Ubuntu 9.04 Released

Mohamed Zaian writes "Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, announced today that Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition is free to download from Thursday 23 April. Also announced were the simultaneous releases of Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition and Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (UNR). Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition delivers a range of feature enhancements to improve the user experience. Shorter boot speeds, some as short as 25 seconds, ensure faster access to a full computing environment on most desktop, laptop and netbook models. Enhanced suspend-and-resume features also give users more time between charges along with immediate access after hibernation. Intelligent switching between Wi-Fi and 3G environments has been broadened to support more wireless devices and 3G cards, resulting in a smoother experience for most users."

Comments

Questions from an 8.10 user

[hattig]

Does it preload the "Gnome" menu yet, or do you still get that annoying pause when you first click on it?

Does the lovely dark Dusk theme work with Gnome 2.26?

Will it kill off hardware VIA graphics (HP 2133 netbook) like the last kernel upgrade, or does it now handle these properly as a third party binary blob?

Will it give me free beer and hookers?

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[suso]

Do you make this comment everyday or something?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1208265&cid=27678699

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[orkybash]

Will it give me free beer and hookers?

Free as in speech, silly.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[orkybash]

You'd think for something he's planning to reuse he would at least put in the effort to proofread it...

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[viralMeme]

"Do you make this comment everyday or something?"

It's his job, when ever Linux is mentioned he has to say 'not yet ready for the desktop'. It's the technological version of monkeys throwing shit ..

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[MikeBabcock]

What I love about this troll specifically is the complete ignorance toward companies like Canonical (mentioned specifically in this story), RedHat, Novell, and others who commercially and collaboratively help produce and individually stand behind Linux distributions.

In other words, while he or she may believe the first sentence (and its a statement worthy of debate), the rest is just silly tripe.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Sicarul]

Yes he does, i've seen it so many times it hurts my eyes.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[El Lobo]

Give me free beer and I don't care for free speech.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Keyper7]

Does the lovely dark Dusk theme work with Gnome 2.26?

Not only it does, it comes installed out of the box.

(by installed I mean as an option available, not as the default theme)

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[MacColossus]

By monkeys throwing shit I assume you mean Ballmer "monkey boy" throwing chairs. Based on the repeated troll posts related to linux that guy probably IS Ballmer.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[MacColossus]

Time for someone to remove their face from Ballmer's loins and download a Ubuntu ISO. You can boot to it and become informed without removing or altering your precious Windows environment.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Mr. DOS]

If we give you free beer, we'll get your free speech, whether we want it or not ;)

      --- Mr. DOS

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Niris]

Unless you screw it up like a complete newb and write over your Windows. 100% Linux since November, here. Woot! *SO glad he backed up everything*

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Sleepy]

Ah, I see the only Linux you've tried is GENTOO!

Nice troll. Unfortunately those level 5 Wizards are doing good work for Linux at Red Hat, Canonical, IBM etc. and you're just point-and-click expert with some free time while waiting for your OS to catch up. So sorry.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[gsmalleus]

Will it give me free beer and hookers?

Free as in speech, silly.

I'm sure there are many people out there who would prefer that their OS gave them free beer and hookers instead of free speech.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[tuxgeek]

while he or she may believe the first sentence (and its a statement worthy of debate)

I debate this every time it comes up. I run Linux full time on all my machines as my primary desktop. Sure, I have WinXP on the laptop, but haven't booted it in months. Why bother, it no longer meets my needs, and is too much a hassle to fool with

I've recently upgraded from Lenny to Kubuntu-8.10 w/ KDE4.2.2 and love the system. As soon as I get back to my broadband connection will upgrade to 9.04

The troll's post above is merely outdated FUD. It's the same as Linux fanboyz declaring that all windoz systems are Win95 and unstable abortions of crapware. WinXP is a nice system and the best OS M$ has ever produced. If it works for you, use it. If something about it bugs you, give Ubuntu a shot. This is all about freedom of choice. Linux has come into it's own and is an eye opening experience for those looking for something more than what windoz has to offer.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[icannotthinkofaname]

How newbie do you have to be to screw up a dual-boot?

Anyone with half a brain will do extensive Googling to make sure they know exactly how to do it. Anyone with two halves of a brain will back up their data, no matter how much Googling they've done. And anyone with three halves of a brain will get it right on the first try, anyway, since they read and understood enough documentation.

And once you get it right (or even close to right), future installations become a lot less stressful, because the worry of overwriting Windows isn't nearly as high.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[node 3]

Because "insightful" doesn't mean "literally true".

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Chabo]

Impossible, if you run Wubi.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Belial6]

Uh... If the hookers are free, then by definition, they are not hookers.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[FilterMapReduce]

Will it give me free beer and hookers?

Free as in speech, silly.

In 9.10, there will be free hookers who speak freely and have beer.

But until the next LTS release, be sure to use a condom.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Misch]

It's called "copy pasta"

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Teun]

Because insightful is funny with mod points.

Or did you take this as a statement of fact?

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[tkinnun0]

Actually, insight - the result of apprehending the inner nature of things.

I guess in this case the moderator who moderated that crap "insightful" should have instead posted his evidence. Unless of course he didn't have any and chose a random up-moderation just to sling some mud.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Teun]

I'm sure there are many people out there who would prefer that their OS gave them free beer and hookers instead of free speech.

Here's the option you're thinking of:

http://www.microsoft.com/
The hang over and viruses are included :)

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[geminidomino]

Not true.

You always pay, my friend. You... ALWAYS... pay.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Aphoxema]

I'm sure there's D&D players working for Microsoft, too.

And the real GNU/Linux enthusiasts I know that P&P play World of Darkness.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[sixteenbitsamurai]

And the real GNU/Linux enthusiasts I know that P&P play World of Darkness.

Actually, my group has been playing Rifts lately, but we're power gaming jackasses.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[hviniciusg]

Is that u Bill?, please go free some mosquitoes on rich people somewhere else

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[cyclomedia]

Actually, "Free as in beer" roughly describes the BSD: You can share recipes and brew your own, but it's unlikely you can prosecute anyone for close-sourcing your beer recipe.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Belial6]

Of course, but as a society, we have decided that the word 'Hooker' only applies to the ones that say it out loud and collect money directly.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Sean0michael]

He's trying to unlock an achievement: Consecutive Days with Duplicate posts. Generally reserved for editors, also applicable to the common slashdotter.

Unfortunately, he wasn't logged in, so this won't count.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[lawpoop]

If a person make a living by charging for sex, and has sex with you for free, they are not a hooker?

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Belial6]

Only if you you would also say that having your pal Wally (who happens to write software for a living) come over and drink beer with you would be getting a free programmer.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[quenda]

Will it give me free beer and hookers?

Only if you enable the "restricted" packages section of the repository.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[node 3]

Because "insightful" doesn't mean "literally true".

Actually, insight - the result of apprehending the inner nature of things.

Note how it doesn't say anything about being literally true.

To clarify my point, calling a poster Ballmer doesn't necessarily have to be literally true to be insightful, it just needs for the idea of calling the poster Ballmer to provide some sort of insight. I'm not saying it did, but found your objection due to "lack of evidence" to completely miss the point of what insight is. A lot of nonsensical things are insightful. And a lot of very true things lack insight.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[muntis]

Definitely yes, my Compaq 6715s (Radeon X1200 Series) does not boot unless I press any key time by time during process - some kind of locking I think. Hadn't jet found solution for that. Luckily I found a temporary (as usual) one - keep my HTC p4550 on space button during boot.

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[Rigrig]

There you go

Re:Questions from an 8.10 user

[tkinnun0]

Note that I didn't claim it did. Phrased differently, insight is the understanding obtained by reading between the lines, which is, if anything, the exact opposite of literal.

Re: the moderation, I'm glad to see that you don't throw your weight behind that particular atrocity. The "insightful" moderation targeted to that slur stated as a fact was to promote the idea that anyone who doesn't disagree with Microsoft in everything is a Microsoft astroturfer or worse. What insight can there be in that?

Jaunty

[drinkypoo]

Jaunty Jackalope may be the poofiest name for an Ubuntu release yet, but this is the first one since the Dapper Drake (Also quite poofish) to actually improve Ubuntu's stability. Unfortunately GNOME has boned the network manager (well, we got this one in Intrepid, it was extremely nonintuitive then and it's the same now, and it's still too retarded to handle bridging) and the gnome-panel which is now a mandatory application. Also the logout panel is now stupid, you can have logout options or shutdown options but you can't have both at once. Let's all hear it for Ubuntu for making the system more stable, and let's all give GNOME a big raspberry for their constant attempts to take GUIs into the last century. (KDE still looks like the kitchen sink exploded on my desktop... but anyway.) I do have one gripe, though: Will you guys please decide on a strategy for audio? I'm getting tired of having to follow PulseAudio's PerfectSetup document, why don't y'all try reading it sometime? Not that pulseaudio came with Jaunty; too bad audio didn't work right without it.

Re:Jaunty

[zbharucha]

Just use XFCE. You won't be sorry.

Re:Jaunty

[kazade84]

So the stability of a release is proportional to the campness of the name? Excellent, so the plan is...

1. Create a distro called Fluffy Fairy
2. ???
3. Profit!

Re:Jaunty

[Anonymous Coward]

I highly recommend wicd. It works, it doesn't auto-connect to wired networks (I sometimes wish that were a checkbox option though), it lets you use external programs (WPA drivers, DHCP Clients, Wired Link Detection, Route Table Flushing) and best of all, it allows you to set up scripts to run on connect, disconnect, and/or pre-connect (absolutely fantastic for laptops+cifs/pppoe/etcetera). The only downsides are that it's not in the default repos, it's got a very lazy security implementation (it runs the script manager as root when strictly speaking it doesn't need to), and it's basically just a glorified python script. But it's still miles ahead of NetworkManager/KNetworkManager.

Re:Jaunty

[SgtPepperKSU]

Jaunty Jackalope may be the poofiest name for an Ubuntu release yet

That is probably why that isn't the name of the release...

Re:Jaunty

[Kentaree]

There should be a way to tag individual posts as NSFW, not because of unsuitable content, but more because I look like a moron when I burst out laughing at comments like these in the middle of the office.

Re:Jaunty

[drinkypoo]

I already tried it and was already sorry. I run a million billion GTK+ apps so the major reason to run XFCE, not loading all those libraries, doesn't apply to me. I've tried Kubuntu too, just in case anyone was wondering. For all its faults, I still believe GNOME is the best desktop on Linux today — I just think it's headed in the wrong direction. Perhaps one day KDE will kill the clutter and then I'll switch.

Re:Jaunty

[drinkypoo]

Jaunty Jackalope may be the poofiest name for an Ubuntu release yet.

That is probably why that isn't the name of the release...

Correctness FAIL

Re:Jaunty

[ameyer17]

Except XFCE is GTK+ based, so you get those libraries loaded whether you run GTK apps or not.

Re:Jaunty

[mhall119]

I already tried it and was already sorry. I run a million billion GTK+ apps so the major reason to run XFCE, not loading all those libraries, doesn't apply to me.

XFCE is GTK, so I don't quite understand what you're saying. If your apps just depend on the GTK libs, and not Gnome libs, then XFCE is a good choice for you.

Re:Jaunty

[mhall119]

In that case, I have high hopes for Karmic Koala.

Re:Jaunty

[Hurricane78]

Please NO. I hope KDE never ever ever kills that, what you call "clutter". Because we people, who tend to *really* *use* their computers, and configure them, hate one-button apps with so configurability at all, and everything at a default that is just riiiiight... for retards.

In my eyes, the only problem you (non retard, but does not want to configure every shit) users have with KDE, is that you are forced trough huge configuration menus.
I think it's very easy to make everyone happy. Just separate the settings in "user", "advanced" and "expert" in a sensible manner, and (*very important*) choose the presets very wisely for your target group. (This has to be done by the KDE developers for the general default. By the distributors for their target group. And by a company admin for the people in that company.)

Then average people like you can still use it, and be happy, because it just works.
And we power-users can tweak it until it fits like a glove.
Or everything in between.

How about that? :)

Re:Jaunty

[godless dave]

Until recently I would have suggested using Kubuntu to avoid all those Gnome problems. Not so much anymore.

Re:Jaunty

[Clarious]

Xfce is using GTK+ too, just not GNOME library and service (bonobo or something like that)

Re:Jaunty

[Braino420]

From the linked page:

"Jaunty Jackalope" is the code name for Ubuntu 9.04

Re:Jaunty

[xiong.chiamiov]

Kubuntu's the worst KDE distro I've ever experienced, btw. Not that I like how KDE is right now (still waiting for right-click on desktop to produce applications menu, and transparent bar without having to retheme), but 4.2's pretty polished in the distros that don't crap it up.

Re:Jaunty

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard the name 'Bloated Behemoth' on some sitcom the other day, such an awesome name for the next release.

Re:Jaunty

[MikeBabcock]

I'm a power-user and a developer. I use the command-line for anything requiring *real* using of my computer. You can't beat command-lines with piping and scripting for *real* power-use, period.

For my GUI usage, I use Gnome because it looks nice and works well by default. There are certain KDE applications I use because they are better designed than their Gnome counterparts or have been around longer and have better functionality (Kopete and Amarok come to mind), but my desktop is Gnome with several Eterm windows running at any time.

Re:Jaunty

[sheehaje]

I just hope the 10.04 release will be called Leaping Lizard.

Re:Jaunty

[lwsimon]

I'll throw my two cents in here and agree.

I use KDE4 on ArchLinux quite a bit. Instead of using the defaults and configuring myself, I installed KDEmod4, which is basically just KDE4 with a sane default config. No, its not perfect for me, but probably 80% of the stuff I wanted done is already done.

In my experience, both KDE and Gnome need to spend some time setting up more usable default configs. Put an option in a config menu somewhere - "restore to default configuration" and "reset to base configuration". For the few users that want the bare-bones, plain jane install to start with, clicking that button shouldn't be too much work...

Re:Jaunty

[Hurricane78]

Ok, I can see that.

I on the other hand, see the following as the ideal user interface:
A mainly keyboard drive, command-line-like GUI system. Something where you have all the power, and can see the available options before selecting one (the major flaw of the command line). And with good (learning?) presets, so you only have to define non-default settings.

I would like to see something like that. No matter if it's called Gnome or KDE.
But having many concurring groups almost always has many benefits.

Everything is relative. Without your counterparts you would no know how to define yourself. :)

Oh, and I hope I did not insult anyone with my GP comment. It's a bit harsh on the Gnome users. I hope you can stand over it, because I did not mean to attack anyone. There is no wrong or right, right? ;)

Re:Jaunty

[Radhruin]

The whole logging in/out/shutting down process in Ubuntu (Gnome, I guess) needs some major improvements, that's for sure.

If you share a computer with multiple people, what's the most common task you'll be doing in this arena? Well, suspending the session and logging in. Those options are not at all clear in Gnome. Not even close. Log out will close all of my applications (thankfully I know that, but a novice user from Windows will definitely be frustrated). The only thing I can do is "lock screen", but then someone else in my household wants to use the computer, they're first prompted with a password dialog for my user.

The whole damn thing is confusing, I think. Which is weird considering that Gnome is supposed to be all about usability... there are so many usability problems with 9.04 I couldn't even list them all. I don't know whose grand vision Gnome is, but man, someone's gotta take the reign and really look at a lot of this stuff from actual users' perspectives.

Re:Jaunty

[plasticsquirrel]

Wow, I could almost cut the smugness in your post with a knife. Apparently people who *really* use computers like to configure everything about them. These people are "advanced" or "power users", while everyone else is a retard or just a normal "user".

There are many people such as myself who have used plenty of window managers and desktop environments, and who like them to mostly stay out of the way. I don't want to endlessly configure my shiny little windows. If I want to do "real work", then I'll open up a terminal window and use Bash or Python. I'm sure there are plenty of other Slashdotters who take this same approach, judging by the relative popularity here of Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu.

And really, if you're obsessing about features in your GUI, are you really doing "real work"? The people I see who really care so much about that stuff are often just geeks who like to sit in their rooms and tinker with Linux, not people who are actually doing programming or sysadmin work on it.

Re:Jaunty

[ShieldW0lf]

One man's "power user" is another man's "too much free time on their hands".

Any time spent configuring the tool prior to use is overhead that reduces the productivity of the tool.

I remember when I first switched to Ubuntu and Gnome from Windows. I sat down at my computer, mindless slave to routine that I am, and started looking for housekeeping tasks to do, like I was used to. And I was kind of disjointed, because I was so used to dumping a half hour into screwing about with Windows and accomplishing nothing productive on a regular basis that I did it obsessively so things would be ready to go when I had work that was urgent. But there was nothing like that to do. I just stared at a computer which no longer needed me.

It felt really weird to just walk away from the machine and go for a walk in the park, like I was doing something sneaky that I would pay for later. Took weeks to really adjust to all that extra free time that I had because I didn't need to keep screwing about with my machine to keep it properly functioning.

If you want to tweak things, try planting a garden.

Re:Jaunty

[Blakey Rat]

I'm a power-user and a developer. I use the command-line for anything requiring *real* using of my computer. You can't beat command-lines with piping and scripting for *real* power-use, period.

So, just to cite one example, by your definition, digital film editors aren't *really* using their computers, and they're certainly not power-users?

Or you just define "power-user" to mean "the stuff that I can do on the CLI."

Re:Jaunty

[drinkypoo]

Sorry, I meant to say GNOME apps, which would have made the whole thing much clearer. If you want the big high-profile applications they depend on more than just GTK+. Since I already have to use those libraries they might as well load at login time. I have removed gnome-panel which is one of the big drags on startup anyway; I replaced it with avant-window-navigator. You have to go fuck with the gconf in like three places in order to do this... GNOME sometimes makes me think it's an attempt to turn Linux into Windows. Hint: Stop abusing your registry-like functionality!

Re:Jaunty

[Chabo]

Log out will close all of my applications (thankfully I know that, but a novice user from Windows will definitely be frustrated).

Actually, this is exactly how Windows does it. As of XP, "Log Out", closes your apps and goes to the login screen. "Switch User" keeps your apps alive and goes to the login screen (only if you have "Fast User Switching" enabled, but that's on by default). "Lock Screen" does the same thing as in Gnome too; it suspends your session, and only you, or an admin user, can log in. Other "standard" users are completely locked out of the computer.

Call this behavior confusing if you wish, but Gnome is consistent with Windows (and hence, with the behavior that Windows users will expect) in this case.

Re:Jaunty

[mhall119]

The Gnome devs are working to move much of libgnome into GTK, so things will get better. Probably a majority of your apps don't actually need Gnome. For me, I know Evolution and maybe Tomboy need it, but otherwise they're all GTK.

Re:Jaunty

[X0563511]

I think you don't give yourself enough credit.

What you say would put yourself above the "advanced" area and into the realm of the wizard.

Re:Jaunty

[drinkypoo]

The Gnome devs are working to move much of libgnome into GTK, so things will get better.

I just wish they'd work on making a nm-applet that works right (e.g. stays running) or a network config tool that's useful. We keep getting new network tools from GNOME instead of incremental improvements which actually help the user, and they always suck.

Re:Jaunty

[Radhruin]

You're right, XP does call the session-destroying option log out. An XP user will still be confused trying to find the equivalent of the "switch user" option, however. If there were a "switch user" menu item that returned you to the login screen, that would be one thing, but I don't see such a thing. All I see is "Log Out", "Suspend", "Hibernate", "Restart", and "Shut Down". Now think like a user: you want to log out so no one can mess with your open programs. What do you pick? Well, if I had no experience, I would first pick "Log Out". Then maybe I'd pick "Suspend", but that shuts the whole machine down. It's certainly not the other two... In reality, my only option is to pick "Lock Screen" as I mentioned, which is in a completely different part of the menu, and is an added pain for someone else when they want to use the computer. It's far from usable.

Re:Jaunty

[Blakey Rat]

Eh, as an old-school Mac user, I don't buy any of that.

Whether you use a CLI or a GUI program has absolutely nothing to do with whether you are a power user or not.

Our database expert here at work is definitely a power user, and she uses a GUI program to manage databases-- gasp! Horror! The digital film editor mentioned originally is more likely than not pushing his hardware to the absolute limit-- he's a power user, doing a job that can't be done on the CLI. Or consider a 3D modeler for a video game, or movie studio-- same deal.

I think the reason Linux users think you "need" the CLI to be a power user is that most Linux GUIs kind of suck. Mencoder, though a GUI, would probably be just as powerful as the CLI version, if the GUI was good. Hell, at the bare minimum it could have help text to remind you what the hundreds of options are all for. Apple had GUI script-ability mastered back in System 7. (Although like a lot of good things Apple came up with in the last, they've flushed it down the shitter to be more compatible with other systems.)

There's nothing inherent in the CLI that makes it better for your tasks, and there's nothing stopping somebody from making a GUI application that would do just as well.

Re:Jaunty

[rts008]

I'm a power-user...

Almost every time I hear this, I have to chuckle.

I use the command-line for anything requiring *real* using of my computer. You can't beat command-lines with piping and scripting for *real* power-use, period.

That statement kept me from chuckling. I now have to agree with your first sentence.

The difference between being stuck in a GUI and very limited CLI (Windows 9x and XP Pro), then Using a *nix distro with real CLI support is truly amazing.
The fact that MS uses the phrase 'multi-tasking' and "MS OS' in the same sentence is both misleading, and laughable.
And I am far from being what I would call a 'power-user' with *nix, but easily qualify with Windows.

Re:Jaunty

[mhall119]

nm-applet has come a long way, and I haven't had a problem with it in years. I recently had the pleasure of using it with a VPN, and it was the easiest way I've ever seen to connect/disconnect from a VPN.

