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Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released
palegray.net writes "The latest version of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) has been released. Offering numerous enhancements for both desktop and server environments, this release includes notable features like Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud images, the Ubuntu One 'personal cloud,' and Linux kernel version 2.6.31. Please be sure to use a release mirror close to your geographic location to help reduce the stress on Ubuntu's primary servers; using BitTorrent for downloads can help alleviate the load even more. If your organization has adequate network and server resources, please consider hosting a mirror as well."
A lesson for Windows Engineers. Aim for 256MB, not 2GB. The era of Netbooks is upon us, and it looks like Microsoft will miss the bus.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
You have to incrementally update through each version. If you have 8.04, you have to go to 8.10, then 9.04, then finally 9.10.
The incremental updates can be done through the install updates on your desktop. If you wait too long, you'll have to change your apt sources, so I'd upgrade sooner rather than later.
-=Lothsahn=-
http://www.funnyordie.co.uk/videos/ef83afc272/hosting-your-windows-7-torrenting-party
Don't worry, this one isn't cringe-worthy like the original.
The new Ubuntu seems to have a lot of new stuff that I feel slightly uneasy about. I'm not sure if Ext4 has proven itself yet (then again, I haven't been paying attention), and grub2 isn't even available on Gentoo yet (my somewhat crude stick of measuring when things are considered "new" or not). I like the progress, I'm just interesting in hearing some discussion about it (hal deprecation, new input system, NX, AppArmor, etc).
x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
You can skip from one LTS release to another. eg: 8.04 to 10.04
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes
Karmic Karmic Karmic Karmic Karmic Koala
Download and install
Download and innnnnstaaaalllllll....
Summation 2
Ext4 in Ubuntu 9.10 is specially problematic, as there are reports of corruption when writing large files:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910#Switching%20to%20ext4%20requires%20manually%20updating%20grub
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/453579
Flash has been available for many versions already...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
From the Release Notes.
Possible corruption of large files with ext4 filesystem
There have been some reports of data corruption with fresh (not upgraded) ext4 file systems using the Ubuntu 9.10 kernel when writing to large files (over 512MB). The issue is under investigation, and if confirmed will be resolved in a post-release update. Users who routinely manipulate large files may want to consider using ext3 file systems until this issue is resolved. (453579)
Ubuntu One client requires post-install upgrade
A serious bug in the Ubuntu One client software included in Ubuntu 9.10 that could potentially result in loss of data has led to disabling file syncing access for this client version on the Ubuntu One servers as a precaution. Users who see a "Capabilities Mismatch" error when trying to use Ubuntu One should install the post-release upgrade of the client that will be made available immediately after release, fixing the original bug and restoring file syncing access to the Ubuntu One servers. Files are still available via the web interface at http://one.ubuntu.com./
Contact syncing and tomboy syncing services are not affected by this issue.
Package list must be manually refreshed before installing drivers
The "Hardware Drivers" tool (Jockey) requires up to date package lists before it detects and advertises necessary driver packages. Immediately after a new installation, these package lists will not be present. Before running Jockey for the first time, update the package lists using System->Administration->Software->Update Manager (on Ubuntu) or "KPackageKit" (on Kubuntu). (462704)
/. actually got breaking ubuntu news BEFORE the main site. And people say /. is slow.
I don't understand why the Ubuntu team has never simplified the setup process for Samba. It is simple enough to share a folder with unlimited access, but as soon as you want to create users and passwords, it becomes rather complex. I've had to set it up a couple of times, and I never seem to get it to work quite right.
Many Ubuntu users are also going to be running a Windows machine on their local network. If the goal is to give them a positive experience with Linux, then setting up the connections on the local network should be brain-dead easy. Imagine sending a novice user to this page! They would soon be throwing away their Ubuntu disk and installing Windows.
Making an easy GUI for this configuration process shouldn't be that difficult. I hope that it will be addressed sometime soon.
