warm milK make you feel better?

;)

Eclipse

[epine]

I wish Ubuntu would get their act together on Eclipse.

From http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1265/

msarro wrote on the 25 Mar 08 at 01:50

This has almost 550 vote ups, more than just about anything else on this place, and yet according to launchpad this isn't even supposed to make the hardy release? C'mon guys, 3.3 is a year old, and 3.4 will be in testing shortly after hardy. Some of us like to have a scripted install so we can get ubuntu installed, run our shell script, come back an hour or two later and have everything installed. Yes, it can be downloaded and run from a folder, but we can do that with everything. So if that's the retort people are going to keep kicking back at us why are we even bothering to include apt?

My attempt to run Ganymede from a folder was unsuccessful. Maybe it was the AMD64 thing, I never figured it out, and I don't want to.

Ibex appears to be stuck at 3.2.2. That's Callisto from July 2006. If Jaunty remains stuck at 3.2 in April 2009, I'll begin to seriously wonder about things. Does July 2002 to June 2005 ring any bells with Ubuntu management?

I've read other threads which suggest that Fedora enjoys a small monopoly on the developers who are proficient at packaging Java applications.

[[Had some problems posting from a public terminal. Sorry if my repost ends up becoming a dup.]]

Re:Eclipse

[rzei]

Why don't you just go ahead and install the minimum java support (sun-java6-jdk i believe is the package's name)?

After that you can download eclipse binaries from their website, and run the binary from the directory! That's at least how I been doing my Java development on linux (kubuntu) for the past year.

Agreed, those packages don't work, but those seem a bit redundant. Eclipse does have it's own upgrading and addon system, there's really no need for a system wide installation!

If you screw something up, you just do a fresh install (unpack the .tar.gz). If you want to back up, or even better, transfer your whole eclipse distribution, you just tar your eclipse installation directory.

APT and dpkg are great tools, but as eclipse moves on with continiusly higher pace, and it's you the developer who wants to use it I believe you should be able to find a way around all the shelly stuff. Otherwise you could consider changing from Java to for example Visual Basic.

Re:kubuntu?

[Artifakt]

I'm running in Kubuntu 8.04 - I just added what KDE4 files I could using adept literally yesterday, and rebooted to it to try it out, then went back to 3.5.
Biggest issues I saw:
1. When you say there aren't many plasmoids yet, its an understatement. A lot of the useful desktop applets, i.e. local weather, haven't been added yet. There's just about nothing in the way of marginally useful but neat applets such as moon phase converted to plasmoids. You could use a third party applet program until more stuff gets integrated in KDE, but you can do that with 3.5, and there's already at least 2 good ones to choose from.
2. Dual desktop support is limited - I couldn't extend the taskbar across both monitors. Having more applets/plasmoids might drive this feature, and having more space available in the taskbar might drive the plasmoids feature. (Although as I understand it, the real point of plasmoids is to be able to put these tiny programs anywhere and not just in the bar, so maybe not). Not having either just yet makes me think it might be quite some time before there's progress.
3. A lot of the fine tweaks are disabled. If you like being able to do things such as independently set the width of your taskbar hiding buttons and whether there is one at each end of the bar or not, again you'll have to wait and hope somebody gets to that, or bone up on your coding. I don't see all of the fine tweaks making it into the next 6 monthly release, or even a year out.

The article is... not so great

[jonaskoelker]

X.Org 7.4 [...]. Hotplugging support for input devices actually works now, so you can plug in mice and tablets and use them without having to reboot.

Having to reboot? Wouldn't that be a kernel issue and not an X.org issue? I can imagine why you'd have to restart the X server, but the kernel? Haven't the kernel had hotplugging support with hotplug or udev for a few years now?

Improvements to X.Org also allow for the easier to manage display control panel, which allows users to adjust resolutions and screen placement for single and multiple monitor displays easily.

This is next to this image: http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u7/resolution.jpg. Who wants to bet that the control panel is part of GNOME, not X.org?

The new Network Manager is a great improvement over the previous release. It allows your Ubuntu machine to connect to the network before a user logs in.