That said, there are other GTK apps you can use to configure your wired and wireless NICs that aren't dependent on Gnome.

Re:Jaunty

[nschubach]

I think you might get further by not calling those that want simplicity "retards." There's something to be said about Gnome's simple interface. It's easy to use and it rarely ever gets in the way. There are many times I wish I could change such-and-such setting that is possible in KDE, but when it's set, I don't want to be confronted with it anymore.

Also, I wouldn't say "user", "advanced" and "expert." I'd call them "streamlined", "moderate", and "complex" configurations. People want to consider themselves "advanced" or "expert" but that doesn't preclude them to wanting a cluttered interface.

As I use Linux (Debian) more and more, I don't find myself wanting more buttons on the screen. I actually find I want some of them to go away because "I already set that" or "I don't want to change that every day." I wouldn't consider myself a "user", but I prefer a little streamlining. So far Gnome has been good for that.

Re:Jaunty

[Nursie]

Never used KDE much, what exactly is it that you want/need to configure?

Bear in mind that I was using Solaris 8 and CDE happily util relatively recently. I find GUIs/windowing systems/whatever just need to be present, not necessarily endlessly configurable.

But I might be missing out, what do you need to configure? What advantage does it give you?

Re:Jaunty

[awrowe]

Might I suggest:

2. Make everything pink

2.1 Give the system noises a lisp

3. Profit!

Re:Jaunty

[DMUTPeregrine]

I use 2 WMs. KDE for fun stuff, and Xmonad for "real work." It's hard to waste time messing around with features when there really aren't any, and all configuration is done by editing the (interpreted) source.

Re:Jaunty

[Nursie]

Log out will close all of my applications (thankfully I know that, but a novice user from Windows will definitely be frustrated).

That's *exactly* what logging out does on windows too!

What are you on about?

And if you hit the "Switch User" button on the logout dialogue box, guess what, you stay logged in and you get to switch user.

I fail to understand your problem here.

Re:Jaunty

[rts008]

WTF?
Could you possibly look more like a moron with that statement?

Hint(from the link):

This document provides instructions and notes on upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 (code name "Jaunty Jackalope"), the most recent release of Ubuntu, released on the 23rd of April 2009.

This is not the first time it has been mentioned here.

Re:Jaunty

[Teun]

I highly recommend wicd. It works, it doesn't auto-connect to wired networks (I sometimes wish that were a checkbox option though)

Such a check box is on the front page, right on top when you unfold the properties of a particular network.

Re:Jaunty

[Jake Griffin]

The string "Jaunty" appears on that wiki page 22 times. the string "9.04" appears how many times? Really? Only once? Hmm...

Re:Jaunty

[Teun]

Kubuntu works very well since KDE4.2.

Beautiful and a superior layout but slow running like treacle.

Re:Jaunty

[Jake Griffin]

Except that there is no "Switch User" option to go to the main screen unless you first select a user to switch to. It's an extra step. Correct me if this was changed in Jaunty, but that's how it works in Intrepid.

Re:Jaunty

[Locutus]

It would be tempting to try the Netbook Remix as an alternate desktop( session type ). Putting all that wasted space in the title bar to use is a great idea. Using Kubuntu, you'd gain another 40*(screen width) pixels across the bottom of the screen and twice that if you were using standard Gnome-based Ubuntu.

Anyone tried `sudo apt-get install ubuntu-netbook-remix` yet?

LoB

Re:Jaunty

[David Gerard]

Dude. 8.04 was called Hairy Hardon. WTF.

Re:Jaunty

[GreatBunzinni]

There are many people such as myself who have used plenty of window managers and desktop environments, and who like them to mostly stay out of the way. I don't want to endlessly configure my shiny little windows. If I want to do "real work", then I'll open up a terminal window and use Bash or Python. I'm sure there are plenty of other Slashdotters who take this same approach, judging by the relative popularity here of Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu.

So don't. No one is forcing you. Yet, don't go on believing that every single person in the face of the world likes what you like or even finds your way of "keeping things mostly out of the way". That's narcissistic and short sighted and configurability, in which KDE is exemplar, is quite able to fix that usability problem.

Re:Jaunty

[DaleGlass]

That'd be the hell of a GUI. According to a quick check, mencoder has about 385 possible options. A GUI that presents all those options would be incredibly complex.

At that point, IMO, a CLI interface wins by far. Why?

1. In a GUI with 20 pages of configuration with 20 options on each it's very difficult to find the current configuration state. Meanwhile on the commandline it's obvious which of the 400 options are being used.

2. Regardless of how pretty you make it, the fact is that mencoder is a low level tool, which requires understanding video concepts to use effectively. A GUI for all its features isn't going to clarify things by much.

3. Scripts are easier in a CLI environment. Telling people to check this and that option is very tedious for something with such an amount of options, and following the instructions is equally bothersome. Plain text that can be copy/pasted is a lot more convenient.

4. Why put a GUI on a tool that can be used for batch processing work? What if somebody wants to encode videos on a server, with no GUI installed?

5. Who would use a full GUI adaption of mencoder anyway? It wouldn't make it much easier for normal people. Now a GUI with a more limited purpose, such as a GUI to transcode video to the format portable players want is a lot more limited in scope, needs much fewer options, and in fact has been done already.

6. This seems like a pointless discussion anyway, since we have the best of both worlds already. For those who want scriptability, there's mencoder. For those who want a GUI there are multiple frontends for it. It's the same as burning CDs, K3B is a frontent for cdrecord, and that seems to work just fine.

Re:Jaunty

[The Warlock]

There's a panel applet that adds a menu to select what user should be logged in. If you've been updating an existing install since before this applet existed, then it might not be there, but by default on new installs it's in the upper left corner. You just click it, pick a different user, and then they type in their password.

(of course, I don't bother with separate user accounts on my systems, but the feature is there).

Re:Jaunty

[defaria]

let's all give GNOME a big raspberry for their constant attempts to take GUIs into the last century

How about a menu that you can drag and drop things around like you can in XP? I mean geeze!

Re:Jaunty

[shutdown -p now]

That would be a tag for /. as a whole, not for individual comments.

Don't tell me you never burst out laughing when reading some of the summaries in the feed...

Re:Jaunty

[williamgrant]

The "Switch User" option isn't necessary, as the menu acts as a user switcher itself - it lists the local users, and you can click on one of them to start or change to that user's session.

Re:Jaunty

[mad_clown]

I'm holding out for "Tantric Turtle"

Re:Jaunty

[eihab]

because I was so used to dumping a half hour into screwing about with Windows and accomplishing nothing productive on a regular basis that I did it obsessively so things would be ready to go when I had work that was urgent

May I ask what kind of tasks you needed to do obsessively to get anything productive done?

I'm a user of both Windows and Ubuntu (and a host of other OS'es), and in _my_ personal experience I spend about 15-20 minutes a day messing with Ubuntu before I can get anything productive done.

I have a bluetooth headset that I spent quite sometime to get it to work at all. The setup is not quite automated since I have to run a series of commands to get it working every time (read: at least twice a day):
// Load bluetooth headset

pactl load-module module-alsa-sink device="bluetooth"

// Unload internal audio (PulseAudio crashes if I have 2 streams playing on 2 different sinks)

pactl unload-module 0

// Pull up pavucontrol and make sure my bluetooth is set as the default sink

pavucontrol

Occasionally I have to restart the bluetooth daemon when Pulse audio keeps hanging for no reason whatsoever except for the fact that I told it to load the bluetooth sink. Sometimes I just get frustrated and either reboot or not listen to anything at all.

If my headset ever goes out of range and gets disconnected PulseAudio crashes and I have to do the above again (including restarting bluetoothd).

If my laptop hibernates, then good luck getting the headset to work without a full reboot (restarting bluetoothd doesn't seem to do the trick here).

I like to listen to music while I'm working, and it really screws things up when I have to mess with getting my headset functional instead of jumping right to work.

All this didn't discourage me from running Ubuntu by the way, I know PulseAudio is new and bluetooth isn't quite there yet, but it is quite frustrating.

So again, what were your problems with windows? I'm genuinely interested in knowing.

Re:Jaunty

[martin-boundary]

That would be TFFW.

Re:Jaunty

[Requiem18th]

This is a good argument against "customize only" desktops (if there are such things). Sane defaults and minimalist interfaces don't exclude highly customizable software.

  I love freedom and competition but I think KDE vs GNOME vs XCFE is a net negative for the FOSS comunity, fortunately you can mix and match.

Re:Jaunty

[Radhruin]

Except the majority of the time I want to "Switch user" I really want to just go back to the login screen leaving your applications open for the next time you log in, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this.

Re:Jaunty

[Zalminen]

Well, most of your points just mean that the GUI needs to be done right...

1) How about a separate page that basically lists the currently selected settings? You select the settings you want and can then see the corresponding CLI command to accomplish the same.
This would also make it easier to move to using the CLI stuff if you want. (Similar to how tools work in Windows Server 2008)
2) Tooltips? It would certainly beat hunting through the man pages...
3) Yes, CLI is of course better for scripts but the power of GUI comes from discoverability.
4) Who says there should be no CLI?
5) Umm, yes it would. I can manage by going through the man pages 5 times to find the suitable settings but finding the correct settings in a logically grouped GUI would be SO much easier for a normal person.
6) True, but the whole point of the exercise was about the usefulness of GUI vs CLI.

Re:Jaunty

[wdef]

My first exposure to *nix was DamnSmallLinux before I tried Gnome and KDE. So, with difficulty and by building or seeking out my required "extensions", I eventually realized I could do most things reasonably efficiently with just fluxbox, emelfm and the command line. When I did try Gnome not long after, it seemed so slow. I tried kde on the trainwreck that was Fedora Core 4 (fc5 was a bug improvement) and it was also as sluggish as treacle. Then, as programming becomes more of a focus for me, I have much less interest in the interface itself. I just want it to be fast and not make me have to spend boring time working out how to configure things. So mostly, I'm still on fluxbox at present, even for work.

Re:Jaunty

[LingNoi]

I have two machines with Hardy on. In my laptop (intel) the sound works fine, I can plugin my wireless USB headphones and it works no problems. However now I've lost the speaker audio on it and it won't come back. You have to fiddle with the different settings and I can't get it working.

On my second machine (AMD) I've tried everything and can not get the USB headphones working at all. I've fiddled with all the settings including Pulse audio to the point where I have given up. Ubuntu really needs to make audio a MUCH better and easier experience because it's one of the things which drives me insane.

Re:Jaunty

[Erikderzweite]

Have you ever considered switching users instead of logging in/out all the time?

Re:Jaunty

[Yunzil]

Please NO. I hope KDE never ever ever kills that, what you call "clutter". Because we people, who tend to *really* *use* their computers, and configure them, hate one-button apps with so configurability at all, and everything at a default that is just riiiiight... for retards. ...or maybe you're just a little too obsessive-compulsive about being able to set exactly the right shade of bluish gray for your window backgrounds.

Re:Jaunty

[Blakey Rat]

1. In a GUI with 20 pages of configuration with 20 options on each it's very difficult to find the current configuration state. Meanwhile on the commandline it's obvious which of the 400 options are being used.

Well, if your GUI has 20 pages with 20 options on each page, then it was designed by a complete retard. The debate is whether a *good* GUI program is better than a CLI program. Obviously, a shitty GUI program will be worse, that's pretty much the definition of "shitty GUI program."

2. Regardless of how pretty you make it, the fact is that mencoder is a low level tool, which requires understanding video concepts to use effectively. A GUI for all its features isn't going to clarify things by much.

Why not? You can have rational presets. You can know which options are mutually-exclusive with other options (something you don't know with a CLI interface.) You can have an integrated real-time help system that would beat the pants off the CLI help system. (A CLI help system can exist, of course, but it can't be real-time and it can't be integrated with the normal usage of the app.)

There's tons of potential for clarification in a GUI that doesn't exist in a CLI.

3. Scripts are easier in a CLI environment. Telling people to check this and that option is very tedious for something with such an amount of options, and following the instructions is equally bothersome. Plain text that can be copy/pasted is a lot more convenient.

Two arguments:
1) AppleScript rocked-ass in MacOS Classic. There's no reason CLI scripting *has* to be better than GUI scripting, you're just dealing with (repeat it with me:) a shitty GUI!

2) The GUI could be used to make presets (saved in files), then the presets could be run either in a GUI or CLI. That would be a definite usability improvement over having to type-in the same parameter string each time you want to use the tool, or having to write your own script to do it.

4. Why put a GUI on a tool that can be used for batch processing work? What if somebody wants to encode videos on a server, with no GUI installed?

1) There are GUIs that are used for batch processing work that are really, really, good. For example, Photoshop's batch processing options. Again, if you're used to shitty GUIs, you don't know these exist.

2) You're also acting as if a GUI and CLI are mutually-exclusive. Stop doing that.

5. Who would use a full GUI adaption of mencoder anyway? It wouldn't make it much easier for normal people. Now a GUI with a more limited purpose, such as a GUI to transcode video to the format portable players want is a lot more limited in scope, needs much fewer options, and in fact has been done already.

Possibly it wouldn't make it easier for "normal people." But I doubt that. If the GUI was done well, it would make it easier for *everybody*, "normal" or not. Now you've gone into pretty much full condescension "everybody who prefers a GUI is a retard" mode. Stop doing that.

6. This seems like a pointless discussion anyway, since we have the best of both worlds already. For those who want scriptability, there's mencoder. For those who want a GUI there are multiple frontends for it. It's the same as burning CDs, K3B is a frontent for cdrecord, and that seems to work just fine.

The point is that there shouldn't have to be two worlds in the first place. If mencoder had a decent GUI, programs like those front-ends wouldn't have to exist. Maintenance would be easier. Programmers can either spend more time adding features/fixing bugs, or move on to other projects that need the manpower.

Basically, all your arguments boil down to either: "I'm so used to shitty GUIs I can't even imagine what good ones look like", or "change is bad! stagnation is good!"

Re:Jaunty

[DaleGlass]

Well, if your GUI has 20 pages with 20 options on each page, then it was designed by a complete retard. The debate is whether a *good* GUI program is
better than a CLI program. Obviously, a shitty GUI program will be worse, that's pretty much the definition of "shitty GUI program."

I've never seen a good GUI program with such a large amount of options.

The way I imagine this coming out is something similar to the project settings in an IDE. You have settings for the compiler, linker, paths, etc, and often 3-5 subsections inside each of those.

It doesn't matter how you cut it, 385 options is a lot of stuff to represent in a GUI. If you know of a program that does something of comparable complexity in an intuitive manner, I'd love to see it.

Why not? You can have rational presets

So you can in a CLI. For example the rsync "-a" option. There's no reason why mencoder couldn't take a --preset=dvd argument or something similar.

There's tons of potential for clarification in a GUI that doesn't exist in a CLI.

Point. But you can't clarify everything.

1) AppleScript rocked-ass in MacOS Classic. There's no reason CLI scripting *has* to be better than GUI scripting, you're just dealing with (repeat it with me:) a shitty GUI!

Maybe it did, never used it. But please come up with a modern example. A complete GUI for mencoder would be something that would have to run on modern systems.

1) There are GUIs that are used for batch processing work that are really, really, good. For example, Photoshop's batch processing options. Again, if you're used to shitty GUIs, you don't know these exist.

I said with no GUI installed. I have a Linode for instance. It's a virtualized Linux install. I guess I could run a GUI app on it anyway, but a remote GUI access across contienents would be rather painful and pointless. Much easier to let the server do the work then download the results.

By "batch processing" I mean a more automated operation btw, such as take file uploads by HTTP, put in a queue that might be internally distributed to several encoding servers, put the results somewhere.

2) You're also acting as if a GUI and CLI are mutually-exclusive. Stop doing that.

No, I'm not. I put the cdrecord and K3B example for instance. But in general, my servers don't have any GUI on them, so any app that requires one is out of the question.

Possibly it wouldn't make it easier for "normal people." But I doubt that. If the GUI was done well, it would make it easier for *everybody*, "normal" or not. Now you've gone into pretty much full condescension "everybody who prefers a GUI is a retard" mode. Stop doing that.

No, it's not about that. I repeat, mencoder is a low level tool. A GUI on it doesn't remove the need to understand video concepts such as PAL vs NTSC, interlacing, containers and codecs. Just like an IDE doesn't remove the need to understand programming.

An IDE may offer a window with checkboxes for optimization levels, and the help file may explain what inlining and loop unrolling do, but the manual isn't going to contain enough Computer Science information to fully understand the meanings of those options and whether they're going to benefit your program.

What I'm trying to say here is that understanding video is a much bigger problem than figuring out the UI. If you know what you need, then figuring out the required options shouldn't take very long. If you don't, then having the options represented with checkboxes isn't going to help much.

Let me quote an example from the mencoder manpage:

mbcmp=<0-2000>
Sets the comparison function for the macroblock decision, has only an effect if mbd=0.

Re:Jaunty

[GWBasic]

In a GUI with 20 pages of configuration with 20 options on each it's very difficult to find the current configuration state. Meanwhile on the commandline it's obvious which of the 400 options are being used.

GUI is best for the kind of things where you learn as you go.

Re:Jaunty

[Blakey Rat]

It doesn't matter how you cut it, 385 options is a lot of stuff to represent in a GUI. If you know of a program that does something of comparable complexity in an intuitive manner, I'd love to see it.

Are you joking?

Even moderately-complex software has that many options. Basic office applications like Word, Excel, even Powerpoint probably have several times that. Hell, I bet Word has 385 options you can perform on a *single character*.

I did my *income taxes* on a *web app*, and that's got to have tens of thousands of options, at least.

I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of your post, it's obvious you've either never used a GUI app, or you're completely disinterested in an intellectually-honest discussion.

Re:Jaunty

[DaleGlass]

Are you joking?

Not at all. They're not simple options either. Italic or not italic is easy to understand. And most options are irrelevant in most of the cases.

In comparison, mencoder offers options such as whether to perform post-processing with a chroma or luma deblocking or deringing filter.

I have only a vague understanding of what this does, and absolutely no clue what the result will look like without trying it. This option alone will need a few minutes of research or testing to understand it, and there are a couple hundred of that kind after you're done with it.

I will repeat my main point since you can't bother with the rest of the post: The problem with mencoder isn't the interface, it's to understand what the hell it does. If you understand what is chroma and luma, and what is a deblocking filter and why would you want one, then you shouldn't have a lot of problems coming up with the right set of arguments to mencoder. If you don't know, then having those options presented through a GUI isn't going to help you much.

I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of your post, it's obvious you've either never used a GUI app, or you're completely disinterested in an intellectually-honest discussion.

Sure I used a GUI app. I used many. I used Windows from 3.1 to XP, OS/2, OpenSolaris, and several Linux distros. Right now I'm typing this into Konqueror. I used various office apps, as well as Photoshop and 3D Studio for instance.

I don't rule GUIs out by any measure. In fact I do my coding in KDevelop, and have used Visual Studio quite a bit as well. Though I prefer by far prefer to use makefiles to do the build.

Re:Jaunty

[Blakey Rat]

Not at all. They're not simple options either. Italic or not italic is easy to understand. And most options are irrelevant in most of the cases.

The options you can't use (either because you have the wrong object selected, or because they are mutually-exclusive with other options) are conveniently greyed-out and inaccessible-- a feature you won't get in a CLI app.

But my point still applies: there are tons and tons of GUI apps with more than 375 (or whatever it was) options. You saying that this is some extraordinarily rare occurrence, or implying that all of those applications suck, is plain ignorance.

I have only a vague understanding of what this does, and absolutely no clue what the result will look like without trying it.

I have only a vague understanding of what this does, and absolutely no clue what the result will look like without trying it. This option alone will need a few minutes of research or testing to understand it, and there are a couple hundred of that kind after you're done with it.

Wow, if only there was some kind of GUI to give you a graphical preview of the option without having to process your entire movie first...

I will repeat my main point since you can't bother with the rest of the post: The problem with mencoder isn't the interface, it's to understand what the hell it does. If you understand what is chroma and luma, and what is a deblocking filter and why would you want one, then you shouldn't have a lot of problems coming up with the right set of arguments to mencoder. If you don't know, then having those options presented through a GUI isn't going to help you much.

Yeah, but a GUI can help you understand the options. You're seriously arguing that it's easier/quicker to learn all those options by reading them off a manpage, memorizing them by rote, instead of having a GUI environment where you can learn them all by playing with them and getting near-instant feedback on what they all do?

Like I said above, either you've never actually used a GUI, or you're simply not interested in having a honest discussion on the matter. Because you're bringing up extremely easily-refuted-- and frankly kind of stupid-- points to support your position.

Re:Jaunty

[DaleGlass]

The options you can't use (either because you have the wrong object selected, or because they are mutually-exclusive with other options) are conveniently greyed-out and inaccessible-- a feature you won't get in a CLI app.

Sure you can have it.

If you're speaking about commandline arguments, then the options can be appropiately grouped in the documentation, and of course it will tell you when two options are mutually exclusive, or depend on another.

For example, for the "find" command, in the documentation, you find the list of things "-printf" can handle right under the entry for "-printf".

There also exist dialog style commandline programs, such as one of the ways to configure the Linux kernel, or the questions asked by the Perl CPAN module during install.

But my point still applies: there are tons and tons of GUI apps with more than 375 (or whatever it was) options. You saying that this is some extraordinarily rare occurrence, or implying that all of those applications suck, is plain ignorance.

For the kind of programs we're discussing here, yes, they suck.

In Visual Studio to figure out the build parameters for a whole program I will have to see the properties for each of the 20 projects in the solution, then check every tab, then the tabs often have several screens inside them.

