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Ubuntu 9.04 Is As Slick As Win7, Mac OS X

Posted by kdawson on from the continuous-improvement dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with an opinion piece from ZDNet Australia. "Here's what the official press release won't tell you about Ubuntu 9.04, which formally hit the streets yesterday: its designers have polished the hell out of its user interface since the last release in October. Just like Microsoft has taken the blowtorch to Vista to produce the lightning-quick Windows 7, which so far runs well even on older hardware, Ubuntu has picked up its own game."

11 of 871 comments (clear)

  1. Way faster than 8.10 by cbuosi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Installed Ubuntu 9.04 over my 9.04RC and all i can say that its a lot faster than 8.10 (RC was faster too). And i mean it cause i have a quite old config.

  2. Re:screenshots? by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Informative
    I realize reading TFA is frowned upon, but:

    You won't be able to notice the vast improvement in Ubuntu's desktop experience over the past six months by browsing screenshot galleries of 9.04 or looking at new feature lists. What I'm talking about is that elusive slick-and-speedy feel you get from applications launching fast, windows moving around without jerkiness, and everything simply being where it should be in the user interface.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  3. Re:Polish & slickness are buzzwords by Nerdposeur · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, the author did specify a meaning:

    You won't be able to notice the vast improvement in Ubuntu's desktop experience over the past six months by browsing screenshot galleries of 9.04 or looking at new feature lists. What I'm talking about is that elusive slick-and-speedy feel you get from applications launching fast, windows moving around without jerkiness, and everything simply being where it should be in the user interface.

  4. OT: Debian Squeeze by mpapet · · Score: 4, Informative

    I just upgraded from Lenny to Squeeze and it's in decent shape already.

    At the moment there are no show-stopper bugs for your plain-vanilla desktop use. You can pull kde4.2 from sid too.

    I'm having no performance issues with KDE4.2 eye candy on a Thinkpad T42. Way to go!!

    Note, last week's build of the Squeeze net installer didn't work. Do a basic Lenny install then upgrade into Squeeze.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
  5. Very Impressed with the update by Patman · · Score: 4, Informative

    I just installed 9.04 on my work machine. The upgrade had one minor hiccup, which was quickly fixed(the PCM setting in the volume control was muted). Compared to the 8.10 upgrade, which was an unmitigated disaster, this was refreshing.

    I haven't really seen a noticeable improvement like the article's author has yet; maybe that will change. I can say that this is the first upgrade yet that hasn't required fiddling with Envy or the Restricted Drivers Manager to get my Nvidia card humming nicely.

  6. Consider me impressed. by JoeytheSquid · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have to admit this is the first smooth Ubuntu install I've ever had. It actually detected my wireless adapter right out of the box. No fiddling, no CLI hackery, no sacrifices to the pagan gods of open source (which is good because my lease forbids livestock and the downstairs neighbors frown upon blood dripping through the ceiling.)

    Not bad, not bad at all.

  7. They also don't tell you about nVidia drivers by plasmidmap · · Score: 5, Informative

    An upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04 hosed my polished UI yesterday because there were no nvidia glx drivers available for download. That was a bit of a shock and annoyance, but it's my own fault for not checking its availability before hitting upgrade.

    Seems like there is one now in the repos but I think there's a lot of traffic because I can't seem to update.

    Patiently waiting... still love Ubuntu.

    1. Re:They also don't tell you about nVidia drivers by plasmidmap · · Score: 5, Informative

      Now the driver has downloaded and it looks fantastic! I spoke too soon.

  8. Re:I love Ubuntu... by pnutjam · · Score: 5, Informative

    Try mint. They should have their 9.04 based version out soon, but 6 works pretty nice. Hulu and youtube out of the box, not to mention, DVD playback and everything else. Plus you get to use Ubuntu repositories for other packages.
    Best desktop distribution IMHO.

    --
    Cheap storage VM.
  9. Re:Dual Monitors - No Sweat by TurboNed · · Score: 5, Informative

    All it needs now is a "Launch World of Warcraft from my Windows partition" menu entry, and it'll take the world by storm.

    You do realize that you can do this with Wine, right? It's how I play. I never ran the installer in Linux, I just told Wine to launch Wow.exe on the NTFS partition and it worked.

  10. Re:screenshots? by bwhaley · · Score: 4, Informative

    Youtube demos this pretty well, IMHO:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h905pHzkXPw

    --
    "I either want less corruption, or more chance
    to participate in it." -- Ashleigh Brilliant