Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ubuntu 9.04 Released

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the gentlemen-start-your-torrents dept.

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."

59 of 620 comments (clear)

  1. Questions from an 8.10 user by hattig · · Score: 5, Funny

    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?

    1. Re:Questions from an 8.10 user by suso · · Score: 3, Informative

      Do you make this comment everyday or something?

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

    2. Re:Questions from an 8.10 user by orkybash · · Score: 5, Funny

      Will it give me free beer and hookers?

      Free as in speech, silly.

    3. Re:Questions from an 8.10 user by orkybash · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    4. Re:Questions from an 8.10 user by Mr.+DOS · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

            --- Mr. DOS

    5. Re:Questions from an 8.10 user by tuxgeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
    6. Re:Questions from an 8.10 user by Teun · · Score: 5, Funny

      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 :)

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    7. Re:Questions from an 8.10 user by Sean0michael · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      --
      Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
  2. Jaunty by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Jaunty by zbharucha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just use XFCE. You won't be sorry.

    2. Re:Jaunty by kazade84 · · Score: 5, Funny

      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!

    3. Re:Jaunty by Kentaree · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

    4. Re:Jaunty by ameyer17 · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    5. Re:Jaunty by mhall119 · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      http://www.mhall119.com
    6. Re:Jaunty by Hurricane78 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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? :)

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    7. Re:Jaunty by Radhruin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    8. Re:Jaunty by plasticsquirrel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
    9. Re:Jaunty by Locutus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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

      --
      "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
    10. Re:Jaunty by DaleGlass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  3. Obligitory by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    Summation 2
    1. Re:Obligitory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah no one cares.

    2. Re:Obligitory by Random+BedHead+Ed · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Obligitory by ultrabot · · Score: 3, Informative

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

      --
      Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
    4. Re:Obligitory by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:Obligitory by Gnavpot · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah no one cares.

      No one Kares.

    6. Re:Obligitory by Dragonslicer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  4. Just installed ... by sygin · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    --
    Don't make your problems my problems!
    1. Re:Just installed ... by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Funny

      newer GCC?

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

      --
      Summation 2
    2. Re:Just installed ... by FrankDrebin · · Score: 3, Funny

      Gentoobuntu?

      --
      Anybody want a peanut?
  5. Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900? by BayaWeaver · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900? by uncle+slacky · · Score: 4, Informative

      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/

      --
      Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.
    2. Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900? by mtm_king · · Score: 4, Informative
      Did you mean http://www.eeebuntu.org/ ??

      Anyone else try this with an Eee PC 901?

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    3. Re:Netbook Remix 4 EeePC 900? by AdamWill · · Score: 4, Informative

      "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).

  6. Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone! by troll8901 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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/

    1. Re:Happy Ubuntu-Day, everyone! by xmason · · Score: 5, Funny

      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!

      --
      I'm not cool enough to have a .sig
  7. Please.... by kazade84 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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".

  8. Fix the intel graphics bugs yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Fix the intel graphics bugs yet? by MarcQuadra · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
  9. I'm holding out for Ubuntu 10.10 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Which will undoubtedly be named Masturbating Monkey.

  10. Still Brown? by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  11. Notifications by CrispBH · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Notifications by hattig · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:Notifications by Gibbs-Duhem · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Notifications by tolan-b · · Score: 4, Informative

      > 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.

    4. Re:Notifications by Ian+Alexander · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    5. Re:Notifications by Oxy+the+moron · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --

      Proudly supporting the Libertarian Party.

    6. Re:Notifications by Radhruin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re:Notifications by CajunArson · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
  12. What's new - the usefull and the not so usefull by Umangme · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  13. WHAT!!! Ubuntu 9.04 Released? by Philip+K+Dickhead · · Score: 3, Funny

    You mean the charges didn't stick?

    The courts are rigged!

    --
    "Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
  14. Microsoft snatches publicity crown from Ubuntu by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Funny

    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."

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  15. I've been using this for a month by revjtanton · · Score: 3, Informative

    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!

  16. Re:Sweet by not+already+in+use · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Similes are like metaphors
  17. Re:Ubuntu is unusable garbage by cptnapalm · · Score: 3, Funny

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

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

  18. Re:Torrents by drizek · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  19. Re:Still the same color scheme by Risen888 · · Score: 3, Funny

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

    --
    Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
  20. Too Much RAM for My PC by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  21. First things first by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

  22. And still no Eclipse update... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.