In comparison, in a Makefile the same information can be found by simply locating the CFLAGS line.

Wow, if only there was some kind of GUI to give you a graphical preview of the option without having to process your entire movie first...

You can do previews with mencoder too, though a GUI can make it more convenient. I find it that often it's pretty hard to tell which is better though, as compressed video is always degraded in some way, and telling which kind of compression artifact looks better is often not trivial.

There are options where previews don't help though, such as container choices.

Yeah, but a GUI can help you understand the options. You're seriously arguing that it's easier/quicker to learn all those options by reading them off a manpage, memorizing them by rote, instead of having a GUI environment where you can learn them all by playing with them and getting near-instant feedback on what they all do?

Why memorize them? I write scripts. Figure it out once, use again every time it's needed after that.

Feedback on many options is of limited use. For instance, I needed to encode video for my portable player. It comes with a Windows program that produces the right output, but what is that output and how do I reproduce it with mencoder?

Figuring out the codec, resolution and the lack of the player's support for B-frames was the difficult part. Once I knew that, searching the manpage for "b-frame" and figuring out the right option (vmax_b_frames) is easy.

With that figured out, I have a shell script that encodes a video for the player and automatically copies it to the right folder when done.

Like I said above, either you've never actually used a GUI, or you're simply not interested in having a honest discussion on the matter. Because you're bringing up extremely easily-refuted-- and frankly kind of stupid-- points to support your position.

We simply have different priorities.

Your priority is ease of use. My priority is flexibility, automation and ease of understanding of the full list of actions being performed.

I strive to reduce every task to a script I can use without having to go through dialogs, clicking, or dealing with the results, and which can work fully automatically without my intervention.

That frees time for dealing with more interesting things.

Re:Jaunty

[Blakey Rat]

Your priority is ease of use. My priority is flexibility, automation and ease of understanding of the full list of actions being performed.

The problem is that you don't know jack shit about GUIs, at least not about decent ones. I don't even know why you're still bothering with this thread.

Why do you think those two things are mutually-exclusive? They aren't!

The belief that flexibility, automation, and "ease of understanding" (BS argument for CLI, but I'll let it drop for now) are mutually-exclusive with ease-of-use is plain wrong. How many hundreds of extremely advanced, easy-to-use, software products have to come out before you'll cram that into your skull?

Re:Jaunty

[DaleGlass]

The problem is that you don't know jack shit about GUIs, at least not about decent ones.

Ok, what's your definition of a decent GUI? Linux or Windows example please, since I don't have a Mac for reference.

I don't even know why you're still bothering with this thread.

I enjoy arguments. You?

Why do you think those two things are mutually-exclusive? They aren't!

GUIs certainly are mutually exclusive with server environments that don't have a GUI. As in no X, no framebuffer console.

Automation and flexibility of the sort I'm interested in is also sort of mutually exclusive with a GUI.

My kind of "automation" is one which happens in response to external events or on a timer, can be done in a fully automated manner without any interaction with the user, doesn't interfer with usage of the computer by popping up windows on the screen, and generates logs that can be examined later.

My kind of "flexibility" is one that allows stringing up multiple applications to perform complex tasks.

Example: How do you count the number of options in the mencoder manpage?

man mencoder | grep -P "^\s+-" | sed '/^$/d' | wc -l

Take manpage, find all lines that begin with spaces followed by a "-", remove blank lines, count resulting lines. Also the pipes between applications are buffered, which means that this sort of thing benefits from multicore CPUs to an extent. It's not simply performing one stage after the other.

The belief that flexibility, automation, and "ease of understanding" (BS argument for CLI, but I'll let it drop for now)

You're misquoting me. I said "ease of understanding of the full list of actions being performed". The words after "understanding" aren't optional.

By that I mean that in a script I can see all the options being used in one line of text. In a GUI I have to check every dialog and tab, and to know the default state of that option to find out which changes were made as compared to the defaults.

Also in cases where multiple steps have to be applied to the file, they're right in the script as well.

How many hundreds of extremely advanced, easy-to-use, software products have to come out before you'll cram that into your skull?

I do use GUIs. I repeat I'm typing this into one. I do think GUIs have advantages. Such as, I much prefer pgadmin over psql, because for instance a GUI can display more data on the screen than a 80 column terminal, and makes working with multiple tables more comfortable. I also use IDEs for similar reasons.

I don't however think that GUIs are always superior for every possible task, sorry.

Re:Jaunty

[Blakey Rat]

GUIs certainly are mutually exclusive with server environments that don't have a GUI. As in no X, no framebuffer console.

Possibly... but that's a teeny market. Why don't they have a GUI? I mean, what's the point? It only consumes memory or CPU when a user's actually logged-in to it, and you wouldn't expect servers to have people logged-in very often, if at all. Is it because Linux GUIs are shitty and crash constantly? I mean, seriously, what the hell is the point of that?

Automation and flexibility of the sort I'm interested in is also sort of mutually exclusive with a GUI.

That's the argument you're trying to make, but you haven't convinced me.

My kind of "automation" is one which happens in response to external events or on a timer, can be done in a fully automated manner without any interaction with the user, doesn't interfer with usage of the computer by popping up windows on the screen, and generates logs that can be examined later.

You can do all of that using Windows. Look into the Scheduled Tasks control panel. Every single thing you just typed up there. Maybe your Linux distribution doesn't have those features, but they do exist in other GUIs.

My kind of "flexibility" is one that allows stringing up multiple applications to perform complex tasks.

There's nothing preventing you from doing that with a GUI, in theory. Older versions of Mac OS that supported AppleScript, for example, could. (Newer versions of OS X have a tool called "Automater" which might be able to, but I don't know enough about it to say for sure.)

Write support for that into your Linux GUI, and you'd have a competitive advantage over Windows.

Example: How do you count the number of options in the mencoder manpage?

Example: Why the fuck would I ever want to do that?

You're misquoting me. I said "ease of understanding of the full list of actions being performed".

But who gives a shit what "the full list of actions" are? If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. I know know "the full list of actions" when I start my car, and, as long as am updated on whether it successfully started or not, I could not care less.

I don't however think that GUIs are always superior for every possible task, sorry.

But they *could* be, if there weren't so many scared-of-change, memorization-over-spatial-reasoning, hates-the-user people like you in the Linux community.

Re:Jaunty

[DaleGlass]

Possibly... but that's a teeny market.

Tiny? Not in the slightest. Most Linux webservers don't have a GUI. What do you want one there for, in case somebody wants to run photoshop on it? It's a box that sits and serves webpages with no human connected to it 99% of the time.

Linux runs on devices like wireless access points. What do you want a GUI for, on a device with 4MB RAM and 16MB of flash?

In those environments, servers are centrally managed and generally not used individually. If there's a GUI, it's on the sysadmin's computer, not on each server.

Why don't they have a GUI? I mean, what's the point? It only consumes memory or CPU when a user's actually logged-in to it, and you wouldn't expect servers to have people logged-in very often, if at all. Is it because Linux GUIs are shitty and crash constantly? I mean, seriously, what the hell is the point of that?

It always consumes memory. It takes a large amount of code to support a GUI. On a Linux box, when nobody is logged in, the display manager is running, for instance kdm. This takes about 24MB of memory. There's also X, and various other stuff.

24MB might seem like tiny, but VPS hosting is currently popular. A Linux VM with 64MB RAM allocated to it can serve webpages perfectly fine. Why would you, as a customer, take up memory you could be using for something more useful, or as the provider, make every VM fatter with the result of being able to run less per server?

If you're going to mention it'll get swapped to disk when not used, that won't do either. VPSes all share disk, and hard disks do very badly when they seek too much. So VPSes are generally much more limited in disk I/O than any normal system. Heavy disk usage due to swapping is a near guarantee that your VM will get throttled.

You can do all of that using Windows. Look into the Scheduled Tasks control panel. Every single thing you just typed up there. Maybe your Linux distribution doesn't have those features, but they do exist in other GUIs.

It's called "cron", it's existed for longer than Windows has.

There's nothing preventing you from doing that with a GUI, in theory

I don't care about theory, I care about practice. Concrete examples please.

For instance, download images, apply a filter on them, convert to another image format, upload them to another server that only has SSH access. Has to be fully automatic with no user interaction. For bonus points, make it run in parallel.

I've got a task very similar to this running right now.

Example: Why the fuck would I ever want to do that?

When I'm arguing, I like not to talk completely out of my ass. So a reasonable ballpark number was needed, and going line by line counting is way too boring and slow. How would you have done it? Your reply seems to indicate you couldn't have done it.

But, this specific example was just to demonstrate what kind of stringing up applications I had in mind.

But who gives a shit what "the full list of actions" are? If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. I know know "the full list of actions" when I start my car, and, as long as am updated on whether it successfully started or not, I could not care less.

I do. Because sometimes things don't work, or work but not well enough, or work for mysterious reasons and I want to understand why.

What if something works on one computer and not on another? Knowing exactly what is being done and in what order is very helpful when you're trying to make the same thing happen on another computer.

But they *could* be, if there weren't so many scared-of-change, memorization-over-spatial-reasoning, hates-the-user people like you in the Linux community.

Oh, here we go again. Look, I used MS-DOS, DR-DOS, PTS/DOS, PC-

Obligitory

[Rik Sweeney]

Don't forget Kubuntu! It's got KDE 4.2 now!

Re:Obligitory

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah no one cares.

Re:Obligitory

[UnRDJ]

Except me. I'm running it on my desktop and laptop. Torrenting it as we speak.

Re:Obligitory

[TurboNed]

Torrents is illegal [sic]! Didn't the [MP|RI]AA teach you anything?

Re:Obligitory

[Random BedHead Ed]

Annoyed as I've been at the incompleteness of the various distros' KDE offerings lately, I will dutifully try each release, including Jaunty, if only to see whether anything is horribly broken, and whether I can reliably work with a KDE 4 desktop.

Last time a Kubuntu came out they broke metadata, at least for JPEG images, so all the photos I manipulated in the shiny new Gwenview lost their dates, orientations, and so on. Not the end of the world, but it was an annoying bug.

I'm endlessly impressed by KDE's efforts, but the distros totally jumped the gun on the new architecture. The community (even most people in this crowd) totally grokked the idea of "4.0-as-API-freeze" but the distros throught 4.0 meant time to upgrade, and frankly they should have kept 3.5 as the default until the 4 series was truly ready. But again, I'll try it out. Amarok 2 is supposed to be a fantastic music player.

Re:Obligitory

[ultrabot]

Yeah, with Qt 4.5 (which is snappier than Qt 4.4, the "official" Qt for Kde 4.2).

Re:Obligitory

[plawsy]

Don't forget Kubuntu [kubuntu.org]! It's got KDE 4.2 now!

Really? I was all excited when 8.10 came out, installed it ... then had to go back to 8.04 after a few days. Why? Simple. My existing desktop environment was unavailable in the "new" KDE (Keramic? Crystal? Which actually tells you the name?)

Sure, KDE 4 is all new, super-duper coding, but if I can't get my desktop to behave the way it has for years it's useless to me. I can't afford to spend a day or three learning a totally new desktop environment and customizing it to my needs. And when I say years, I mean back to the first release SuSE under the then-not-evil Novell bought it.

I don't care what the devs do behind the scenes as long as I can work.

/bleah

Re:Obligitory

[muckracer]

> The community (even most people in this crowd) totally grokked the idea of "4.0-as-API-freeze"
> but the distros throught 4.0 meant time to upgrade, and frankly they should have kept 3.5 as
> the default until the 4 series was truly ready.

You could always use Slackware, which did it right (KDE 4.x to be released with the next Slackware version sometime this year. Slackware 12.2 still shipped with KDE 3.x).

Re:Obligitory

[_Sprocket_]

I've been toying around with KDE 4.2 and I've ended up with mixed feelings about it. It seems like a usable environment - far better than the 4.x version that Ubuntu infamously shipped earlier. And there's certainly a nice sheen of polish and flash. But I also get a feeling of "clunkiness" with this new release that wasn't there on my olde KDE 3.x environment. And I can't say that I'm a fan of the direction the Konqueror filemanager has taken (seems like Nautilus for KDE).

What ultimately had me going back to Gnome (and Compiz) was playing WoW. For some reason, WoW (and Ventrilo) will lock up with a repeating loud sound at seemingly random intervals. This happened on KDE3.5 on very rare occasions in the past - I suspect when I had Flash running in another desktop. But with KDE4.2 it happens a lot more often. No clue why. But it's not happening in Gnome.

KDE is going in an interesting direction. I'm a fan of flash and change so this has some appeal to me (otherwise I'd use one of these minimalist windows managers that keep getting mentioned in these types of stories). But it strikes me that the KDE folks are taking one of those bold steps that tends to risk everything. I hope it works out.

I'd definitely recommend people give it a try; see if it works for them. Unless you have a KDE3.x desktop that you're really happy with and cringe at Gnome's apparent design philosophy.

Re:Obligitory

[dstar]

Or anything more than a single button in my app. ^^

That's pressed before you download the distro.

Re:Obligitory

[Risen888]

Well lucky for you I do still have a Windows '98 disc lying around here somewhere! Of course, it's been pressed into service as a coaster for eight years or so, so it's a little scratched up, but some Windex will probably clean that sucker right up!

Re:Obligitory

[Mystra_x64]

Or Debian.

Re:Obligitory

[TJamieson]

Back in the day, artsd was usually responsible for behavior you've described. Though I think artsd is long gone now; maybe there's something else locking up sound channels, running as a KDE daemon?

Re:Obligitory

[Simian Man]

Don't forget Kubuntu! It's got KDE 4.2 now!

Great! But Fedora has had KDE 4.2 since February.

Re:Obligitory

[indi0144]

I miss the Amarok from Kubuntu 8.04, if I ever start up a bar or some sort of club, Amarok in some semi vintage Thinkpad (Great DACs) would be my choice. It's the best music player to manage music files over a LAN, when you ask Amarok to get the CD covers Amarok delivers not like Winamp. Great piece of software it should be standalone and cross platform FGJ!

Re:Obligitory

[Gnavpot]

Yeah no one cares.

No one Kares.

Re:Obligitory

[Dragonslicer]

I'm endlessly impressed by KDE's efforts, but the distros totally jumped the gun on the new architecture. The community (even most people in this crowd) totally grokked the idea of "4.0-as-API-freeze" but the distros throught 4.0 meant time to upgrade, and frankly they should have kept 3.5 as the default until the 4 series was truly ready.

I think Kubuntu got stuck a bit with the KDE versions. Kubuntu 8.04 couldn't be LTS, because KDE 4 was definitely not ready, and the KDE developers couldn't promise 3 years of support on KDE 3. I think Kubuntu 8.10 may have been in a similar situation, where the KDE developers didn't plan on supporting KDE 3 for the time that Kubuntu 8.10 is supported by Canonical. With KDE 4.2 working well, Kubuntu 9.04 should be in much better shape.

Re:Obligitory

[_Sprocket_]

Back in the day, artsd was usually responsible for behavior you've described. Though I think artsd is long gone now; maybe there's something else locking up sound channels, running as a KDE daemon?

Yeah - back with my old KDE3 desktop, that was one of the first things I disabled. I was poking around looking for something similar this time around but didn't find anything of note. I suspect there's something KDE related that collides with Wine for ALSA. But maybe its even something KDE is doing that takes up enough cycles to throw off Wine? Maybe some time I'll play around with renicing things and see if that helps.

Re:Obligitory

[FunWithKnives]

Good thinking! I hear the Debian maintainers are planning on upgrading to KDE 4.0 sometime in 2013.

Re:Obligitory

[Dragonslicer]

Except, they brought back a kde 3.5 version.

Right, but it's technically an unofficial edition, which means there's no guarantee that it will be supported for as long as the official edition of 9.04 is.

Re:Obligitory

[Mystra_x64]

Somewhere around it's next version. There is KDE 4 in experimental now. Stable of course use KDE 3 but there are backports for KDE4 as well.

Re:Obligitory

[EzInKy]

This is why I'm taking the time to learn openbox. I loved being able to configure KDE to my liking and was quite upset that 4.* forced Plasma and the likes on me.

Re:Obligitory

[Random BedHead Ed]

Yes, that's a fair criticism. And to follow up on my GP, my reaction so far is very positive. I think I can finally switch away from 3.5, and happily. I keep looking for the bugs from the last attempt and they seem to be gone. The only issue I've found so far is a lack of default MP3 support in Amarok 2 (it didn't even prompt me for a codec install, but rather finished songs instantly as if I maintain a collection of thousands of 0-second-long MP3s).

The desktop is easily the most beautiful and elegant one I've seen, easily pulverizing Vista and matching OS X's easy-on-the-eyes appearance with an underlying utility I haven't encountered anywhere else. The Desktop folder plasmoids are rather innovative.

Just installed ...

[sygin]

Love the encrypted home folder option. Default disk burning application has improved. Faster boot, seems faster overall (newer GCC?). Well done to all involved.

Re:Just installed ...

[Rik Sweeney]

newer GCC?

Nope, they just added -O3 to the compile options :)

Re:Just installed ...

[muckracer]

> Love the encrypted home folder option.

Haven't tried it yet. Is the login pass phrase also unlocking your encrypted home dir? If so, isn't it annoying to type the 128-bit pass phrase in every ten minutes your desktop screen saver lock kicks in? Any workarounds (separate pass phrases for home dir and login/desktop lock)?

Re:Just installed ...

[linuxpyro]

I heard this release is just Gentoo with the Ubuntu theme.

Re:Just installed ...

[FrankDrebin]

Gentoobuntu?

Re:Just installed ...

[MrHanky]

Yes, it seems to be in Debian experimental. At least parts of it.

Re:Just installed ...

[indi0144]

Yo dawg We heard you like compiling so we put -O3 in your .. oh forget it.

Re:Just installed ...

[Aphoxema]

Splitting hairs over what to call a reference point in a virtual arrangement of bytes, are we?

You put paper files in a folder, you put data entries in a directory. Physically of symbolically, the analogy is perfect.

Re:Just installed ...

[sygin]

It works a treat.

Totally transparent to the user, no typing in 128bit pass phrases. The user's password unwraps the 128-bit pass phrase at login.

The user's password can change, this just re-wraps the 128-bit pass phrase using the new user password.

It is a good idea to make a note of the 128-bit pass phrase by using the command:

ecryptfs-unwrap-passphrase ~/.ecryptfs/wrapped-passphrase

I think the option for encrypted home folders is only available using the alternate installer.

There is also support for adding other users with their own encrypted folders.

Re:Just installed ...

[hal4000plus4]

I was upgrading lately pretty recently, and it always happened to after kernel upgrade hibernate not works. After reboot it works, and after upgrade not work again and so on :) But usually, it was sorted out, and hibernate works as expected.

This boot time never was an issue for me after the sleep and hibernate do their jobs.

What I missed that Ubuntu (and Linux in general) work slower, much slower after running some neat application like Skype, Pidgin and some applet and using the 3D desktop effects.

When I switch user, the system start working much faster...

Probably, a "system cleaner" could be helpful to faster bootup in the future, when the users put all the services and application to their system.

(sorry, it's not a direct reply to your post, but more like my thoughts after it)

Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[BayaWeaver]

Can it boot persistently from the SD of my Eee PC 900 and will the wifi just work out of the box? Have never been able to get any of the earlier releases to do these two things.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[uncle slacky]

Use eeebuntu instead - no problems at all with wifi (unlike with the stock Xandros POS).

Apparently they're working on a new version based on 9.04.

http://www.eeebuntu.com/

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[Rhys]

I can't answer for the 900, but I've got netbook remix loaded off the install key on my 901 and it is doing fine so far. WPA2 wifi connectivity looks a heck of a lot better than in easypeasy or with the older array.org kernel/modules.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[mtm_king]

Did you mean http://www.eeebuntu.org/ ??

Anyone else try this with an Eee PC 901?

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[Taibhsear]

Any idea when the new version is supposed to be released?

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[growse]

Just to add, I've had the beta running on my 901 for a while and have been very happy with it. Can't testify as to whether it boots of the SD card, but wireless works flawlessly (although I did replace the wifi card, so that might not mean anything).

Other thing I love is how the 3G support is amazing. No more messing around with ppp or weird vodafone apps, just plug the dongle in, pick your network and go. Really smooth.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Looks to be in a week or so, according to this.

They may be using an older kernel due to a bug in Intel drivers, though.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[thornomad]

Can it boot persistently from the SD of my Eee PC 900 and will the wifi just work out of the box?

Yes and yes. Have been using NBR since the beta on my 900A and the only complaint I have is with the mouse (which is a bit jerky). A bug report has been filed.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[penguinchris]

I put eeebuntu on a 901 I bought for my girlfriend. Of course there were some issues, and audio seems to be partly broken right now, but overall it worked very well and wifi, bluetooth, webcam, and everything worked out of the box (audio broke later).

I'm not a big fan of Ubuntu myself, especially because of Gnome, but it is good for my girlfriend and eeebuntu was far easier to get running on the 901 than OpenSUSE was on my Lenovo S10e. That said, I'm running the regular version of OpenSUSE 11.1 with full-on KDE 4.2 on the S10e and it's fine - took a bit of fiddling but besides wifi that mostly worked out of the box as well.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[revjtanton]

You're going to have tiling issues and graphics threading issues with the UNR. I'm not sure if eeebuntu uses the UNR by default, but I know Easy Peasy does (that's a dumb name). To prevent the tiling issue you'll have to install the .40 kernel instead of the .41 which ships with the release candidate 9.04. You can get that here.