Still no easy bonding? I submitted a request for that [/me feels indignant].

A bit seriously though: bonding rocks. Wanna pick up your laptop and not break the sshfs connection to your file server? Sure. Wanna have bandwidth that doesn't suck while you're tethered down by the ethernet cable? You can have that too.

But not with NetworkManager unless you hack some of its dispatcher scripts. Only for the techies.

Better Support for Web Video and Audio
Ubuntu now supports the high-quality setting in YouTube! We shall celebrate by watching videos of other people's animals at a better quality level. Additionally, now Ubuntu users can view the programming the BBC puts online in Totem. That's right, you can enjoy fine shows like Scotland Outdoors and The Archers from your Linux PC.

Cool! Uhh... what was updated again? Firefox? Flash? GStreamer? Totem? firefox-gstreamer-totemish-flv-plugin?

Type ecryptfs-setup-private in the Terminal, and you can hide and encrypt a folder in your Home directory. [...] This folder gives a secure location that you can use to store sensitive files, without paying the performance penalty that full-disk encryption incurs.

I wouldn't trust that. Applications may not know to keep data secret beyond umask, and so will store stuff in /tmp. Or your secret data will be put on the non-encrypted swap partition. And in my experience, full-disk encryption works fine, very little is noticable; a few .5s-delays when saving in emacs.

Config-less X.Org

Awesome!!1!

No seriously, I really think it is. Not much use to me now, but it'll probably be in the future.

[I'm still going to have an xorg.conf because it's a great place to cast spells that makes my trackball kick ass. EmulateWheel springs to mind, which is really a must with a Logitech Marble Mouse that has scroll _buttons_ instead of a wheel; no repeated scrolling otherwise, but with EmulateWheel I have it, and I have horizontal scrolling. Check out Battle for Wesnoth with horizontal scrolling, I wrote that :)]

Not the greatest written article. But I look forward to upgrading. Last time I did that, though, something broke. My plan is to pick a new package each day [or maybe every eight hours or so] and upgrade just that one. Then, when something breaks, I can limit it to one package plus dependencies, instead of all $BIGNUM packages.

Has it been half a year already? :)

-- Jonas K

Re:...there are many others that do [like it].

[rugatero]

Warty Warthog was released in October 2004. Microsoft first announced the Zune in mid-2006, releasing in November of that year.

Re:No Joystick Support

[bobbocanfly]

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)

Re:Total system freezes, for one

[Kjella]

No point. I have posted about 5 bugs and nothing gets fixed.

1. Have anyone been able to confirm the bugs?
2. How serious?
3. How long have you waited?

My experience with any software, open or closed source is that it doesn't happen nearly as fast as you'd like, there's no army of bugfixers waiting for you to have a problem...

Not so biased...

[Junta]

The windows partition step is accurate for retail disks of XP. The steps aren't complex, but they require user to be explicit. In the Ubuntu case, it does indeed default/suggest formatting that you can just accept, for the most common case.

I accept that the poster was describing the retail packaging from microsoft. Comparing OEM 'convenience' roll-ups of software to direct OEM-independent media isn't fair either. As such, Windows XP is not useful in and of itself, and Office and numerous other pieces of software must independently installed to have a useful system. Note, a company in a monopoly admittedly can't win on this count, on one hand they ship a less useful product, go the other way and they abuse their position.

The point of 'installing more files' steps is not that Windows puts in more files (I would wager far more files in aggregate are copied to disk by Ubuntu. Think the point is that Windows installation of XP requires a handful of reboots to navigate. Sometimes these are petty to count, sometimes you have to be careful about controlling the boot device depending on the system/setup.

Windows update, with XP is similar to the partitioning step. You had to seek it out and do it, whereas in Ubuntu, it suggests the update process.

Note that XP was released in 2002. Linux distros of 2002 were no where near this level. It is to be expected that progress would be made. Comparing a distribution packaged in 2008 that can bundle with impunity to a platform that couldn't bundle at the time in 2002 isn't surprising that Ubuntu comes ahead. Vista may be different, I'm unsure. Even today Ubuntu and other distributions can bundle with impunity which will continue to give them a competitive edge in out-of-the-box experience without needing to resort to OEM prepared images.