I have to think those reviews were written by people wearing the rosiest of rose tinged glasses. I mean I'm a die-hard Windows user myself but I did try the Ubuntu 9.10 beta on one of my older laptops and it ran like a dream on the 192 MB of RAM it had in it. On the other hand, Windows 7 on my Acer Aspire One netbook with 1 GB or RAM seemed to run well at first but after a few days, the sluggishness showed through. Little delays here and there and the Aero effects stuttering just started driving me up the wall. I just went on and put XP back on it though, I'm very seriously considering putting Ubuntu on it now. I can't believe it but I finally think Linux might be ready. That beta on my old Toshiba with the 600 MHz Celeron certainly made a believer out of this Windows user.
Kubuntu fans can check the release notes here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicKoala/RC/Kubuntu
Browsing through them, I got the feeling of tired, haggard Kubuntu maintainers congratulating themselves for surviving, but not excelling in, the production of this version which still has many issues. If you read between the lines, you see that there are still quite a number of issues. "The NetworkManager applet has received some loving from its creators, and offers a more robust networking experience than it did in Kubuntu 9.04."
I went to the Feedback page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicKoala/RC/Kubuntu/Feedback to see how KDE would do in this version. This is where you get the honest criticism that tells you what problems you might encounter. Generally people are offering encouragement but the fact is that this version of Kubuntu is still not cutting it. Comments usually start with "Great release! However ... " and then a list of bugs. These are bugs from before. One person says: "all bugs I noticed are still there: broken knetworkmanager, no sending via bluetooth, preview file in dolphin's context menu not working. I tried 9.10 in hope they were corrected, but they weren't."
I myself have been staying with 8.04 since that is the last version that officially supported KDE 3. (I hear that you can now get KDE 3 versions of 8.10 or 9.04, but I don't think those are official.) If I'm going to retrain myself on KDE 4, I might as well wait an extra half year and get the 10.04 Long-Term Support edition --if ever Kubuntu gets around to doing one. (8.04 was LTS for GNOME Ubuntu only, not for Kubuntu.)
I think the Kubuntu developers need to be strongly encouraged to fix existing bugs instead of putting in new features.
As an aside, regarding the "Known Issues" list for standard GNOME Ubuntu:
Release notes http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910
Does anyone else think that there are more and more bugs now, and that Ubuntu simply is not the "install and use defaults" user-friendly distro that it used to be?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Since the Ubuntu BitTorrent-page is not yet updated, here are the links to the official torrents:
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-netbook-remix-i386.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-server-i386.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-server-amd64.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-alternate-i386.iso.torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.10/ubuntu-9.10-alternate-amd64.iso.torrent
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
My experience with 9.10 so far has been extremely positive.
I did an upgrade at first, and then a complete reinstall. The upgrade process went very quickly, and I only had one problem - that my network card became "unmanaged" again. This is some remnant from my 8.10 install back in the day. Besides that, there were no problems and my desktop was exactly as I left it.
The install process from scratch also went well. The partition manager is pretty friendly, and the (I think) new time zone selector is actually easy to use. I also don't need to do a whole bunch of stuff to determine my keyboard layout -- it defaulted to US english and that was that.
The desktop system itself is much improved. The changes to Nautilus are welcome. The side bar is more user friendly, and the folders and such look a lot better.
The notification system has some improvements so it's not quite as useless -- multiple consecutive notifications from the same application drop into the same notification window, and there's a sort of glass effect when you "mouse under" the window, making that absurd behavior a bit more palatable.
My graphics card (GTX 280) was supported after downloading some binary drivers (although I had to restart to enable full desktop effects).
My sound card (X-Fi Fatality edition) is finally supported in kernel, although I had to use amixer in order to get my mic working. The new sound mixer, though, is FAR more user friendly.
I've had no problems so far with EXT4, and my load times in Heroes of Newerth have decreased since the upgrade.
The font rendering. It's much better across the board. Firefox sees the biggest improvement, likely due to the upgrade to 3.5. Font rendering used to be far worse than Windows and is now on par with Mac (I prefer the bolder, smoother look of Mac fonts, personally).
The HDD diagnosis tool is also handy. As soon as the upgrade completed and the tool ran, it warned me of some SMART errors on one of my drives. It's pretty easy to dig into the drives and run diagnostics and such.
Empathy is still bad, and I switched back to pidgin after a few minutes of use. For example, I had to find an hidden check box just to "enable" the account and get it to connect. The UI is also not so hot.
Overall I haven't regretted the upgrade at all, which is more than I can say to 9.04.