I put a post on this thread already: I've been using this for a month w/ my eeePC 900 and the only real issue I've had is the tiling issue. I reviewed the options here.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[pete-wilko]

Got this installed on a 701 (upped to 1GB ram) - its a fantastic improvement. What that netbook was meant to be in the first place. The only other major change was installing Opera - FF was just a bit too slow on the 701 unfortunately - although the javascript fubar's (eg gmail) are a major pita.

But yeah for the 701 deffo recommend - assuming it will fly along on a 901.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[AdamWill]

"Other thing I love is how the 3G support is amazing. No more messing around with ppp or weird vodafone apps, just plug the dongle in, pick your network and go. Really smooth."

Brought to you mostly by the fine Dan Williams of Red Hat: http://blogs.gnome.org/dcbw/ , http://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/log/ .

(disclaimer: I work at RH too).

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[pato101]

I own a huawey E272 modem, and with Intrepid it started working out of the box without any vodafone software, thanks to network-manager. Also, vpnc got perfectly integrated at network-manager, so I can control the vpn from there as well.
I don't know how much of it is due to that man, but just in case, God bless Dan Williams!.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[BobGod8]

Running eeeBuntu on my 901 off an 8GB SD card, with default Xandros still on the internal 4GB SSD. Boot time is approx. 70s from cold to desktop. Everything just WORKS. No configs, unless you count futzing with trackpad settings. Firefox 3 has annoying hangs if you don't move the cache to ram, but that's as easy as pointing it to tempfs.

I'm waiting for eeeBuntu 3, which should be out in a week or so according to the forums. By far it's the cleanest, smoothest, easiest build on the 901.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[CFBMoo1]

I'm installing the 9.04 Netbook Remix on to my 1000 40G EEE and when I was running it on the flash drive that sucker was running super fast and smooth. Hopefully after the install and updates it will do the same and then some.

I won't be going back to the eeeUbuntu since they got an official netbook version now and it's running great. The only thing I haven't checked yet was the web cam, everything else works right out of the box.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[Aphoxema]

No problem booting persistently off an SD card on my Wind, and it sees the Broadcom chipset without a problem.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[Abreu]

Can't answer for EEE users, but I am happy to report that it works out of the box in my Acer AspireOne

Network, Audio, Mic, Webcam, etc...

Apparently the hot-plug issue for the right cardreader is still there, but it doesn't affect me since I only have SD cards, which work perfectly in the left cardreader

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[Abreu]

Well, be sure to thank Dan from all of us!

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[cyber-vandal]

Still struggling with the RT2860STA wifi driver. The configuration of that seems incredibly arcane and even doing what allegedly works leads it to claim that my router doesn't exist. It isn't broadcasting its SSID but that shouldn't be a problem.

Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900?

[Halifax Samuels]

Have you tried eeebuntu on your 701? It's what I've been using on my 701 for the longest and I'm looking for a comparison of the two before installing 9.04.

Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[troll8901]

I just came from IRC (irc.freenode.net #ubuntu-release-party). It's like the Times Square New Year Party in there.

On the clock at about 1 pm GMT, the Ubuntu website was updated, and the servers at ubuntu.com were immediately IRCdotted.
And now, we're going to Slashdot Ubuntu.com as well!

Get your torrents at
http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[xmason]

Intratube Police: A .torrent? Why, this must be a pirated version of "ooh-bun-too", whatever that is. You, sir or madam, are a CRIMINAL and will be put in jail with RAPISTS and BABY KILLERS!

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[meringuoid]

Get your torrents at http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/

Is there a torrent anywhere of the netbook remix? I'm downloading that from Canonical UK at the moment and it's not exactly quick. There seem to be torrents for every other release, but not that one. Oversight?

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[sygin]

I am seeding at the moment, time to see what unlimited broadband really means.

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Just out of curiosity... I've been running the eeebuntu NBR. Is the only difference between Ubuntu NBR and Eeebuntu NBR the use of the Array kernel?

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[dfm3]

4,800 kB/sec up (bytes not bits) on a uni. lab computer.

The real question is, I wonder how long it will be before I get a call from out IT department...

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. I downloaded ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso via the link you gave, but my md5sum doesn't match the md5sum given in the table.

ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso -- their md5sum: 60d5d82328b4547511fdeac9bf4d0112daa0ce00

my md5sum after downloading via the link:
66fa77789c7b8ff63130e5d5a272d67b

Even stranger is that googling my "wrong" md5sum gives results.

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[troll8901]

That's weird, I have the exact same situation.

Heaven forbid that we've downloaded the wrong file!

I feel so silly now for posting. Have I just misled everyone?

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[ThatsNotPudding]

Here, here! You can't spell 'terrorist' without 'torrent'!
...
the n is silent.
...
the s is in a secure undisclosed location

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[troll8901]

I think we're okay. I think these are the correct checksums.

3b5e9861910463374bb0d4ba9025bbb1 *ubuntu-9.04-alternate-amd64.iso
c564ae16dffb51a922aef74a07250473 *ubuntu-9.04-alternate-i386.iso
cace6ea9dde8dc158174e345aabe3fae *ubuntu-9.04-desktop-amd64.iso
66fa77789c7b8ff63130e5d5a272d67b *ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso
8f921e001aebc3e98e8e8e7d29ee1dd4 *ubuntu-9.04-netbook-remix-i386.img
78cf52114804f80576b0bfc8f5984339 *ubuntu-9.04-server-amd64.iso
20480057590ff8b80ad9094f40698030 *ubuntu-9.04-server-i386.iso
5e6f6acf2105c366db2f9727e2a65d03 *wubi.exe

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[chappel]

Why on earth isn't there a torrent for the netbook remix? I found one off TPB, and downloaded it, but my hash doesn't match what ubuntu claims it should (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes) - I got d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e. Maybe an innocent artefact from the generous fellow who created the torrent - maybe not. I deleted the file and now am getting it straight from an official ftp site - at 1/8 the speed. I had really hoped to 1) get the file in such a way as to share it with other enthusiasts (you know - 'ubuntu') and 2) actually demonstrate a completely legitimate use for bittorrent, but I've been stymied. GAAAH!

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[Crayon Kid]

I see to recall the netbook remix release was going to be released a few days after the desktop version. In which case, what you found is some sort of RC at best.

Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone!

[ultranova]

Ok, nobody got hurt, but what sick fuck draws shit like that?

Waita Uziga.

Please....

[kazade84]

Firstly, can we get an Ubuntu icon yet?

This release is awesome, I've been running it on my laptop, desktop and work PC for some time and it's been rock solid.

That said. There is one VERY VERY annoying thing that changed in this release. The update notification icon is no longer there unless you fiddle around with gconf. Instead you are treated to an automated "pop-under" launch of the full update manager window once a week unless it's a security update in which case it's 2 days. I dunno if this behavior has changed recently but that was the design a few weeks ago.

So that means:
a.) You probably wont know about feature/bug updates for a week.
b.) You probably wont know about security fixes for 2 days (even if it's urgent)
c.) You will get a window appear out of nowhere behind all your current windows launched seemingly by itself (yeh coz that's not gonna scare Windows migrants)

What a great idea! NOT!

P.S if you wanna revert to the old behavior, run gconf-editor. Go to apps->update-notifier and uncheck "auto-launch".

Re:Please....

[RiotingPacifist]

please say there is a gui checkbox somewhere in the actual app. not that i care i prefer to rock the kde (3.5) but having to run unrelated programs to change settings is going to put newbies off gnome .'. ubuntu .'. linux

Re:Please....

[Misanthrope]

They mentioned this in the release notes, along with some other new fun behaviors.
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904
"Change in notifications of available updates

Ubuntu 9.04 introduces a change to the handling of package updates, launching update-manager directly instead of displaying a notification icon in the GNOME panel. Users will still be notified of security updates on a daily basis, but for updates that are not security-related, users will only be prompted once a week.

Users who wish to continue receiving update notifications in the previous manner can restore the earlier behavior using the following command:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false
"

Torrents

[Taimat]

Listed towards bottom of page... http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.04/

Re:Torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

As in previous years, you can also retrieve the torrent files directly from:

http://torrent.ubuntu.com/, or
http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/ ... which should remain available even if the primary mirrors stop being responsive under load, as has happened for previous releases.

Re:Torrents

[0100010001010011]

7MB/s.... Wow. Just Wow. I was planning on grabbing them and seeding, but I never expected them to come this fast. Hopefully I can return the favor.

Looks like all the 'fat' lines are .se or .pl people. Thanks Europe!

Re:Torrents

[drizek]

The Swedes have a lot of extra bandwidth now that they aren't pirating all day long.

When does it stop becomming better?

[spineboy]

At some point computers will be good enough, that it will be more work to upgrade it than it is to use it.
Ubuntu really is becoming quite easy to use - still some wackiness with 64 bit computing, and Flash, but otherwise pretty dang easy.

Re:When does it stop becomming better?

[RiotingPacifist]

whats up with 64bit flash? it seams to work ok here (debian lenny), well other than being flash.

computers will always need security support, at some point people will care less about shinny and switch to Debian.

Re:When does it stop becomming better?

[Khashishi]

At some point computers will be good enough, that it will be more work to upgrade it than it is to use it.

Probably when computers reach 640kB RAM, we won't need to upgrade anymore.

Re:Still the same color scheme

[Anonymous Coward]

They announced they're changing the color scheme in the Jaunty+1 release.

Better luck next time.

[senorpoco]

I installed the release candidate last week, and it lasted for all of 25 minutes before it ate my desktop. I love being on the bleeding edge, but it doesn't make life easier or more productive, just more interesting.

Re:Better luck next time.

[RiotingPacifist]

did you file a bug report, you do know that the point of an RC is to catch bugs, which is what you just described right?!

Re:Better luck next time.

[senorpoco]

Yeah. Some might call me a hero, but I am just a concerned citizen doing my best to make my way in the world.

Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize it's mostly the fault of Intel, but it would be nice if the modern (2 years old) Intel chips worked well with Linux.

I went with Intel instead of Nvidia in my laptop so I would have a more stable computer than using the binary blog nvidia provides. (and I don't game) Boy, had I known Intel would totally drop the ball I would have went with Nvidia. Ubuntu doesn't seem to be interested in pushing the issue at all, saying 'it's an upstream problem'. I got burned the same way with the g400 and it's so called open source drivers a decade ago. It took them almost 4 years to get them out the door, and they sucked when they were out.

It's a real sad the best video support on linux is from closed source nvidia drivers and their competitors don't even care.

Check out the list: https://bugs.launchpad.net/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bugs

So, back on topic, does anybody know how horrid Intel video is in this final release? I need to decide if I'm going to upgrade or not, last I heard it's even worse and locks up after a few minutes. I have an x3100/GM965.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Intel works fine here. Nvidia is years behind when it comes to stability and integration

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[je ne sais quoi]

Don't kick yourself too hard: NVIDIA's drivers have been terrible lately too. It's almost like a conspiracy or something. I just recently bought a new nvidia graphics card and, I can't get sync to vblank running unless I have a composite manager running. The only problem is running a composite manager makes the X window manager unstable because NVIDIA and the people writing the composite managers can't communicate or agree on the correct way to do this or something. I never quite got it straight, something about NVIDIA insisting on rewriting some libraries in X and the composite managers using non-standard calls or something like that. It's a huge clusterfuck.

Another big issue is the powermizer thing that NVIDIA forces everyone to use. It scales the video card frequency depending on what it's being required to draw. The only problem is that is refuses to scale up the frequency rapidly unless an openGL object is being drawn and won't play nice with a composite manager. I haven't tried it, but recent kde has huge screen flickering problems because of this, and even just drag and dropping text in firefox causes it. The only workaround is to add some lines to your modules.conf to fool the powermizer into staying high power mode (which is fine for me because I use a desktop, but laptop users are SOL).

Anyhow, just to make comment slightly On Topic, congrats to the Ubuntu team! Even as a non-user of Ubuntu, I greatly appreciate their efforts to bring linux to everyone. Let's hope they start making a profit soon!

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[MarcQuadra]

I've been using Linux on integrated Intel chipsets since the i810 driver came out and I have no complaints.

I had no complaints with the i810, the i815, the i915, the G33, or the G45 that I currently use. There was one Ubuntu release where the resolution setting didn't match the documentation, so I had to enter some manual stuff into xorg.conf, but before and since then, things have been gravy.

A lot of these bugs look like they're for things that I can't give good marks to -any- drivers, like switching displays on laptops, enabling compositing on ancient chips (really?! why bother!) and other foolishness.

Really, Intel doesn't make great 3D graphics chips, everyone knows that. If you actually want fast 3D, pick someone who fabs hardware that can handle it. The Intel -drivers- on the other hand, are hands-down the most supported and functional open-source drivers that I've used.

Intel not only releases the specs for their hardware, they sponsor the development of the drivers in a totally open-source-friendly way.

If you have complaints about 3D in Linux on integrated Intel graphics chipsets, you'll probably have the same complaints about 3D in Windows on Integrated Intel chipsets. Intel isn't in the mid-to-high-end market, they make excellent 2D chipsets that do 3D 'well enough' for casual non-gaming use.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[incripshin]

Good for you. I also hate nVidia's Linux drivers. So much so, I will never get nVidia again. I am the unlucky owner of the GeForce Go 6200, which nVidia completely neglects. In Linux, it's impossible to suspend/switch-to-console/kill X/unload the module. In Windows, there is no Vista driver at all, and the only XP drivers that work are old and unstable.

At this point, I would gladly take a slower Intel chip over nVidia.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[Vanders]

I have an x3100/GM965.

So do I, and I've never had any graphics lock up issues with 8.04 or 8.10 with any version of the Intel driver. I'm not suggested that bugs don't exist, but they're perhaps not as universal as you think.

My biggest issue right now is that I have a weird Atheros chipset which means I currently have to use a hacked up Madwifi driver, so I'm hoping 9.04 has an in-tree driver that works for this chip.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[denominateur]

I agree with you that this issue seems to have been thoroughly ignored by the release engineers, who pushed the 2.6 driver through despite its downfalls. (apparently to gain support for some newer chipsets, which could've been simply backported by adding PCI ID's to the 2.4 driver)

Compositing and 3D performance are horrid and even non-composited 2D is slow when EXA is used. Apparently, if you're lucky you can switch to UXA, but it is non-functional on my systems. (G35: no modes found & i915: DRI disabled)

The issue can be improved (but not fixed) by using a backport of the version 2.4 intel driver available from the "http://ppa.launchpad.net/siretart/ppa/ubuntu" PPA of siretart. This provides minor performance enhancements but is still slower than intrepid.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[revjtanton]

There are graphics issues with the eeePC as well. It has to do with how the Intel chips are threading the graphics processing to the onboard GPU. Check it

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[Eric89GXL]

Results have been mixed. I, for one, have page tearing now that I didn't have before (GMA965). Worst case, you can revert to the Intrepid driver: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReinhardTartler/X/RevertingIntelDriverTo2.4 But before doing that, you might want to look at a troubleshooting guide: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Troubleshooting/IntelPerformance And people's descriptions of how UXA (the new/future render) has been working: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/UxaTesting

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[Thelasko]

I have an x3100/GM965.

I do too, and have also considered buying Nvidia card.

I'm currently running Hardy Heron and my only complaint is the lack of the rotating cube desktop effect. I can live without it. When I was running Feisty, I was lucky to be able to get a proper screen resolution out of the 965 card, so I would say they are making progress. The Intel graphics drivers are perfectly stable in Hardy. In versions after Hardy, the developers have been trying to improve the card's performance. While doing so, the drivers have become less stable.

The bottom line is, if you want stable system, use an LTS release!

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[lien_meat]

Not sure precisely which bugs you mean, but I have an inspiron 1525 with that graphics chipset, and it seems to be doing just fine. Compiz works, and I haven't seen the transparency issues (like the volume changer looking funny over fullscreen video w/ compiz on) that I used to have pre-ibex. It seems to be easier on my graphics chip than was ibex too.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[Osty]

Nope, I don't have the same problems in Vista on the same hardware. Compositing flies on it.

I'm in the same situation. I'm dual-booting Jaunty (UNR) and Win7 on my Lenovo S10 (GMA950 chipset). Under Win7, I can watch Youtube and Hulu videos without any choppiness at all, even full-screen. In Jaunty, Youtube is choppy and Hulu is pretty much unwatchable in a browser window (both are slideshows when set fullscreen). I don't know how much of this has to do with Adobe's implementation of Flash on Windows vs. Linux or Intel's drivers on Windows vs. Linux, but it's pretty annoying. I really, really like the UNR interface (I wish Win7 had something like that for netbooks), but the overall performance of the system is just better in Win7.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[ndogg]

I have a desktop machine with nVidia, and a laptop with Intel. The nVidia drivers are definitely less stable in my experience.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[Walles]

So, back on topic, does anybody know how horrid Intel video is in this final release? I need to decide if I'm going to upgrade or not

Download and burn a live CD. That way you can test the drivers yourself without touching your hard drive.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[GF678]

Typical. A fanboy who jumps to conclusions.

Intel graphics chipsets suffer from video tearing in Linux. They aren't properly vsynced so watching videos, from Flash to any other format, they'll all show tearing and are basically unwatchable. I don't care too much about 3D performance (even though they do run faster for a particular game in Windows than Linux), but I'd just LOVE to watch videos on my laptop without the fucking tearing!

My laptop was purchased in Janurary last year, and has an X3100 (GM965) chipset. Every single version of Linux I've tried using it has had substandard video playback, and they've all had various issues. In windows, it works perfectly. This problem has existed for ages and yet no-one's bothered to fix it. At this point it's finally occurred to me that the myth of Open Source being superior by providing rapid fixes of bugs is all a lie.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[Molochi]

On the ATi side there are 2 driver paths to follow. The Open drivers are usually installed by default, but are meant to support 3D only on older radeons (pre-PS like the 9200 and 8xxx, 7xxx). For newer radeon 3D support, the proprietary drivers need to be used. They seem to work OK with most newer cards and can be easily installed through a package manager usually.

Most of the complaints I see stated about NVidia and Intel "bugs" are similar in frequency with those leveled at AMD. My radeon 4870 works with the proprietary driver. Games work. Compiz has a problem with causing video to flicker when it is enabled. I have some minor issues with dual monitor support. No show stoppers though.

The main issue between AMD, NV, and Intel, is that the Intel drivers are Open Source and the others aren't. But AMD at least Opens the code for the old stuff, or so they say. Now I hear they just depreciated support for a bunch of radeons (anything pre-X2000) that so many people still use, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes for the specs of those cards to make it to the Open Driver devs.

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[thefluxster]

HW: Dell D430 Latitude (not the best test case, but a common business machine) I've been running Intrepid for a while now without too many issues. Sure, there's your usual "gotta find the latest drivers after install" for some things such as the wireless. However, "upgrading" to Jaunty has caused MANY regressions for this hardware. I had to downgrade the video card driver thanks to this bug: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReinhardTartler/X/RevertingIntelDriverTo2.4 I have yet to get bluetooth audio working through Pulse even though, while a bit sketchy, I could actually use my BT headphones on Intrepid. Docking with multiple monitors always required disabling and then re-enabling one of them to get it to show and that hasn't changed. All in all, while I like the improvements, I am debating reverting to Intrepid. I'm not terribly keen on the format/reinstall option, but it may end up being my only option if I want these features back. I love Ubuntu. I really like Intrepid and Jaunty was interesting enough to make me want to upgrade right away. I was led to believe the HW support would be better in it. It's definitely a regression for my system...

Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet?

[thefluxster]

I spoke too soon on the Bluetooth. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bluez/+bug/327284 As I said, I love Ubuntu and part of that love stems from the great community of users/developers. I fully expect the other issues to be resolved at some not-too-distant point in the future. Even if it's 9.10, it's worth sticking with it until then. At least it's only 6 months, right?

Re:Still the same color scheme

[__aardcx5948]

Yeah, the brown theme really isn't very appealing... What is this dark theme I keep hearing about? Is it just the one from Ubuntu Studio? (I don't like that - not integrated good enough)

I'm holding out for Ubuntu 10.10

[Anonymous Coward]

Which will undoubtedly be named Masturbating Monkey.

Re:I'm holding out for Ubuntu 10.10

[ohellno]

Sir. you owe me a keyboard.

Re:I'm holding out for Ubuntu 10.10

[CrimsonScythe]

I'll hedge my bets on Lascivious Lizard or Lewd Langoustine. Not sure I look forward to Randy Rhino, though...

Re:I'm holding out for Ubuntu 10.10

[CopaceticOpus]

And naturally, this would be followed by 11.10 -- "Orgasming Orangutan".

Still Brown?

[Henry V .009]

Weren't they going to ditch the brown already? I thought I read a Slashdot story about Ubuntu getting a new theme that doesn't attempt to inspire retching subliminally.

Re:Still Brown?

[mrsteveman1]

Antiemetic Antelope, but you'll have to wait a while we're still on the first run through the alphabet.

Re:Still Brown?

[Vorpix]

Weren't they going to ditch the brown already? I thought I read a Slashdot story about Ubuntu getting a new theme that doesn't attempt to inspire retching subliminally.

if you don't like it you can change from the default theme with like 3 clicks. seriously, there are bigger issues to deal with than this.

Re:Still Brown?

[Jake Griffin]

I hear after Z, they'll be going through the Klingon alphabet. Maybe after that they'll go through the Chinese alphabet. That'll probably last a long time, as it's not a phonetic language.

Re:Still Brown?

[Crayon Kid]

I think that's being prepared for the next release.

Re:Jackalope

[navyjeff]

*Sigh*
For mods who don't get the reference.