My Experience

[spandex_panda]

I would like to add my 0.02. I installed Ubuntu 8.10 about a month ago due to getting a new pc with an intel ich - 10 (or whatever) chipset where hardy (the great stable one) wouldn't recognise my hard drive (pain in the arse).
So I installed intrepid and in the beginning there were constant application crashes, nvidia issues, then my wireless card stopped working and I couldn't even compile serialmonkey's drivers!
But now I am siting pretty, new vlc, new gnome, new gimp, open office 3.0 (from a ppa repo), new deluge ... its all great. Nvidia drivers work flawlessly and I even got 2 screens working (a 22 inch samsung and a CRT TV) without manually editting xorg.conf!! (amazing!). Virtualbox runs in seamless mode so I can use the few windows apps I can't live without (mostly for Uni) and ... its really great!

So in conclusion, if you want the latest and greatest free software then I highly recommend that you try Ubuntu 8.10, it works fabulously for me. If you want a super stable free software OS then use 8.04.1.

Re:LiveCD does not leave anything....

[Daengbo]

That's why they make the server install disk. You can have a nice, text installer and come out with whatever level of system you want. The live CD is for desktop installs.

Just when did Linux get 'normal' users?

[johanatan]

Linux has normal users now? That's too bad.

Avoiding Windows installation ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you invest in some imaging software for a hard disk instead of installing the OS each time?

So what you're saying is, why not avoid the extreme hassles of installing Windows by not installing it at all, but replicating pre-installed images?

Thanks for validating exactly the point that the parent made.

Windows installation is an utter disaster suitable only for OEMs to carry out. Even the most obfuscated Linux installation process is a walk in the park compared to the "user-friendly" (HAHAHAHA HAHA HAHAHA <gag>) Windows install.

The only reason Windows made it big is because it came pre-installed on everything. It wouldn't have become even a niche O/S if users had had to install it themselves, including all drivers and normally expected packages. Not even the dumbest moron wants to spend three days rebooting the system every few minutes just to reach a rudimentary base level.

Re:ubuntu release coincides with election.

[PunkOfLinux]

I don't think -1 Troll is good enough. We need to give this guy a -5 Asshole Racist.

Re:Total system freezes, for one

[ricegf]

Dedicated installer disks are available, too. On the download page, click the "Alternate Desktop CD" checkbox just below "Start Download". No liveCD - just a nice, clean text-based installer like Grandma used to make. :-)

Re:What I noted about upgrading from 8.04 to 8.10

[ricegf]

I never upgrade Windows OR Linux - I reinstall both on a clean partition.

I have two partitions, for the current and previous install respectively. When it's time to upgrade, I copy my user data from previous to current; reformat previous and install the new OS there; and flip partitions in the boot loader.

That way, if the new install isn't all I'd hoped, I can easily boot into the previous partition from the grub menu. And I don't have to worry about a Windows or Linux upgrade almost working (yes, I've had problems with both).

Out-of-the-box is overrated

[GFree678]

One thing that a lot of people seem to enthusiastically remind others about when it comes to Ubuntu or Linux in general, is how good it is at supporting drivers "out of the box". Yes that's nice, but what I've found is a lot of those drivers lack functionality that I can immediately access in Windows after installing the drivers manually over there.

For example:

* I have a crappy Canon inkjet printer, but it still works so I keep using it. Both Ubuntu and Vista detect it and support it out of the box, however Vista is able to show extra details such as the ink levels, as well as allow me to perform deep cleaning/head alignment operations on the printer if required. I don't have any of that functionality in Linux - as far as the hardware support goes it just allows me to print, and that's pretty much it.

* My laptop uses an Intel X3100 integrated graphics chipset. Nothing fancy, but it works quite well. Ubuntu has an advantage where it correctly identifies the chipset, and not only enables the 3D stuff immediately but also correctly sets the resolution. In Vista/XP I'm required to install the drivers manually. However, in Ubuntu I'm unable to do things such as force the screen to keep its aspect ratio when running in a 4:3 resolution on a 16:10 screen (which is kinda important with games which don't have widescreen support for example). I don't have any ability to rotate the screen, which is easy to do with the Intel control panel in Windows, but none exists in Linux. There's probably a way via Xorg or xrandr but goodness knows I can't find it. Also, the OpenGL extensions aren't fully supported in Linux, which means certain games won't even run there but they will in Windows. Again, not a big deal for a laptop which isn't really designed for games, but there you go.