Re:Still the same color scheme

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably referring to Dust, which isn't really a dark theme. There's also the Darkroom theme, but it's been around for a few versions now and it looks like ass.

Re:Still the same color scheme

[SECProto]

well enough*

Notifications

[CrispBH]

Seems generally more stable, I've been running the RC for a couple of days now. Not many immediately noticeable changes but lots of improved under the hood support. Beware if you have an older ATI card you might run into problems.

Anyway, the thing I'm really not sure of is the notifications system. Just about the only option with them seems to be to change their positioning via gconf-editor (and even that seems to be broken). I understand the philosophy behind them (see http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/253) but they seem to be a little too unconfigurable, even for Gnome. Their black appearance would suit the KDE default theme, but it certainly doesn't fit in well with my much lighter Clearlooks theme in Gnome and there's no way to change that. One of the things I like about Gnome is the integrated look and feel of the entire system, whereas these stand out oddly. There is no way to dismiss them, so things get irritating when I want to use the search bar in Firefox and there's a notification covering it (these things could well be click transparent but it's still irritating). There is no way to configure what gets displayed as a notification either; I don't think I need each and every Pidgin message to be displayed as a notification for reasons of both privacy and distraction. To me, the notifications system seems a little too much like an answer looking for a problem. I may well disable them soon, after giving them a fair trial. The only sane way to do that seems to be to remove the notify-osd daemon. So much for ease of use!

That all said, it's my only major gripe with the upgrade, and that system was always going to be controversial. Hopefully it grows and improves. If not, I'm not forced to run it. Overall, this seems to be a steady incremental release that smoothes over a few rough patches and should hopefully do me well for another 6 months. Ubuntu is still the only distribution that I have not had very regular problems with on the desktop.

Re:Notifications

[hattig]

I think they need to look at Growl on Mac OS X to see how to implement a notifications system. At least Growl has an adjustable look and feel and configuration settings.

Re:Notifications

[Gibbs-Duhem]

FWIW, I figured out how to fix this for pidgin specifically. I kind of like it popping up a message when someone says something and the window doesn't have focus, but I don't need a notification every time someone comes online -- you can change this behavior in Pidgin's Tools->Plugins->Libnotify Popups->Configure Plugin.

Once it stopped doing that, I found that I mind much less, and having coherency between the volume control, email notification, etc, etc is sort of nice. I expect that the customizability will improve in the future, because otherwise the feature seems very sane; it's silly for every application to have their own way of displaying messages.

Re:Notifications

[blackest_k]

I don't think I need each and every Pidgin message to be displayed as a notification for reasons of both privacy and distraction.

.
Probably needs a way to configure that. but in use it's not that bad at least it only sends you messages that are addressed at you.

If your browsing and in an Irc Chat or looking something up it's easy to miss something aimed for your attention and that pop up gets your attention for a couple of seconds, I found it quite useful. BTW if you don't want to talk, you could log out or mark yourself busy or something.
Actually thats a good point. if user has marked himself unavailable don't show the notification, for extra points show the notifications that occurred whilst unavailable when the user decides to be available again.

If any pidgin devs read this, here's another idea, silently ignore people who send urls to you without being on your contacts list. Bot-Sentry has its heart in the right place but tends to insist on telling you it failed to deliver a message to a spambot. thus providing all the annoyance without the porn scam links.
If instead you could filter out unknown contacts sending urls that would probably eliminate 95% + of all bot messaging. blocking all unknown contacts messaging isn't an ideal solution either.

 

Re:Notifications

[tolan-b]

> Does it preload the "Gnome" menu yet, or do you
> still get that annoying pause when you first
> click on it?

Not sure it's preloading but I've not been noticing the delay this time round. Certainly seems much faster

> Does the lovely dark Dusk theme work with Gnome 2.26?

Do you mean Dust? If so it seems ok, though I've not run it for very long.

> Will it kill off hardware VIA graphics (HP 2133
> netbook) like the last kernel upgrade, or does
> it now handle these properly as a third party
> binary blob?

Don't know sorry.

> Will it give me free beer and hookers?

Yes

There's not a huge amount of shiny new toys but this release seems *much* more stable. Can't think of any regressions I've noticed this time round, which was very much not the case with Intrepid which was bloody awful (and Hardy which wasn't much better).

Looks like someone finally listened on the stability front. I was close to dumping Ubuntu personally.

Re:Notifications

[Ian Alexander]

If you open up the menu editor there should be a hidden preferences applet in there that lets you configure the notifications. I found it on my system which I installed fresh from Beta.

Re:Notifications

[Lucky75]

Question: When the hell are they going to do something about pulse audio and flash? Both of these issues REALLY destroy the overall impact of Ubuntu.

Pulse audio is the devil, and flash is it's brother.

Re:Notifications

[Oxy the moron]

Beware if you have an older ATI card you might run into problems.

"Older," in this case, defined as anything prior to the HD3x00 series. My experience with 9.04 and a 2600XT is less than ideal.

Re:Notifications

[Radhruin]

I was skeptical about the usefulness of those notifications when Shuttleworth first blogged about them, and after a couple weeks with them, I can safely say they need a lot of improvements.

For one, they are way too obtrusive. They are so frequent (I agree that there is no reason to have every IM, every contact sign-in/out broadcast up on the screen), and there is no way to dismiss them. Yes, I can hover "under" them and they fade away, but sometimes I just want the distraction to go away entirely.

And, that fading behavior is pretty worthless too. It's completely unintuitive. I am always moving my mouse over to the notification to interact with it (dismiss it, or whatever) only to have it completely disappear.

It's such a wasted opportunity too. If I get an IM, wouldn't it be sweet if I could click on the notification to bring up the window? Or, better yet, wouldn't it be sweet if I could send a quick reply in the notification bubble itself? Digsby on windows does this and it's pretty fantastic. But no. Instead I have to hunt through my task bar/docky to find the application providing the notification and click on it in order to respond to the notification. Why can't the notification system make it easier to deal with notifications?

To me, it feels like Shuttleworth thought some growl-like notifications would help spruce up the system and implemented it half-assedly without really considering how people want to use the thing.

Re:Notifications

[ultranova]

Beware if you have an older ATI card you might run into problems.

What kind of problems? I'm asking because I have a Radeon 9550 and was considering updating my distro.

Re:Notifications

[Anonymous Coward]

Time... Pulse audio is a newer feature in Ubuntu maybe introduced is 8.10 not sure but a few other distros have had pulse longer and less issues.. report bugs to ubuntu so they can improve.. Nothing wrong with pulse except the ways its implemented...

As for Flash.. Flash is proprietary its not free.. Now adobe is nice to have flash 10 beta for linux but its only beta and until linux market share is actually worthwhile im sure flash wont be a huge priority

Re:Notifications

[myz24]

Growl works how you describe. It's one of the reasons I like mac so much and I'm really happy to see it in 9.04. I'm sure with time the notification system will be improved.

Re:Notifications

[xenocide2]

Except if you test it, it doesn't appear to work, which is probably why it was hidden.

Re:Notifications

[lilo_booter]

Well, for the first time ever, my ATI M56P (Radeon Mobility X1600) has behaved perfectly since upgrading to 9.04.

In fact, been very impressed with the distro in general - have installed it on a couple of machines here (Tosh laptop, dual boot on my MacBook Pro and on a MacMini [latest edition] - the only problem has been on the MacMini - no sound and doesn't reboot, but shuts down just fine).

Re:Notifications

[BrokenHalo]

I was close to dumping Ubuntu personally.

Then you're probably luckier than me.

I've been using Linux since the mid '90s, mostly on Slackware (with occasional forays into LFS, Mandrake, Redhat and Gentoo) and occasionally install Ubuntu just to see where it's heading.

Slackware's falling behind a bit as far as the desktop experience is concerned (sorry Pat, I know it's not your fault), but fortunately Arch Linux is similar enough and current enough to fill the void.

But I digress. Ubuntu is probably (in fact certainly) great for newbies, but for those of us with some experience with Linux, some of the developers' more capricious antics can be a bit frustrating. Case in point: why should we have to hunt around to find whatever file has replaced /etc/inittab ?

Re:Notifications

[AvitarX]

Pulse audio, plus the pulse audio gnome control is nice though.

Per-application volume control FTW.

Re:Notifications

[rts008]

I'm not sure what he's calling 'older', and what problems he is alluding to.

I've been running the Kubuntu 9.04 beta for several weeks now, and I also have an AGP Radeon 9550, and this is the first Ubuntu release I have not had to mess with either 'fglrx', or ATI's driver.

While I have not had time to explore any gaming yet, Hulu, Youtube, and Google video all work great with the default install +flash. I can also use Compiz and the 3d cube finally!

The install detected the hardware and configured most of it properly, including monitor resolution and refresh rates.

The only 'tweaking' I had to do was add the 'center' and 'surround/rear speaker' channels in the volume mixer to get 5.1 sound. It defaulted to 2.1 on install.
Previously, I used 'ALSA', but that did not seem to be an easy or obvious choice this time, but so far no problems with 'Pulse Audio' and my S.B. Audigy soundcard.

Just for the record:
P4/478 3.0 GHz. on Soyo P4VTE mobo(onboard sound, NIC, and modem disabled in BIOS), 2 GB's PC 3200 RAM, Diamond Radeon 9550/AGP/256 MB vid card, Sound Blaster Audigy 5.1 soundcard, HP dvd1040 burner, 450 watt PS, and a crazy mix of both SATA and PATA HDD's.(1x 160 GB + 1x 200 GB PATA's, 1x80 GB + 1x100 GB SATA's)

The above PC with 9.04 Kubuntu has made for the most satisfying experience I've had with this PC...ever!

Re:Notifications

[levell]

> >Beware if you have an older ATI card you might run into problems.
> "Older," in this case, defined as anything prior to the HD3x00 series. My experience with 9.04 and a 2600XT is less than ideal.

One of Fedora's recent test days (in preparation for Fedora 11 which is due out soon) found a number of problems with ATI cards. Hopefully by the time F11 ships (in about a month) a number of the issues will be sorted.

Fixes made for Fedora will eventually benefit Ubuntu users using the OSS ATI drivers too

Re:Notifications

[DuggleAss]

I used to run a dual boot Ubuntu and Win XP. The problem is my better video card is ATI, but Ubuntu it ran like hell. My 128 PCI nvidia ran better than the AGP 256 ATI. But when gaming in windows, I needed the AGP card. So on my last re-install I just did XP. I fell out of the loop with all sorts of life issues and am now looking back at Ubuntu with wanting eyes. Is the ATI support better now? Is there a list of problem ATI cards vs Working ATI cards that you know of?

Re:Notifications

[hattig]

Thanks for the answers, yeah, Dust - it looks nice on the HP 2133 which has a black glossy bezel and aluminium elsewhere - and also has a matching Firefox theme.

As regards the VIA graphics drivers (which aren't too bad actually) IIRC is wasn't the driver itself that was the problem, but the kernel interface for the drivers that failed, so I had to copy the older working kext/so/thing to the newer kernel. I don't think I could cope without Compiz.

Re:Notifications

[Jake Griffin]

Hey, I rather like the "disappearing in flames" effect. And if your windows are going to catch on fire, it's nice to have some rain to help put it out! :P In all honesty, the fire windows thing is something I turned on just to show off to a friend once, and it actually made him switch to Ubuntu! I don't keep it enabled though, it and the cube, and some other Compiz things are more just "look what MY computer can do!" things I use to get people to switch. :) Because of that though, my friend has experienced all the other cool perks of using Ubuntu or any distro of Linux for that matter: free software, no annoying Vista security popups, etc. He says now that he'll never go back. Ubuntu +1! Back on the topic of the new version, I have yet to download 9.04, but I will as soon as I get home. I've been keeping up on it for over a month with alpha/beta releases, and I'm really excited to finally get the final version.

Re:Notifications

[geminidomino]

Don't forget putting said shitted-up implementation into an LTS just to make sure anything using 8.04 for the fact that it IS an LTS will have to suffer with it for the next three-to-five...

Re:Notifications

[CajunArson]

I just recently switched from Kubuntu to Arch and while Arch could use a little polish (while still being lean & mean) I'm liking it a lot right now. Bear in mind that while I was using Kubuntu, I used to do kernel development on Gentoo so I had enough of a skillset to handle Arch. So far I like that Arch has a fast package management system that works, allows me to compile my own packages without forcing me to do so (unlike Gentoo) and generally does not force me to install & run crap I don't want (Ubuntu: making me run wpa_supplicant... on a desktop that has no wireless card!!??!?!)
Arch does have some problems, like missing packages for wine in 64 bit (fortunately it is not too hard to build via AUR), the default vim installation would not recognize my .vimrc files so I had to blow-away the system defaults which made vim unusable for me, and it took more hacking to get ssh-agent working than it did with Ubuntu which set it up automatically. So: Arch wins on the core, loses on some of the polish, but I think it strikes a better balance for me than Kubuntu was doing... plus Arch's KDE 4.2 packages seem somewhat better behaved.

Re:Notifications

[cayenne8]

"Beware if you have an older ATI card you might run into problems."

For that matter, I just usually recommend to people to avoid ALL ATI cards, and go for NVIDIA instead. The just generally seem to 'work' under Linux.

At least, that's been my experience.

Re:Notifications

[theantipop]

After investigating this, the crux of the issue seems to be twofold. First, X.org server 1.6 is the default version for Jaunty. This requires Catalyst 9.4 of the proprietary driver (as mentioned in AMD's release notes). Second, 9.4 drops legacy support for a whole load of pre-3000 series cards. So your only option from Jaunty onwards, it would seem, is the open source 2d-only driver.

Re:Notifications

[deroby]

Well, I have an oldish nvidia GeForce4Go (64Mb) in my Dell Inspiron 8200 and I can tell you that it never 'just works'. Either the resolution refuses to go upto the native 1600x1200, or the thing puts it's output to CRT instead of the LCD screen (THAT one took me a while to find!), or the performance is terrible, etc ...
I'm seriously wondering if I shouldn't somehow image the disk before hitting the "upgrade and run into trouble again" button so at least I have the option to go back to 8.10 when it still doesn't work after 10 grumpy hours of searching forums and installing/uninstalling/configuring/etc...

PS: in the meantime I've learned about Envy and although it didn't fully fix the situation last time, at least it got me into a workable state.

Re:Notifications

[cayenne8]

Are you sure you have the correct drivers? There are seperate ones for older vs newer ones.

With the output and resolution problems...that sounds more like Xorg configuration issues....? If you're not doing it by hand..I'd suggest finding the specs for the card (modelines, resolutions, etc) and put those in there by hand. That should do it...?

Re:Notifications

[blackest_k]

It doesn't really matter what I think, but if it's easy to do and effective someone might pick it up, costs me nothing to suggest it.
if i felt that strongly i'd do something more than post on slashdot. look what happened coz of that printer driver RMS couldn't hack :)

Re:Notifications

[BikeHelmet]

It's such a wasted opportunity too. If I get an IM, wouldn't it be sweet if I could click on the notification to bring up the window? Or, better yet, wouldn't it be sweet if I could send a quick reply in the notification bubble itself? Digsby on windows does this and it's pretty fantastic. But no. Instead I have to hunt through my task bar/docky to find the application providing the notification and click on it in order to respond to the notification. Why can't the notification system make it easier to deal with notifications?

So does Trillian. It has bubbles for incoming messages that are out of focus. Click on them and start typing to reply.

It's little things like that which keep me using Windows as my primary OS.

Re:Notifications

[BikeHelmet]

Ubuntu auto-detected everything on my Athlon X2 w/ 8800GS - but on an older fanless Eden fileserver, I had to manually configure xorg.conf.

Looks like you get that pleasure too. ;)

Re:Notifications

[earthforce_1]

Dual HD4870 - Works great with compiz, although I have to turn it off in order to watch videos or run some programs such as google earth and celestia as the screen flashes and flickers. Temporarily flipping back to metacity works fine, so it is just an annoyance. But I hope it gets fixed.

Re:Notifications

[socceroos]

There is no way to dismiss them, so things get irritating when I want to use the search bar in Firefox and there's a notification covering it (these things could well be click transparent but it's still irritating).

If you haven't noticed, when you hover over these notifications, it does go transparent and even allows you to use whatever is under the notification - such as the Google search box in Firefox. I think your point there is moot.

Re:Notifications

[HitoGuy]

Flash is fine for me. And I'm glad there is a decent 64-bit version now.

Pulse Audio is evil. I've seen those stupid "Pulse Audio is fine, its implementations suck" arguments. I've used PA on more than just Ubuntu myself. INVARIABLY, PA breaks sound and accomplishes nothing useful. Do I want software mixing? I can just us dmix or even break down and install OSSv4, which is about 50 billion times the sound system Pulse Audio would ever be. Network sound? Why in the hell would I ever need this in a day where just about every operating system under the sun provides their own sound system?

Pulse Audio is one of the reasons I was given a violent shove into Arch, because PA was starting to break sound in Ubuntu in 8.04, and 8.10 showed absolutely NO progress in fixing the problems. There were other big reasons I left Ubuntu, but they're irrelevant to the discussion.

I find it odd that PA would show the EXACT same breakages in Arch after I tried it on there (And quickly removed.) as Ubuntu. I know you probably think there's some magical installation of Pulse Audio where everything works and nothing is broken, but until there's a plugin that supports 100% ALSA capabilities for Pulse Audio, there's no such thing. Pulse Audio isn't even BETA yet, and sadly a lot of your more popular distributions mindlessly implement it, breaking sound for thousands of users.

I always thought of Pulse Audio as a bad case of a solution searching desperately for a problem. Sound was fin with ALSA, and in the rare cases where ALSA wasn't so great, there was OSS. All PA did was break stuff that worked fine.

Arch was a dreamland to me because it installed just the core and then I decided what was on my machine.

Flash runs fine for me now that I don't have to rely on the segfault-prone nspluginwrapper. And it works flawlessly because it doesn't have to convince Pulse Audio to work for it.

Re:Notifications

[deroby]

It usually involves :
* doing the upgrade (takes a while but haven't had real errors yet
* after reboot try to log in again... usually this means some kind of fall back to a low-res, extremely slow GUI
* going through the forums to see if anyone else has the same issue
* going to nvidia webpage to notice there is no package available yet
* living with 'slow' GUI for a while ... (no biggie, but annoying nevertheless)
* couple of weeks later re-checking nvidia site, trying install of new package again
* being terribly lost as output seems to be directed to CRT and me not knowing it => you can hear the "logon-process", but the screen remains black. In retrospect I should have realized this much sooner but at the time it seemed like it was working but the back-lights were not switching on.
* getting it to work by "as a last resort" attaching an external monitor
* changing the settings in nvidia's Xpanel config (or whatever again it is called), et voila, all is well again
* being unable to save the configuration as the applet does not run in root mode => save as... and sudo cp..

It's not that all of this is terribly advanced and one could wonder why I go through all the trouble when I have a perfectly valid XP lincence for that machine. The reason I'm keeping that portable "linuxed" is because
* I have a given my mom an old laptop with Ubuntu on it because I couldn't convince myself in spending +100â on an OS that will run sluggish on it (PIII700) and won't be supported anymore sometime soon. (The thing has an Win2k license sticker, but she prefers the OS & applications to be localized) It also feels more safe as most malware seems targeted at Windows machines. All she uses is FireFox & Thunderbird, so in this case it's most certainly a win situation.
* I have given my daughter an even older laptop (PII500) where she plays GCompris games and some DivX conversions of her Dora DVD's etc. Again it's a win as she's learning to use a computer (she's 3 btw) and the original dvd's can stay safely in their box... (and we don't need to "share" the TV =). Again, a win... (The Win98 that was on it originally might work too, but I've never liked win98 or WinMe ...)

In order to have some working knowledge (and out of curiosity) I try keep my personal portable up-to-date on Ubuntu, so it's mostly serves as R&D, nothing critical. Along the way it's been used as an expensive MP3-player (Amarok), portable picture library and lately I've been using it as an external screen for 'my' company laptop (using ZoneScreen & VNC), bringing my screen-estate to 3 screens, which comes in handy at times.

Long story short :
* I'm quite versed in Windows(XP), probably because I spend most of my time developing software on it; practically that probably works against me when I need to do something on ... errr... well every other os that's not Windows
* That said, I'm mightily impressed with the things Ubuntu offers and does (Apt is WAAAWWW)
* I'm sightly disappointed with the way everything seems to be non-uniform and quirky, but that's ok by me
* I'm (too often) frustrated by the effort needed when things go bad and you need to go "under the hood", so far that has been the case with every single upgrade. (I started out with 5.10 btw, so that's 6 times so far I think).

Again, I realize that most of my problems arise from using old hardware (getting Vista working on those laptops might turn out to be challenging too =) so I don't mind putting in some effort. But I would like to point out that 'it just works' is something that in my experience (and yes, I have plenty) is something that applies quite often to Windows and not so often to Linux...

 

Re:Notifications

[makomk]

I'm pretty sure Catalyst 9.4 only drops pre-2000 series cards. All the Radeon HD 2/3/4xxx cards should still be supported (and anything older has open-source drivers).

Re:Notifications

[quantumphaze]

For Wine on x86_64 you could get it pre-compiled from an unofficial repository (browse them manually to find one you like the best). They also have useful things like Flash and the closed VirtualBox.

There is not much you can do about the lack of polish though (not that it's missing much anyway), other than hacking it yourself or putting up with it. But the advantages of rolling updates and PKGBUILDs and the BSD style init thing make it worth it.

Re:Notifications

[tolan-b]

We fear change!

I've been using Linux as my primary desktop for about 9 years, and I worked with it for a good few years before that on development servers, so I'd say I'm reasonably experienced with it too.

Personally I want a desktop that works out of the box without needing faffing around to get it set up, and so far Ubuntu is the only distro I've found that offers that.

Yes the changes they introduce can be a bit jarring (replacing vim with vim-tiny for example) but my god man, you have heard of Google haven't you?

On inittab specifically SysV init is horribly outdated, running the init process in serial is stupid. Fedora and Debian are also moving (have moved in the case of Fedora?) to using Upstart which is the new(ish) Ubuntu init daemon.

What's new - the usefull and the not so usefull

[Umangme]

Major changes:

• Improved boot performance. It may just breach 20s on newer systems.
• GNOME 2.26. (I don't think there are many changes to look out for)
• OpenOffice 3.0. Hopfully this has a better interface than 2.4.
• New notification system. Looks good in Shuttleworth's video. This is possibly the biggest improvement in the average user's eyes. I'm looking forward to seeing it in practice, but I have a feeling that they'll actually work well only in Karmic.
• Ext4 Support. It will be the default in Karmic. Filesystem support should affect the average user, so nothing new for the average user here. Many people are still on ext2, and may still be when Karmic comes.

The Jaunty overview should be put on the main page of Ubuntu.com. It really is pointless making that page otherwise. Instead an Ubuntu tour for 9.04 is the main link from the website. That tour really doesn't make Ubuntu sound like a very advanced OS.

Though I haven't upgraded to Jaunty as yet, I don't believe it is something the average user should get excited about. Karmic may.

Re:What's new - the usefull and the not so usefull

[the_one(2)]

My laptop boots ubuntu in ~10 seconds on a Lenovo 3000 n200 =). Of course it uses an SSD as its' root dir

Re:What's new - the usefull and the not so usefull

[Abreu]

I can confirm that boot time is improved.

It is clocking 40 seconds in my Atom N270 netbook

Apparently still has video issues

[jspenguin1]

I think I'll wait to upgrade until they fix the Intel video driver -- almost everyone with the 965 chip has had problems.

Or I could just get a new laptop with an AMD or nVidia chip...

Sweet

[not already in use]

What is the big deal with boot times?? Really?? With all the catching up to do in the desktop arena, this is what they're focusing on?? No wonder desktop Linux has fizzled out. What a joke. You have a display manager that doesn't have a proper driver model, the only decent driver is a blob that is a hack to bypass x.orgs own facilities to get full blown acceleration, and they're focusing on BOOT TIMES??

Re:Sweet

[diegocgteleline.es]

You have a display manager that doesn't have a proper driver model, the only decent driver is a blob that is a hack to bypass x.orgs own facilities to get full blown acceleration

I'm using a display manager with a proper driver model. You probably mean the pre-GEM drivers...

Re:Sweet

[kazade84]

You're right. How dare those hardcore graphics driver developers over at X.org down tools on Gallium3D to work on Ubuntu's boot time....oh wait...

Re:Sweet

[Zantetsuken]

Actually a lot of people seem to think it will help to get people to switch from Windows, assuming that long boot times particularly with Vista has people annoyed... You know, for those times when you wanna turn on your laptop for some school or professional work, but have to go get a coffee first because no matter which OS you use on that brand new hardware it still boots slow...

Re:Sweet

[pHus10n]

Just because boot times are not the #1 priority for you, doesn't mean it's not important (or even #1 for someone else). If you're going to knock the hard work people put into an OS, at least provide examples of your flawless contributions to the arena.

Re:Sweet

[not already in use]

You probably mean the pre-GEM drivers...

No, I mean every driver except Nvidia drivers, which does its own direct rendering because x.org sucks so hard.

Re:Sweet

[not already in use]

Awesome, yet another abstraction layer (*cough*HACK*cough*) to glue together the pieces. Why don't you brag about pulse audio while you're at it?

Re:Sweet

[not already in use]

The funny thing is, once you step outside the bubble that is slashdot, people are generally happy with Vista. I run Vista at home and work, and considering how often I reboot, it could take 5 minutes and I wouldn't care. The boot time issues and other Vista issues is greatly exasperated here on slashdot, in almost equal proportion that which Linux shortcomings are overlooked.

Re:Sweet

[not already in use]

Granted. If they're targeting the netbook market, then I would say it is time not wasted.

Re:Sweet

[diegocgteleline.es]

No, you mean pre-GEM drivers. GEM, modesetting and DRI2 have fixed the X.org driver model.

Re:Sweet

[columbus]

I had this conversation yesterday with a buddy of mine.

Linux's area of greatest dominance is on the server right now. And you're right, boot times are largely irrelevant on the server, assuming that servers should be always up.

But what about moving linux into new areas where it has traditionally been weaker?

There are a number of areas for potential expansion where rebooting is much more common. It seems to me that fast boot times are a definite advantage for embedded devices, dual boot systems and laptops.

Just yesterday, I brought my laptop into class do do an openoffice presentation on an overhead projector. While I was standing in front of the class, waiting for the laptop to boot, feeling stupid, I found myself thinking 'man I wish this thing booted twice as fast'.

Fast boot time is worthless if all it means is that you can quickly boot into a system that is crap. But if the system is already good, fast boot times are icing on the cake. If you can have the cake and have the icing too, why not?

Re:Sweet

[jatemack]

The funny thing is, you are on Slashdot, and this is where power users that have to troubleshoot problems for their less aware friends and co-workers convene. You can probably get a better idea of what's going on in the real world here than by talking to Uncle Oblivious.
Most people do care about boot up times especially when they are so egregious, as in the case of Vista.

Re:Sweet

[freeweed]

The funny thing is, once you step outside the bubble that is slashdot, people are generally happy with Vista.

No, really, they're not. Try looking into the Enterprise world sometime, and take a look at just how many large organizations are migrating to Vista. I'll wait for you. Don't worry, you have enough fingers. At best people TOLERATE Vista. I've yet to meet anyone who's happy with it - most people's kindest praise amounts to "well, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting".

If anything, posts like your own remind me of just how much the average Slashdotter LIKES Vista compared to the outside world.

Vista is a steaming pile that's on par with ME, and it's not Slashdot that's prompting Microsoft to rush 7 out the door. Kid yourself all you want, but CmdrTaco and his legions are not why you keep hearing horror stories about it.

You just don't see much beyond "my house", "my work", and "Slashdot". Otherwise known as "the plural of anecdote is not data".

Re:Sweet

[flibuste]

Care to show some figures about "people" who are "generally happy with Vista"?
I don't know. I use both, plus XP at home and I work in a place where people is in average unhappy with Windows Vista, although very few know about other OSs.
Yesterday, I asked the support group to install Ubuntu on mine after I spent 45mn deleting a 1GB directory with Vista, and spent 2.5mn deleting its image using "rm -rf" on the same box in a different directory from a virtual machine.
The bootime and shutdowntime are also absolutely horrendous compared to most Linux based systems. 5mn is much too long when you have to do that at least 3 times a day when your video driver produces blue screens of death, while the same PC under Ubuntu works like a charm. Plus, what the hell is Windows doing that requires 5mn of non-stop HD activity and no user interaction whatsoever? Even Ubuntu disk check at boot doesn't take that long.
In all objectivity, Ubuntu has gone a LONG way and Vista is making the case for more Linux based computers, shooting some $ out of the M-foot. And it is definitely not accurate to say that people are generally happy with Vista. Where I live and work the general trend is to move away from it.

Re:Sweet

[Nursie]

"The funny thing is, once you step outside the bubble that is slashdot, people are generally happy with Vista"

I've found exactly the opposite to be true.

I'm mostly a linux user and vista has some annoyances for me, but that said it's not *that* bad, I mean, I can play the odd game on it. Here at /. we have some pretty spirited flame wars on the subject with people trying to argue one way or another and straying from the truth all over the place.

But what's surprised me is the visceral hatred it gets from my non-tech friends and family. My dad refuses to use the new laptop because of it. My friend's dad is getting his IT minded future-son-in-law to downgrade him to XP because vista makes him swear (and so he can use his old scanner).

I find it weird.

Re:Sweet

[Locklin]

Outside? of shashdot?? OMG my eyes!!

Re:Sweet

[Jaysyn]

You don't know the same non-techie people I know, apparently.

Re:Sweet

[kisak]

People at my job don't know what linux is (and I don't bother them since I know that they don't care about computers). Some co-workers have complained about Vista in coffee breaks and everyone complain about the start up time of the computers at work (Windows XP). I don't know if they complain about the start up time of their home computer (why would I want to talk to them about their home computer? I like linux, but I do not want to be a computer saviour of people I work with on non-IT related problems.)

Anyway, I don't care. I use Ubuntu at home (just updated to 9.04!) in my bubble, and my co-workers complain about Vista in their bubble. And we are all stuck with Windows XP at work, but at least XP does what is needed in our work environment.

Re:Sweet

[Draek]

Slashdot must have an awful lot of users then, for Microsoft to target them with the Mojave experiment, all the "downgrade" options being available from OEMs, and such.

Or it could be that no, people generally dislike Vista for being different interface-wise, much slower and without a single feature they may care about over XP.

Re:Sweet

[Dragonslicer]

The boot time issues and other Vista issues is greatly exasperated here on slashdot

No, it's the people on Slashdot that are exasperated with Vista's issues.

I believe the word you were looking for there is "exacerbated".

Re:Sweet

[The Warlock]

PulseAudio is great if you use its advanced features. I can play a song on my netbook and have the sound come out of the giant speaker system connected to my desktop. That's pretty awesome.

Re:Sweet

[DragonWriter]

The funny thing is, once you step outside the bubble that is slashdot, people are generally happy with Vista.

I dunno, I've heard directly from lots of casual users that don't have the kind of general, reflexive hatred of Microsoft you see in many slashdot posters spout all kinds of hate about Vista specifically (both people that hate change, and also complain about things like Office 2007, and people that generally don't have a problem with change and love Office 2007.)

Personally, I don't find it much overall worse than XP the times I've used it. But, I kind of look for more than that in a new version that isn't a free upgrade.

Heck, I look for more than that in new versions that are free upgrades (like successive Kubuntu releases.)

Re:Sweet

[syousef]

The funny thing is, once you step outside the bubble that is slashdot, people are generally happy with Vista. I run Vista at home and work

I won't tell you where I work, but there are over 600 staff and it's a major organisation anyone in this country (Australia) would have heard of. There are rumours the IT staff there have decided to delay releasing Vista in the office indefinitely due to issues experienced during a pilot.

Your view is somewhat skewed and your generalisations don't hold everywhere.

Re:Sweet

[kayoshiii]

Ummmm no.....
We are pretty much all Vista at work but nobody likes it.... Probably the most loved vista feature is the fact that it will just decided that you are not allowed to modify a file or folder on a whim....

Re:Sweet

[Erikderzweite]

In all seriousness, I love pulseaudio -- finally a simple way of configuring my bluetooth headset (and a brilliant user experience if used together with blueman).
No snd-bt-sco driver or fiddling with .asoundrc anymore. You turn it on and it works. Pulseaudio even routes the sound from selected apps (e.g. twinkle) to the headset automatically.

Re:saw it in firehose

[Pulzar]

Bah, I'd love to, but my ISP is throttling torrents. I'm lucky if I can get 5KB/s upload and 30KB/s download :(.

Re:Still the same color scheme

[Anonymous Coward]

The software is still shitty, so its almost like it's still brown.

WHAT!!! Ubuntu 9.04 Released?

[Philip K Dickhead]

You mean the charges didn't stick?

The courts are rigged!

FUSA

[jimshatt]

I dislike how FUSA (the Fast User Switch Applet) also has IM status and shutdown options. And that the shutdown options from the system menu are removed when you use FUSA. But at least you have a choice not to use FUSA. Other than that, very good stuff!

Call me old but...

[clickclickdrone]

Having 'Remix' in an operating system's name is a big turnoff. It immedietely marks it as nerdware and is going to cause most 'normal' users to balk at the idea of going near it. Sometimes Linux really does shoot itself in the foot.

Re:Call me old but...

[Chris Pimlott]

Er, what? How is remix a nerd term? If anything, it makes it sound more mainstream, using a term from music world.

Re:Call me old but...

[British]

And just about every "remix" of every good 80s song I've heard just slaughters it. Let's studder the vocals, make the intro about 3 times longer, and generally make it sound worse than the original. Then let's make it 100 times easier to find than the original track as well.

Re:Call me old but...

[Culture20]

I'm a nerd, and I have no idea what "remix" is, beyond a music industry term. And no, I won't justf'ngoogleit.

Re:Call me old but...

[Molochi]

He did say to call him old. :) There is a feel of frivolity about a lot of linux naming conventions that I could do without. The whole "Adjective Animal" thing is useless to me as a mnemonic. Ubuntu 9.04.x64-desktop is what I'm looking for.

Re:Call me old but...

[Rigrig]

It's a custom distro based on Ubuntu, Canonical doesn't want you to use the name 'Ubuntu' or similar names that sound like it's an official Ubuntu version, you're only allowed to use names like 'Ubuntu Something Remix'.

E.g. 'Minibuntu' is now called 'Ubuntu Mini Remix'.

Microsoft snatches publicity crown from Ubuntu

[David Gerard]

In a stunning public relations coup, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MNPLY) has successfully overshadowed today's release of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 "Jaunty Jubblies" by announcing its failed financials for a fourth quarter in a row and laying even more people off.

Microsoft announced new and expanded roles for remaining key executives as another several lesser, losing quitters deserted upper management. "It shows the fantastic opportunity available to everyone at Microsoft to climb seven or eight reporting levels up the org chart," said marketing marketer Steve Ballmer to pitchfork-wielding Wall Street analysts today. "If we haven't laid them off for making too much money or not kissing enough ass."

The Yahoo! deal is expected to go ahead. "We figure they'll go broke before we do. Probably." Mr Ballmer also plans to run the Yahoo! servers on Windows NT rather than FreeBSD after a similar change worked so well at Hotmail. "Some say synergy's another word for two plus two equals one, but you just have to make the value of one work for you."

Windows 7 betas have been greeted with remarkable positive press. "Of course, the betas preview the 'champagne and hookers' edition, which would be way too much for netbooks and explode users' brains. Imagine thinking those little things are computers! So we're releasing what we call Windows 7 Dumbass Edition. It lets you log in and look at the shiny. Even Spider Solitaire has the ribbon toolbar! And you can buy an upgrade to the version that runs programs! It lets you do that!" Dumbass Edition comes with pre-installed viruses to make the computer part of the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets. "If you can't beat ’em, join ’em."

However, Microsoft has indicated to its press corps, Microsoft Completely Enderlependent Analysts, to ixnay on the evensay and highlight the job openings for work on Windows 8, firmly penciled in for a 2012 release. Windows 8 will be optimised for low-end 32-core systems with a mere 16 gigabytes of memory — 28 cores for the interface, 3 cores for the DRM and one core for everything else. "Seven is just so this year. I hear they'll get $DATABASE_FILESYSTEM done next release for sure!" said ZDNet marketing marketer Mary-Jo Enderle. "It'll be awesome!"

"I'm sure it'll be fine, fine," said Bill Gates, upping his hours at his charitable foundation and scheduling the sale of several more packages of Microsoft stock.

Larry Ellison of Oracle, who recently purchased Sun Microsystems, merely snickered, muttered "Java. OpenOffice." and let out a long and resounding laugh.

Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical, speaking from his castle on a crag high on a mountaintop in west London, was sanguine at Ubuntu's news being overshadowed. "I lost ten million dollars on Ubuntu last year. I'm losing ten million dollars on Ubuntu this year. I expect to lose ten million dollars on Ubuntu next year. At this rate, I'll be broke in ... sixty years."

the trolls are out in force

[viralMeme]

"Wait wait wait wait... these guys actually CHARGE for Ubunghole?"

There are now three ways for you to get Ubuntu. Just choose the delivery option that works best for you: * Download now - Download the Ubuntu, * Buy on CD or DVD, * Request a free CD ..

I've been using this for a month

[revjtanton]

Jaunty Jackelope is certainly worth a download. I've been using it on my eeePC 900 with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) for a month and while its got its shortcomings, overall its the best OS I'v used with my netbook.

The greatest plus is Ext4. I know that isn't an Ubuntu exclusive upgrade or anything (Fedora 11 is going to offer the option of installing to a Ext4 partition) but combine that w/ my SSD and I boot in like 23 seconds flat...I don't even bother "putting the pc to sleep" since I boot so quick, I just shut down.

The downfall that I found with this release, and Intrepid Ibex, is w/ the eeePC hardware and graphics tiling. Basically the kernal being used in the release candidate has some issues threading the graphics processing and you get signifigant and annoying lag in the UNR interface...but only there. If you open any app it runs as normal, but the UNR interface lags like a son of a bitch. A patched kernal update did fix this however that fix was reverted due to other issues and as of yet a new kernal patch addressing all issues has not been released. You and review the details of the bug here. The .41 kernal is what is shipping and the .40 kernel is what works w/ the eeePC. If you want to install your own kernel you can get the .40 here.

The use of Ext4 makes this a true upgrade and a reason to install a new build. Enjoy!

Not Sure Whether To Laugh or Cringe...

[iateyourcookies]

Heheh. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cringe over the Jonas Brother's being featured on the "tour" slideshow.
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/904features/

Genuine indication of real-world interest or too much South Park? ;)

A great release

[AnibalOjeda]

Ive been using Jaunty since alpha3 & as lot people say, its rock solid! i got a quad core intel machine where running this version of Ubuntu on 64 bits takes my computer to another dimension. Wel done!

You need an adjective, not a verb.

[GungaDan]

Masturbatory monkey is just plain wrong. Please try again. I vote malicious millipede. Maybe menopausal mongoose.

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Masturbating Monkey name is a reference to Linus Torvalds calling some group "Masturbating Monkeys," though I don't remember who.

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[Genom]

Some others:
Maniacal Macaw
Medicated Moose
Masticating Mole-Rat
Moronic Mouse
Materially-Insignificant Manatee

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[Nerdfest]

Or "Miniscule Mammoth". Descriptive, yet confusing.

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[Colonel Korn]

That was a gerundive, which is a type of adjective.

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[owlstead]

What about Misspelled Milipede instead?

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[owlstead]

Whoops, got that wrong:

Misspelling Milipede of course :)

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[Ragzouken]

I thought it was wanking walruses?

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[anjilslaire]

No, it'll be Migratory Montanoceratops. Because 2010 will be the Year of Linux

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[Draek]

IIRC, it was to the OpenBSD guys with regards to their obsession with security over anything else.

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[Culture20]

Technically, the verbs of the sentence were "will be" and "named" the word ending in "ing" was an adjective, or if you prefer to think of it as such, "an adjectived verb (where 'adjectived' is a verbed noun, just like 'verbed')," which is perfectly valid English.

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[Bourbonium]

As I recall, he was referring to Digg users in general.

Re:You need an adjective, not a verb.

[ais523]

I think you mean "participle".

Quite a few stability improvements!

[TheLeopardsAreComing]

Today was the first time everything worked out of the preverbal box! I have owned an Inspiron 1526 for more than a year and have installed ubuntu since 7.10 (and just about every other popular distro). The reason why I got rid of 8.04 was because it would cause a kernel panic when connecting to a wireless network using CA certification... not the case. I used to have to explore the reaches of the internet to find drivers and tutorials for the HDMI hookup... both video and sound worked without a hitch! Loving this upgrade!!!

Re:Quite a few stability improvements!

[Abreu]

You probably meant to say "proverbial"...
"Preverbal" sounds as if you donÂt have working sound

Why a Server Edition?

[DiegoBravo]

At least in my country and LATAM in general, I think the Server Edition only could thrive if Oracle Server can be certified at some time. As each day pass on, this looks more difficult.

In general, I fail to understand the Canonical offering of Ubuntu Server compared to CentOS/RedHat Servers (or even Suse).

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[anilg]

The Nexenta project, atleast, utilizes these packages to provide the familiar server environment on ZFS. Their efforts do have users..

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[Thornburg]

Because CentOS/RedHat is the old-school way of doing things, and Ubuntu is for the new generation. I'm very happy with Ubuntu Server, it does things the way I expect it to (e.g. I NEVER have to log in to my server as root, no matter what it is I need to do). It's been rock-solid since the day I installed it.

If I were going to consider something other than Ubuntu for a server, it would Solaris x86 (mostly because ZFS is nice), not CentOS/Redhat. I haven't used SuSE in quite a while, it might be worth a look to see what they're up to these days.

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[DiegoBravo]

> We use Ubuntu servers for the large software repositories available via apt

I agree regarding the big repository, but failed to see why that can be so useful to most Servers (can you elaborate a bit more?.)

On servers I expect support for enterprise applications. As told before, Oracle is -sadly- the top mission critical product running on most Uniexes (AFIK.) I think that's a large blocker for Ubuntu Server adoption (in the enterprise.)

Do you have experience with the Canonical server support? I'm really interested.

Also, I expect other "enterprise-type" features like clustering as provided by Red Hat. Again, do you have some Ubuntu experiences to share on that?

Kind regards

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[DiegoBravo]

> Because CentOS/RedHat is the old-school way of doing things, and Ubuntu is for the new generation.

Mmmmmmmmm sounds like Ubuntu is better 'cause it's cool! Can you elaborate more on that? Servers are normally targeted for mission critical operations where is largely irrelevant the "generation" of the people doing the administration.

Note that I appreciate a lot the Canonical efforts, but I'd like to see (and promote) some solid reasons for their products.

> It's been rock-solid since the day I installed it.