* The power settings available in Vista is incredible. It allows for very easy to tune control over how the machine powers down elements to save power, plus overall I can keep my Vista system running longer with Aero running than I can in Linux with Compiz.

Those are my experiences, and of course others will vary. Having said that, I'm sure there are people who don't care about such features with their computers, and in such a case, having minimally supported features on hardware is probably OK to them. To me, I want to have EVERYTHING the hardware can do.

Re:They still get to manually edit their xorg.conf

[Jamie Lokier]

In most cases, the resolutions available are returned by the monitor itself, over the DDC channel (on VGA, DVI and HDMI cables). The information block is called EDID.

Usually, if the monitor's native resolution and timing aren't in the detected list, it's because the monitor itself is sending faulty information, or because of using an old VGA cable which doesn't have the wires for DDC.

Re:What I noted about upgrading from 8.04 to 8.10

[aronschatz]

Hmm...

I have /home on a separate partition and I always do a clean Linux install.

I don't wipe my /home partition and once everything is installed, all my settings and data are there with a brand new shiny system.

Don't get me wrong. I've gone through plenty of fresh installs and now certain things don't work correctly and I'll have to flush out my /~ dir soon enough :(.

My way is much easier than yours. You can easily go back to the old version by installing it again.

Re:kubuntu?

[Risen888]

With regards to #1, you can run SuperKaramba applets and Screenlets as Plasmoids. The weather and moon phase Plasmoids do exist but you have to go to kde-look.org and install them yourself. But I must say that I am distressed by the lack of enthusiasm that applet developers have so far displayed toward Plasma. You're right that that list isn't as long as it should be.

Re:Why Is Everyone So Blue?

[Lavene]

What's with all the blue color schemes, anyway? Personally, I hate the blue desktops a lot of people seem to favor, finding them cold and lifeless.

Blue? You think we'll use any random shade of blue? Of course not.

Re:kubuntu?

[fwarren]

Just as well clue everyone in. PearsonComputing are hosting their own deb repository for KDE 3.5 in Intrepid.

I fully expect the slashdot effect to kick in by November 1, 2008. I am positive that the repository will shit the bed when thousands of Kubuntu users who finaly see that their cam is supported in Intrepid running a 2.6.27 and still want KDE 3.5. Hardy won't cut it or them. Ubuntu will not have published a 2.6.27 Kernel for Hardy. They will still want 2.6.27 AND KDE 3.5.

I am set, already have my wifes Acer One on Intrepid in Xubuntu and KDE 3.5 added. As for me, it does not matter I run fluxbox or xfce. Besides, I am alrady running 2.6.27 with Hardy.

I will further add. When I do switch to Intrepid in a few months. I will probably use Linux Mint's Fluxbox or XFCE edition. Gives me a better looking desktop and I don't even have to spend an hour downloading codecs to get video codes, mp3 and flash working.

... a system lock-up if you invoke NVIDIA drivers?

[pterandon]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/288726

____________
SLASHDOT BUG: I hit "Get 376 More Comments, but only got five more.

Dual monitors

[phorm]

Been awhile since I've tried it with Nvidia (plenty of machines with NV cards, but not with NV cards and two monitors), but with the ATI card it was pretty easy. The little manager icon it adds to your "K" menu (I use KDE) worked nicely. With my laptop I just tell it to add a new screen... in expansion mode... to the left of my current screen, just a few clicks needed.

My work machine also has dual monitors, which work but I've noticed two points of weirdness which seem related to GL or the ATI card itself:

a) Icons and window shades tend to get all-black borders at times, and look asstastic.

b) When coming out of "lock" mode with a GL screensaver, the lock dialog is hidden behind the paused screensaver so I can't actually see if it's working.