This also doesn't mean anything. What kind of application/workload are you running on your rock-solid servers that make you prefer Ubuntu?

regards,

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[Lord Ender]

I really disagree with your assertion that Oracle is the most common use of linux servers. Apache is clearly the #1 use. We also use linux servers for Samba, syslog, Postgres/MySQL databases, security scanners, and a few other purposes.

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[DiegoBravo]

> Apache is clearly the #1 use.

Yes, you're right on that.

I'm insisting on Oracle because (at least) in my experience and environment, most medium to big enterprises that adopted some variant of Unix, use it to run Oracle (from the business point of view), and in second place for the rest of networking tools you mention, including Apache.

Believe me or not, some time ago I tried to introduce Ubuntu Server at some companies, and the first question I got was: "Can run Oracle?". You can guess the rest of the conversation.

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[Lord Ender]

I think our Oracle severs run on Solaris. And at any rate, soon we will be simply buying Oracle appliances from OraSun, so the question becomes even less important.

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[DiegoBravo]

Good point. The Oracle issue may become a non issue in the long term.

In that scenario, the only remaining stopper for the Ubuntu Server case will be the corporate support from Canonical as compared with the Red Hat's long experience; not saying that Canonical is bad on that, I just don't have references about.

BTW, other offerings of Red Hat like clustering and vendor JBoss support, don't have yet a good equivalent on Ubuntu.

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[Dragonslicer]

Why a Server Edition?

Because most people don't really want or need Gnome, KDE, or XFCE on a server

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[spectre_240sx]

I like the way Debian is set up. I prefer Aptitude to YUM and I like the way things are modularized with symlinks and includes (/etc/alternatives/, Apache's config, etc.). Overall, I've just had better experiences with Debian style distributions. Ubuntu takes that, puts a bit of polish on it and provides optional paid support. Oh, and I don't run Oracle.

Re:Why a Server Edition?

[Fatalis]

Wait, are you saying that CentOS or RedHat somehow require root logins and are unstable? Seriously?

Re:Still the same color scheme

[mhall119]

Jaunty comes with 3 new themes installed, it just still uses Human as the default.

Anyone else having trouble booting?

[bcrowell]

I tested the waters a couple of weeks ago by downloading the prerelease version of Jaunty as an iso and burning it to a live cd. My machine wouldn't boot from the live cd (started to boot, didn't complete the process). I don't have any trouble booting from a live cd of other versions of Ubuntu, and this machine currently has intrepid, which works fine. It's an x64 box.

Is anyone else having problems like this? I'm definitely chicken to upgrade if there's a risk of making my system unbootable. I'm all in favor of shorter boot times, but it does have to boot.

The impression I generally get is that it's a good idea to wait at least a few weeks before upgrading to a newly released version of ubuntu.

Re:Anyone else having trouble booting?

[sygin]

Have you verified that the CD you are using is defect free? There is a test CD option if you can get as far as the live CD menu.

Re:Anyone else having trouble booting?

[bcrowell]

Have you verified that the CD you are using is defect free? There is a test CD option if you can get as far as the live CD menu.

Yes, I think I did verify it.

Re:Anyone else having trouble booting?

[columbus]

Yes, I had a Jaunty system rendered unbootable after an upgrade, but this was back when the software was in the alpha stage.

It's pretty stable for me since it went beta.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

Re:Anyone else having trouble booting?

[Locklin]

Mount the cdrom on a running system, cd to that directory and run:

$ md5sum -c md5sum.txt

It will check the md5sum of each file on the cdrom and report if anything is corrupted.

Re:Ubuntu is unusable garbage

[Cornwallis]

Mr. Ballmer, You should try putting brown sugar in your oatmeal to start your day off with a little sweetness.

hibernation and LUKS

[muckracer]

Since in the past it was not possible, just wondering, if hibernation can work with your swap partition encrypted with LUKS/dm-crypt.

Aside from that, does swap size have to match physical RAM for hibernation, even if the machine has copious and largely unused amounts of it?

Re:hibernation and LUKS

[viralMeme]

"Since in the past it was not possible, just wondering, if hibernation can work with your swap partition encrypted with LUKS/dm-crypt"

Encrypted Root and Swap with LUKS on Ubuntu 6.06

"Aside from that, does swap size have to match physical RAM for hibernation, even if the machine has copious and largely unused amounts of it?"

"if you use hibernate, make it larger than your physical memory"
--

help, I can't type key terms into Google

Re:hibernation and LUKS

[cribb]

...

Aside from that, does swap size have to match physical RAM for hibernation, even if the machine has copious and largely unused amounts of it?

Not any more, nowadays uswsusp2 will compress (lzw?) your RAM image. Personally, i rarely get an image larger than 500MB on my laptop when hibernating.

[ob] Next 10 rejected Ubuntu names

[gclef]

Lonely Lemur
Marxist Millipede
Narcoleptic Narwhal
Onanistic Orangutan
Promiscuous Parakeet
Questioning Quail
Randy Rodent
Slutty Seal
Trampy Tadpole
Uncanny Ungulate

Software RAID completely broken in Jaunty

[Theovon]

I installed the release candidate when it came out. Since I wanted to use it on a server, I decided to use software RAID. That was a nightmare all-around. First, their disk partitioner (the one that comes with ubuntu server anyhow) is junk. It gets horribly confused when there are existing partitions and won't let you remove them. I had to use dd to manually wipe sections of the disk before I could get the disk partitioned properly. After that, the installation went smoothly... until I it was time to reboot.

The machine wouldn't boot because it couldn't find the md devices. Some googling revealed some commands I could type into the busybox to get it to boot. But of course, I would have to enter these commands every time I booted.

And then the RAID array came up degraded. I did a lot of googling to find out how to rebuild the array, but every tutorial I found (including Ubuntu ones) mentoned device names (like /dev/sda1) that no longer exist in Ubuntu, so there was no way I could figure out the correct device node to use to re-add the second disk. And of course, it seems that it never occurred to Ubuntu developers to provide tools for this or do anything automatic.

So much for being a user-friendly distro. I actually had to go back to using Gentoo just so I could get what, to me, are basic things working. At least Gentoo documents stuff do you can fix it yourself. Ubuntu figures everything WILL be automatic, so they don't document it, so you're SoL when it doesn't work.

Software RAID has always taken a back seat for Ubuntu. I know one developer who has put a lot of work into it, but apparently his efforts have been thwarted by others. If you want a really basic desktop, Ubuntu is fine. But don't even consider it for anything server-related. The fact that they even offer a server edition makes them out to be dishonest.

Oh, and BTW, I went back and looked at the bug reports relating to software RAID not working. As far as I can tell, they havn't done anything to fix this between the RC and the release.

Re:Software RAID completely broken in Jaunty

[pseudonomous]

I had this same problem give or take, I didn't have to use dd to manually wipe partitions, but I also couldn't get Ubuntu to recognize my raid array, since I was installing to a 512 mb root disk, and wanted /usr /var and /home on the raid array, I couldn't even make it through the install process. And this is an UBUNTU problem, not an installer problem. After I finally gave up on Ubuntu I tried Debiaan, which uses the same installer as Ubuntu, and everything just worked the first time through. Which isn't to say I haven't run into a bunch of other little annoyances with debian, but at least it runs.
I should note, I previously had set up a virtual machine with Ubuntu Server and software raid that worked fine, but apparently problems will occur on some real hardware.

Re:Software RAID completely broken in Jaunty

[lems1]

odd... I installed a raid1 desktop using PXE with a preseed...

I never got asked anyquestions (well, except for the encryption of HOME on the user I created).

Left on a Friday night and by Monday morning my system was up and running with 9.04. RAID1 and cfengine took care of initializing/installing all my crap.

All I needed to do was copy my HOME from a backup server (after adding a new user with --encrypt-home of course).

No complaints here.

Re:Software RAID completely broken in Jaunty

[Hatta]

I was installing to a 512 mb root disk, and wanted /usr /var and /home on the raid array

So what happens when the drive that holds / craps out?

Re:Software RAID completely broken in Jaunty

[pseudonomous]

It's on compact flash, I simply replace it with a copy.

Re:Software RAID completely broken in Jaunty

[CBravo]

I setup a raid0 machine with 8.10 today, with a default CD and this tutorial in 40 minutes (it tooks some more time because both computers were not on the same place).

I didn't know much of software raid (I read one tutorial) nor did I ever do it before. I know linux though, which is mandatory I guess.

Gparted is included on the live CD (but is not used in the installer). It can easily remove partitions.

Is 9.04 so much different from 8.10?

Re:Ubuntu is unusable garbage

[cptnapalm]

"If you like it better than Windows I'll eat my own ass."

I like it better than Windows. Do you need a napkin?

I'll stick with 8.04 LTS

[q2k]

My Hardy Heron laptop is rock solid. I think I'll just stick with the status quo.

Ubuntu podcast on screen profiles

[viralMeme]

"When Novell and Red Hat release a new version you find all cool new features on their webpages. Not so for Canonical, for example Dustin Kirkland did an amazing job with screen profiles .. No word about it on any of their websites"

They did do a Podcast that discusses screen profiles, on the ubuntupodcast website. And they do mention Ubuntu 'release parties'. Which sounds a lot more interactive than a post to a web site.

17:46: on marketing ..
30:50 Dustin Kirkland on Screen Profiles ..

Linux for Netbooks

[troll8901]

I've tried both Easy Peasy 1.1 RC and Eeebuntu 2.0 Standard. Both appear to recognize my hardware and work okay. I didn't try Bluetooth or Webcam, though.

I upgraded Eeebuntu's OpenOffice from 2.4 to 3 (IIRC), and it appears to work great. The only things hampering me from productivity bliss are the keyboard size and touchpad position.

I'm now trying Xandros Presto 1.0 Trial on my Eee 901 (installed in the 4GB SSD) and learning about BartPE on USB. My aim is to find a way to tell people to "try Linux, it boots really, really fast", and hopefully find a free distro that can match Xandro's 6-second boot time (after the NTLDR and GRUB4DOS menus).

What would you like to know?

XFCE is GTK you tard (nt)

[LonghornXtreme]

Nt = no text

Re:Ubuntu is unusable garbage

[Cro Magnon]

If you like it better than Windows I'll eat my own ass. (It'll be the color of Ubuntu.)

Do you want salt? And while Ubuntu's default look isn't great, it's still good to use an OS that only LOOKS like shit.

Hardy is history. Time to upgrade!

[lems1]

Way to go. This inspires me to upgrade from Hardy!

Aside from the improvements noted, these are things to consider:

My favorite are these security improvements:
    * sha256 passwords (shadow)
    * encrypted home directory with ecryptfs (adduser --encrypt-home ... username)

Evolution now supports PST files! This is a plus for people ditching Outlook.
Also, you can tight Google Addressbook, Google Gmail, Google Calendar into Evolution. Eliminating the need for Exchange altogether (if your company is willing to pay $25 a year per user for 25G of data. Awesome deal).

Please do a Fresh Install. Do not bother upgrading. That way your passwords will be store with a better hash.

Re:Hardy is history. Time to upgrade!

[Hatta]

* encrypted home directory with ecryptfs (adduser --encrypt-home ... username)

You're only encrypting ~? Wouldn't you also want to encrypt /tmp and swap at a minimum?

Re:Hardy is history. Time to upgrade!

[lems1]

I don't see a reason why... My system never (ever) swaps. 4G of RAM here. /tmp gets cleaned on reboot. If you are truly paranoid I'd guess you would clean /tmp before you shutdown but I don't see the benefit of the extra paranoia.

Encrypting home is more important for my purpose.

Re:Hardy is history. Time to upgrade!

[Hatta]

Unless you're actually writing over the old data, it's still there on disk. Just 'rm -rf /tmp' isn't enough.

Re:Known issues

[owlstead]

All the known issues? You don't work in software dev... Dang, didn't notice your ID. Troll alert.

Re:Still the same color scheme

[Risen888]

Yeah, too bad they don't include any other themes, or any way to change it. Someone should look into that.

Thank god you told us!

[Abcd1234]

Seriously, I was all like, "sure, maybe I'll download Ubuntu 9.04 and give it a whirl... but I should probably find out what q2k is doing, first..."

Excellent, can't wait to get it onto my PS3

[WhiteFluffyChest]

Ubuntu works great on the PS3. I tried SUSE but it ran like sludge, not enough memory. But Ubuntu is brilliant.

Well done, excellent stuff :)

RT2860 Drivers

[athakur999]

I see this release finally includes drivers for RT2860 based wifi cards. This will definitely make my life easier as having to recompile the drivers manually every time a new kernel package came out was getting old. With that in place, this may finally be the first time I'll be able to install an Ubuntu system without having to hunt for any drivers.

Thankfully last time I did a frseh install, I remembered to put /home on a different partition, so I may just do another fresh install this time instead of upgrading.

Question from an "average user"

[Niris]

So I just started using Ubuntu in November from a Hardy CD I got from my Comp. Sci. Teacher. So far I've got it working nicely (save for the pulseaudio thing, but that's fixed with a quick killall script at bootup). Been reading over a lot of the discussions here, but it's more for the "Lawl I know what the Hell I'm doing with this machine 100%" group, and I'm more of a "Does it have the compilers I need for class, and firefox? Awesome" type. As that kind of a user, is it worth upgrading right now, or should I wait for the next LT version?

Re:Question from an "average user"

[J. J. Ramsey]

Offhand, I'd say that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Now, I've found problems with GFortran on Hardy Heron (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gcc-4.2/+bug/193299), and depending on what compilers you need for class, that *might* be an issue, but otherwise, I'd let it be for now.

Re:Question from an "average user"

[Slashcrap]

save for the pulseaudio thing, but that's fixed with a quick killall script at bootup

Now that's a fucking Windows user's solution to a problem if ever I heard one.

Not stable for me yet...

[linuxkrn]

I've spent the last week trying to get the RC working. I started with fresh install and ext4/encrypted home directory. It appeared to work but locked within an hour. (hard lock sometimes with caps/number lock flashing)

I noticed they had a problem with deletes in ext4 and so reformatted to ext3. Then I got kernel oops with what appeared to be the encrypted home directory stuff. So I turned that off as well and still was getting lockups. After days of reading bugs with the kernel 2.6.28, nvidia 180 drivers, and the intel 4965 wireless, I've still not solved the problem. It's hard to troubleshoot as there are no logs and the system is dead even to sysrq commands. I did see an issue with the hpet having problems, so I tried the other modes such as jiffies. Even used noapic/etc trying to get a stable system. Nothing seems to work. Funny thing is that 8.04 and 8.10 were rock solid on my system.

In many cases, running firefox and trying to watch flash video causes the lockups. Sometimes in less than five minutes.

Just FYI for anyone using similar hardware
Dell m1730
Intel X9000 @ 3.4GHz
4gb RAM
dual SSD 64GB RAID-0 (dual boot with XP)
dual nVidia 8800M GTX (SLI)
30" Dell LCD @ 2560x1600
Intel 4965 Wireless
Ubuntu 9.04 amd64

Read the release notes (whilst downloading torrent

[blackest_k]

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/904

Boot failures on systems with Intel D945 motherboards

Users have reported slower than normal detection of SATA hard drives on systems with Intel D945 motherboards in Ubuntu 9.04. This may cause the system to drop to a busybox initramfs shell on boot with a "Gave up waiting for root device." error. Wait a minute or two and then exit the initramfs shell by typing 'exit'. Booting should proceed normally. If it doesn't, wait a bit longer and try again. Once the system boots, edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add rootdelay=90 to the kernel stanza for your current kernel. (290153)

could that be your problem ?

Re:Known issues

[ebh]

Because you'd never, ever release.

Re:Still the same color scheme

[CeasedCaring]

Yeah, too bad they don't include any other themes, or any way to change it. Someone should look into that.

1: Go to www.gnomelook.org or www.ubuntu-art.org
2: Download a theme you like.
3: Open System/Preferences/Appearance from the menu.
4: Click Install & navigate to file you downloaded in #2.
5: ???
6: Profit!

Re:Still the same color scheme

[Risen888]

/sigh

My sarcasm is totally wasted on you people.

Who cares about boot speeds?

[Zerimar]

Why has boot speeds all of a sudden become a "thing"? Both my home Vista (desktop) and Gentoo (laptop) boxes almost never get shut down - when I'm not using them, I put them in standby/sleep mode. They draw almost no power in that mode and return to full usuability in about 3 seconds for Vista and about 15 for Gentoo (waiting for wireless to resume).

Re:Known issues

[ClosedSource]

Well, shipping without known issues is a lot different than shipping bug-free. The former can be done but the latter probably can't.

Re:Known issues

[ClosedSource]

It wasn't meant as a troll.

I spent of lot of years developing embedded software and we never shipped anything with a known issue. It may be shocking to software developers today, but that was a common policy in software development.

Of course our projects were a lot smaller than an OS.

Just installed the RC the other day

[dbc001]

I just installed the RC the other day, and unfortunately I've seen several crashes and freezes - mainly when switching users and when trying to run Boxee and Sauerbraten.

Re:But will it upgrade?

[Taimat]

hmm..... multiple versions of ubuntu - all upgraded by the same user - and always ends up bad... wonder which is the actual problem.....

Too Much RAM for My PC

[Doc Ruby]

I've been using Ubuntu on my Inspiron i8000 notebook since v6.04. But starting v8.10, the minimum RAM requirements nearly exceeded the 512 max RAM the notebook can hold. With a small app or two running it's right at 512MB used. Running Evolution or especially Firefox puts it far over, grinding the whole machine to a halt as it constantly swaps. To make matters worse, the nVidia GeForce2Go GPU doesn't seem supported by compvis, so the GPU doesn't offload the CPU for lots of graphics.

I'm hoping the 9.04 release now might possibly have some upgrade that relieves the RAM pressure. But I expect it will just get worse. Is there any simple way to trim the minimum RAM requirements of Ubuntu down below say 300MB (without losing GNOME)? Maybe if there's a simple way to convert the machine into just an X server to a separate faster box across the LAN, without saturating the LAN. Or maybe I finally have to kiss goodbye my 7 year old notebook and its fabulous 1600x1200 LCD.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[drfool]

Try Xubuntu, the minimum RAM requirement is 256 MB.

Xubuntu doesn't use GNOME, but if my options were either to stop using GNOME or to stop using a computer all together, I would chose to stop using GNOME.

Xubuntu 9.04 was released today, check it.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[Anonymous Coward]

Try turning off all the indexing and tracking stuff.

My 512mb computer was constantly swapping and crawling till I did. The tracker-update thing was using 400mb of ram!

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[Doc Ruby]

It's funny how you answered my question "Is there any simple way to trim the minimum RAM requirements of Ubuntu down below say 300MB (without losing GNOME)?" with "lose GNOME".

You're different from me. I use a computer solely in order to use the apps I want/need to use. If I have to choose between keeping a 7 year old computer or keeping the apps I use, I'm keeping the apps. Even if it costs me $500+ for a new notebook that's as good as or better than my 7 year old one.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[Eil]

Is there any simple way to trim the minimum RAM requirements of Ubuntu down below say 300MB (without losing GNOME)?

Not really. You can try disabling bunches of stuff, but for the most part if you want to run a modern desktop environment, you need modern hardware.

You can also try Xubuntu. You will be amazed how much functionality is identical to standard Ubuntu.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[Draek]

You're different from me, I use a computer solely to do the things I want/need to be done. And if spending 30 minutes downloading software off the internet lets me avoid paying $500 and spending three hours configuring stuff while still getting my work done, that's exactly what I'll do.

Try it *then* decide if it's right for you or not. Refusing to even see whether there are better options out there leads to stagnation and $100-per-hour COBOL consultants.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[Doc Ruby]

If you're spending hours reinstalling OS and apps so you can keep using a 7 year old computer rather than spending $500 to keep using the apps you already know (and have all your data in), like your email/contacts/calendar app and Firefox instead of some obscure alternative that's different from what you use on all your other computers, then you've got no business insulting a $100:h COBOL consultant.

Especially because 5 hours of COBOL consulting can be worth quite a lot of money to the employer. Hours reinstalling, converting and getting used to an oddball desktop just to keep an old, underperforming PC is not.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[Draek]

The fact that you claim you'd have to stop using Firefox *and* the fact that you call Xubuntu's Xfce an "oddball desktop" destroys any kind of credibility you may have once had. Seriously, drop your poor prejudices and try it before coming here to troll.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[Logic and Reason]

You're going to have to choose between Gnome and your netbook sooner or later, yeah. Since I'm a satisfied WindowMaker user, you can probably guess what my recommendation is!

Seriously, though, give some of the alternative window managers out there a shot if you haven't already. You may find you don't miss much from Gnome.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[u38cg]

Hmm. I wouldn't bother with experimenting with alternative desktop environments - what you gain with XFCE you lose as soon as you fire up a GTK+ app anyway. Are you sure your laptop has a 512MB max limit? Specs do lie. You could try looking into a RAM-backed hybrid hard disk - I've never used one but I can't imagine it would slow you down! Alternatively, find a six year old laptop with a comparable screen and pimp it out with as much memory as you like. On the other hand, $500 buys you a pretty decent laptop in a 15.4" form factor these days. Mind you, I'm still going strong on my Athlon XP 1200 from 2002 which with a decent graphics card and plenty memory runs just fine with 8.10.

Re:Too Much RAM for My PC

[drfool]

The fact that you claim you'd have to stop using Firefox *and* the fact that you call Xubuntu's Xfce an "oddball desktop" destroys any kind of credibility you may have once had. Seriously, drop your poor prejudices and try it before coming here to troll.

Thank you, thank you very much.

it has no pulse

[zogger]

I have yet to read any cogent argument for why pulse exists, what it is for, or why we somehow need it. I spent more than two days with that ...insert scatological reference... and finally just removed it and now I have audio back working.

First things first

[ThatsNotPudding]

Remove all Mono-based applications and install MonoNoNo to keep the MS-backed trojan horses out. http://boycottnovell.com/wiki/index.php?title=Mono_Applications

Re:First things first

[jrspur2003]

Why not remove, Firefox while your at it and dont install Flash. Perhaps even better to go in and disable WAN connection

Re:First things first

[Matt Perry]

Could you please explain why we should do this? Are you so opposed to a particular programming language that you would remove software that was written in this language? Do you also not install programs that were written in C++, preferring only to use programs written in C?

Re:First things first

[shutdown -p now]

If you want to go that way, the first thing to do is to avoid Flash (Mono is FOSS, at least).

But I doubt that anyone who's actually using the OS, and not just dreaming of the Year Of Freedom On The Desktop, cares in the slightest about either. People generally just want things to work. If Mono applications happen to provide what they want, they'll be used.

Re:Read the release notes (whilst downloading torr

[bcrowell]

Thanks for pointing that out, but I don't have an Intel mobo. However, it does sound like what happened to me, so maybe it's a similar issue, with a different mobo.

Re:Still the same color scheme

[Aphoxema]

I'm just happy you can install other full-fledged themes without having to resort to third party hacks that modify a binary file with a less than exquisite patch.

Have you tried Moblin?

[Sits]

Moblin can supposedly be made to boot very quickly.

Flash drive install?

[bucky0]

I'd like to install this on a machine that neither has a CD drive nor can boot from USB devices through the bios. Is there a way to make grub boot from an ISO file?

Re:Flash drive install?

[Diederik]

there is a way. If you can use a iso, you can probably also get other files on the system. Thus just make a USB flash drive with a bootable Ubuntu live system on another system. Then copy the created directories from the usb to your disk in a working installation and get the information you need for grub from the "syslinux/text.cfg" file that is created. If all goes to plan, your system should boot as if from the USB flash drive: it should find the filesystem.squashfs file and mound it with a loop. Just recreate the directory structure on the usb stick on your existing root directory. http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ubuntu-810-install-using-the-built-in-usb-installer/

Re:Flash drive install?

[Dwedit]

Swap the hard drive to a better PC and install it there?

Fortran 77 Support?

[clong83]

So, someone who has tried it out... Does it have support for g77? I have a bunch of legacy code that requires some of the old fortran 77 libraries and these are unavailable in 8.10. Gfortran is not an option for me... I love ubuntu, but if they keep it out I might have to switch distros... Honest question.

Re:Fortran 77 Support?

[J. J. Ramsey]

So, someone who has tried it out... Does it have support for g77? I have a bunch of legacy code that requires some of the old fortran 77 libraries and these are unavailable in 8.10. Gfortran is not an option for me...

Looks like you are confusing compilers and libraries. What Fortran 77 libraries are unavailable in Jaunty? LAPACK is still there. If there's some Fortran 77 library code that you need to compile, GFortran should be able to handle it. It can compile Fortran 77 code, you know, and it's gotten pretty solid in the past couple years.

g77 is unsupported by GNU and is being phased out in favor of Gfortran. Why are you bothering with a legacy compiler whose functionality can be replaced?

Re:Fortran 77 Support?

[uncle slacky]

I'm a bit of a g77 fan myself, though I've not had cause to use it under Ubuntu. A quick Google turned up a solution for 8.10 - it might work for 9.04 too:

http://www.fluka.org/FLUKA/web_archive/earchive/new-fluka-discuss/2091.html

Re:Fortran 77 Support?

[clong83]

I'm looking for the libraries, but I asked about the compiler because if the compiler was available, then the libraries would also presumably be there. The specific library I ran into problems with was libg2c. In any case, It's good to know they have no plans to continue with g77, but I do hope they bring back in some of the libraries that are unavailable through other packages... I was able to make it work in 8.10 by getting that library it from the hardy repository, but it screws up aptitude and makes it hard to update. Thanks for the info.

Re:Fortran 77 Support?

[J. J. Ramsey]

From what I can tell from Googling, the whole point of libg2c was to be a sort of compatibility library for use with g77-compiled binaries, and it isn't needed otherwise.

Re:Fortran 77 Support?

[joib]

Well, sort of. libg2c is the runtime library for g77. It fulfills the equivalent function as libgfortran does for gfortran.

The bottom line is, if one compiles ones code with gfortran instead of g77, libg2c isn't necessary.

Re:Ubuntu is unusable garbage

[icannotthinkofaname]

[Windows is] the universal corporate standard for a reason.

Because Microsoft has the world's best marketing department, a monopoly on the desktop OS market, and a userbase that refuses to think critically?

Re:Re

[TheLeopardsAreComing]

The funny part is that this almost works: preverbal:Having not yet learned to speak --one day it will talk muhuhahaha But thank you!

Ext4 FS large file bug warning

[snkmoorthy]

ext4 had a bug where large files will corrupt the FS. An updated kernel image is available through update. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/348836

Kubuntu is KDE4.2? Thanks for the warning!

[KWTm]

So, I'm a die-hard KDE user. I'm all excited about the new release! I can't wait to upgrade to a KDE that's actually useful as opposed to the get-lost-this-is-for-developers-only version. So I check out the release web page, and I see that there are a few known issues here:

1. Connection to non-broadcasting (hidden SSID) wireless networks with the network-manager widget isn't possible Bug 330811
2. Network Manager does not connect to some networks Bug 339313
3. Network Manager is not added to the panel on upgrades Bug 349066
4. KPackageKit (which is now the default package manager for Kubuntu Jaunty) doesn't support installations which require a removal or updates which require additional software. The packages to be removed / installed will be shown as blocked. Bug 342671
5. Kmail sieve functionality is buggy and causes CPU hang. You shouldn't use it at the moment.

WTF?? Wireless doesn't work? Package manager doesn't work!? Kmail doesn't work!??
Okay, you may be saying, "It's not that it doesn't work, it's that certain functions with certain applications in certain circumstances don't work." Umm, but it worked before, and now with the newer version it stops working? Okay, network manager only fails to connect to some networks. I mean, who cares, right? As long as your network is not one of those "some". It only fails if the network is hidden. I mean, what's the infinitesimal chance that you would actually hide your network SSID, right? KPackageKit works some of the time!? I don't care if it's "most" of the time. How would you like it if you bought a product that worked "most" of the time?
It's not as if this is some bleeding edge version. It's KDE 4.2 already. And, sitting right next to it is a perfectly functional KDE 3.5 that people have been using for ages. Why Kubuntu being released with so many issues?
What were those Kubuntu distro managers thinking!? In an effort to find out, I browsed some bug discussion pages.
One person said:
"Maybe we should switch back to knetworkmanager as the default network manager because I don't think this problem will be fixed shortly. knetworkmanager doesn't look as nice as the plasma widget, but can handle hidden aps and works fine with kubuntu."
But another one says,
"This won't be possible for two reasons. First, the final release is only weeks away. It is way to late to make an intrusive change like that. Second, I have heard the developers say that there is no room on the CD left for the KDE3 libraries that would be necessary to run NetworkManager. Hopefully, KNetworkManager4 will have been released and/or the bugs in the plasmoid will have been fixed in time for Karmic."
Umm, so, translation: we have to use software that works "most" of the time instead of a perfectly functioning networking piece of software, whose only disadvantage is that it is not as aesthetically pleasing, because

1. it's too late for us to realize that our aesthetically pleasing software is actually dysfunctional. Gotta release EARLY, release OFTEN, release ANYTHING EVEN IF IT DOESN'T WORK!
2. Our not-so-perfectly working system takes up too much room to fit the system that's been working fine for the past 2 release cycles while we were working on this KDE4 mess.
3. Our solution is to HOPE that MAYBE in the next release, things will be fixed.

This attitude of "yeah, it's buggy --we'll just get it out there, get some users to beta-test it for us (Surprise! YOU'VE been selected to beta-test OUR buggy software!) and just tell people to upgrade" makes me wonder whether the KDE developers are trying to update their resumes for a job hunt at Microsoft. "My software engineering skills include: successfully releasing piece-of-crap software and fo

Re:Kubuntu is KDE4.2? Thanks for the warning!

[lamasquerade]

My feelings pretty much exactly. Just add my being able to 'deal' with the last 6 months of pain from various breakages with 8.10 (which I was very excited to install.) I don't know what's going on over a Kubuntu, it's like they've lost the feel for what makes a release good to users, i.e. lack of insane bugs (as opposed to normal workaroundable bugs, which everything has.)

Re:Kubuntu is KDE4.2? Thanks for the warning!

[anshulajain]

With all your gripes (and majority of them are true- especially the knetworkmanager), you might wanna give Mandriva 2009.0 or the soon to be released 2009.1 a try. They've done an awesome job with KDE 4.2.2 (available as an unofficial backport through ftp.kde.org) for 2009.0, and it doesn't use the ultra-crappy networkmanager from KDE4 or KDE3 too...but has its own netapplet which is probably the best out there. Kubuntu stinks royally bad as a KDE distro and gives KDE a really bad name among the Ubuntu community and others at large. A Mandriva or an Opensuse does KDE the "right" way and not the butchered way a Kubuntu does.

Re:Kubuntu is KDE4.2? Thanks for the warning!

[Krischi]

Does Mandriva do a better job at QA now? Back then, I dropped Mandrake because of their extremely shoddy QA practices. Updates in stable regularly broke something.

Re:Kubuntu is KDE4.2? Thanks for the warning!

[anshulajain]

Things have improved drastically at Mandriva now, they're a LOT better with their packaging and stuff. Their 2008.1 release was simply the best release of last year among all distros. I've used Opensuse's and Mandriva's KDE 4.2.2 extensively and Opensuse's KDE broke more frequently than Mandriva's. Infact I don't recall Mandriva's KDE 4.2.2 breaking at all...I've never had the dreaded and fragile Plasma crash on me :)

Nice cheerleading

[Chuck Chunder]

But read the Ubuntu release notes:

Performance regressions on Intel graphics cards

Users of Intel video chipsets have reported performance regressions in Ubuntu 8.10 compared with previous releases (252094). Many of the issues have been resolved in Ubuntu 9.04, but some remain.

• Some users have found improved performance by using the "greedy" migration heuristic. This can be done by running "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf", and adding Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy" to the Device section of your xorg.conf.
• Alternatively, a new experimental acceleration architecture option, "DRI2/UXA", is available for Intel graphics users which our testing has found provides significant performance improvements in some cases, but has also shown risk of severe stability problems. You can opt-in to enable this by running "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf", and adding Option "AccelMethod" "UXA" to the Device section of your xorg.conf. Users wishing to maximize stability should stay with the standard default acceleration method, "EXA". In some cases this will lead to the graphical environment not starting at all or becoming entirely unusable. In that case, start into rescue mode or press Ctrl+Alt+F2 and log into the text console, and use sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf to revert the UXA option.
• If none of the above helps, some users reported success with using an older driver version.

Display freezes with Intel graphics cards

Users of various Intel video chipsets reported freezes under various conditions (e. g. a few minutes after suspend on the i945, see 339091). In many cases, switching off desktop effects in System â' Preferences â' Appearance was reported to help. If it still happens without desktop effects, you can add Option "DRI" "off" to the Device section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf, as described above. This will disable 3D acceleration and desktop effects, but makes suspend work reliably again and also avoid many types of crashes. These freezes happen particularly often on the i965 chips (359392). For that reason, desktop effects were disabled by default on this chipset in the final release. They will be re-enabled in a 9.04 Update once the problem has been fixed.

It's things like this that must make vendors question the value of opening their drivers. Despite the (perhaps theoretical) advantages you'd expect from being as open as Intel is with their graphics hardware the end result in this particular version of Ubuntu seems well short.

Re:Caveats re Intel are still in the release notes

[Chuck Chunder]

How many newbies are going to be bitten by the

On rereading the notes I see I may be wrong on that bit. The environment not starting or being unusable seems to be a result of manually changing the conf file to work around another problem, so "newbies" probably won't be hit as they won't be making such changes.

Netbook Remix Torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

The official site has no torrent for the Netbook Remix - here is an unoffical torrent:

http://www.demonoid.com/files/download/HTTP/1890254/3100888

anyone having problems booting on k8??

[ZosX]

I tried the RC a week ago and could not get it to boot. It dumps into busybox on the usb detection. My hardware is pretty generic, athlon 64 3000, sis chipset. I never had a problem with ubuntu before, and it seems kernel related. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/362629

Kind of a bummer that I can't even boot. One of these days I'll install linux without a single showstopper.....

Re:Ubuntu is unusable garbage

[Arthur Grumbine]

But if we tell you we liked it, and you eat your own ass, won't we just be feeding the trolls?

And still no Eclipse update...

[shutdown -p now]

It is very unfortunate that the Eclipse package has been stuck at 3.2 in Ubuntu repos for several major releases already (the most recent version of Eclipse is currently 3.4.2). Given that Eclipse is one of the best FOSS IDEs out there (with only NetBeans being comparable - better in some things, worse in others), it is surprising that the effectively "#1 desktop Linux" can afford to alienate developers like that.

Re:And still no Eclipse update...

[LingNoi]

Try complaining on launchpad, slashdot isn't the best place to be filing bug reports.

Re:And still no Eclipse update...

[shutdown -p now]

The link in my original post was to the LaunchPad ticket for this issue (here it is again, for convenience). It had been created over two years ago. Since then we've had:

Declined for Feisty by Colin Watson
Declined for Gutsy by Henrik Nilsen Omma
Declined for Hardy by StefanPotyra
Declined for Intrepid by Steve Langasek
Declined for Jaunty by Steve Langasek

Re:And still no Eclipse update...

[LingNoi]

Sorry missed the first link, I think slashdot cut it out and I wasn't paying attention. I looked at the bug report and it is getting retarded. I wish they'd update freeimage myself but then i've spotted tons of things that are old in Ubuntu and never get updated, ever.

Re:And still no Eclipse update...

[Anonymous Coward]

This thread might be of some interest to you - https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2009-April/007868.html

Re:Truth Stranger Than Fiction

[LingNoi]

To confirm, it does have "ubuntu" in the user agent for firefox.

general.useragent.vendor;Ubuntu
general.useragent.vendorComment;hardy
general.useragent.vendorSub;8.04

"Free as in beer" roughly describes the BSD:

[falconwolf]

You can share recipes and brew your own, but it's unlikely you can prosecute anyone for close-sourcing your beer recipe.

They can't close your source but they can close their modifications. I prefer BSD licenses over the GPL just for this reason. For some projects at least. If I'm going to spend a lot of tyme working on a given project I'd like to be able to get paid for it if I'm going to release it.

Falcon

Re:"Free as in beer" roughly describes the BSD:

[tzanger]

Um, what's wrong with selling the GPL code? If you're developing for a bunch of programmers, maybe you will have trouble, but seriously... how many business/home types will honestly take your work and maintain/support it on their own?

Re:Nuked my install

[batkiwi]

Are you saying you just changed "intrepid" to "Jaunty" in your sources.list and did a dist-upgrade?

If so:
You are an idiot.

Ubuntu understands that there are fundamental system changes that can cause an unbootable computer when you swap out core system libraries, and thus give you their upgrade manager. It handholds the system while it's in an unstable state.

dualboot

[falconwolf]

How newbie do you have to be to screw up a dual-boot?

It depends on how low, er high, you set the bar.

Anyone with half a brain will do extensive Googling to make sure they know exactly how to do it.

Two problems here, there are some who will not take the tyme to Google. Then the info may be hard to find if available. Some may not want to take the tyme to properly map out how they're going to install Ubuntu or any other Linux distro. I went through this when I decide to install 8.10 on my MacBook Pro. I spent days researching how to install it on my MBP to dualboot it with Leopard and set it up just the way I wanted. I want to have each OS on it's own partition as well as a third partition for user data. That's no problem as Disk Utility will partition drives. I also want to use the same data stores in each OS, for instance I want my email showing up in both Leopard and Ubuntu without having to sync everything, or have my Firefox history be the same in both. I also want a VM so I can run Ubuntu when I boot into Leopard and visa versa. Eventually I decided to wait until Jaunty Jackalope came out.

When I saw today that Jaunty Jackalope was released I spent more than an hour googling on how to install it. I found out how to install on some MBPs but not my version, I found instructions for MacBook Pro R2 and R5 but not for R3 which I have. I'll give it a few more days.

Falcon

Re:MS Windows

[Techman83]

WinXP is a nice system and the best OS M$ has ever produced.

Not by me. The first tyme I used XP it froze while booting up, on a brand new PC. The best version of MS Windows I've used was NT4.

Falcon

**Shudder** NT4 **Shudder**

Has problems with VMware 6.5

[Fatalis]

I'm not sure how they managed to achieve that, but package management doesn't work with VMware Workstation 6.5. I tried both Ubuntu and Kubuntu 9.04, and I could neither list nor do anything else with packages. It's so strange that I suspect VMware might have actively broken something in the installation. I can't imagine why else would something like packages not work in any virtual machine.

Re:Has problems with VMware 6.5

[Fatalis]

To follow up, the problem seems to have been my ISP trying to communicate with me by messing with the contents of incoming HTTP transmissions. Clearing out some aptitude related files fixed it.

Re:Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Thees ees Nelson Mandela, and I pronounce Ubuntu, "ooboontoo."

Re:Still the same color scheme

[ais523]

I'm using New Wave, which is a kind of dark grey and comes with Jaunty. It's pretty good. (On the other hand, I liked the old brown Human theme too...)

Agreed, Kubuntu is in a sad state

[Krischi]

I first switched from Gentoo to Kubuntu when Edgy came out. This was followed by three top-notch Kubuntu releases, so upgrading from Hardy to Intrepid was a rude awakening. I kind of cobbled together a usable system with Intrepid + the KDE 4.2 PPA archives, and over time things got a lot better, to the point that Intrepid was shaping up to be a quite nice distro.

Then I upgraded to Jaunty. Big mistake - Jaunty's KDE actually seems less stable than Intrepid + PPA. WTF is going on here. Crashes left and right, a total lack of integration (why, for instance, are Konqueror's extensions not installed by default, with the result that Konq RSS functionality is missing, and no clue as to why unless you know the specific package that needs to be installed). Plus, a broken package manager as mentioned in the parent, and countless other niggling issues.

Clearly, Kubuntu needs some serious manpower and an overhaul of the way it works with the main Ubuntu distro. The rub is, I cannot imagine that anyone would be crazy enough to volunteer, given the current sorry state of affairs.

Like the parent poster, I probably should go KDE distro shopping, but what I have seen out there so far does not look very appealing to me. I do not want a rolling release - Gentoo has soured me on that for a lifetime -, so Arch Linux is out.

Exactly

[Krischi]

With GFortran you can just use the equivalent C data types directly. g2c is not necessary. If you have to, just create your own header file with the appropriate typedefs.

Encrypted swap

[nem75]

Is the swap partition encrypted too? Encrypting home without swap is not exactly sensible...

Issues Updating?

[ITJC68]

My system is updating this morning to the latest release. Ubuntu makes updating a breeze. At least I hope this one will work like the last one did. Anyone had any issues updating versus loading from scratch?

**Shudder** NT4 **Shudder**

[falconwolf]

I never had NT4 crash or throw up the BSOD. Other than Win3.x all other versions of Windows I used did. However I have NT4 running on a DEC Alpha I got from Microway. Because I wasn't able to install much software installed on it I didn't use it as much as I would have liked.

Falcon

Um, what's wrong with selling the GPL code?

[falconwolf]

Nothing wrong with it except everyone else can sell it, or give if away, as well.

how many business/home types will honestly take your work and maintain/support it on their own?

Sure service and support can be a viable business model, that's the model Canonical, Redhat, and other distros use. However I don't want to do service and support. Originally I started out wanting to start a photography business but didn't want to spend thousands of dollars on software when I was just starting out. So I thought I'd look for FOOS apps I could use. As part of the business I want to start selling online. In talking with a number of photography students and pros many expressed an interest in putting their own portfolios online, to sell and or to display their work. So I thought that maybe what I could do if I were to create my own system, was to go ahead and sell it to others to earn some more money. If the source code is available I couldn't prevent others from selling or giving it away. But if I only sell binaries that require a license for it to fully useful, like trialware, I may be able to generate some income.

Now I wouldn't keep it closed "forever", at least it seems that's where copyrights are headed, but would release the code after some months or maybe year has gone by. I'd like to do it like this to make it worthwhile to spend a lot of tyme programming instead of shooting photos, I want to be a photographer not a software company.

Falcon

Re:CLI is intrinsically more powerful than GUI

[Blakey Rat]

Yes there is. Our brains are wired to remember words (dozens of thousands of them), and not to run up and down menus looking for options.

Your brain, perhaps. The vast majority of people have brains which are much better at spatial memory (i.e. not having to "run up and down menus" because they remember where the option is) than rote memorization.

The problem is that geeks, generally, are the kind who prefer the memorization. They're the ones in control of Linux, and therefore they see little value to the GUI. They're the ones who removed spatial features from Mac when OS X came out. But they're also a tiny minority of the general population, and that's one of the reasons that Linux alienates so many potential users.

Humans are "wired" for remembering where things are, not for memorizing lists. In the wild, we frequently had to find caches of items previously hidden, remember where predators were, etc. You're going against 2 million years of evolution. If it works for you, fine-- but don't claim it works for everybody, because it doesn't.

I love Ubuntu!!

[bckchrry08]

I have fallen for Ubuntu and I can't get up! My hope is that this launch comes preloaded with Compiz Fusion. That stuff blows me away. Who wouldn't want their display windows to spontaniously combust when you close them? I ask you who?