Jamie's Random Musings
Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Linux, Windows XP and Widows Vista, and assorted bits of hardware new and old.
Monday 2 November 2009, 3:09 PM
Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) - Mixed Impressions
As I have said previously, one of the biggest changes in Ubuntu is the switch to GRUB 2, at least for new/clean installations. I don't do upgrades on this kind of software, so I have no direct experience with that, but if I understand correctly, installing Karmic as an upgrade to an existing pre-Karmic Ubuntu release will leave Legacy GRUB intact. What I would say is, if you have never done anything or changed anything with GRUB or its configuration files, you're likely to be ok either way. If you have changed GRUB in any way previously, you are likely to be in for a surprise if you make a clean install. Be prepared to read the release documents carefully.
I have seen one other problem so far. When I install on my ASUS N10J, it seems the the installer (Ubiquity) crashes near the end - I think it is during the finall installation and cleanup. The install has progressed far enough that I am left with a functioning system, but certain things are wrong - for one, it will not automatically mount USB disks, and several packages that should have been deleted (such as gparted) are still present. I haven't been able to isolate this far enough to really pin it down, though.
I have also heard from a few people who have other problems, in particular with installing on an HP 2133 Mini-Note. Again, I always make clean installations, and it works just fine for me, but it seems that upgrade installations run into problems with things like sound and wireless networking. Again, be careful.
Last, but certainly not least, the release of Ubuntu is creeping even more in the "commercial" direction, with the addition of things like Ubuntu One, the Software Soure (or whatever it is called), and the likes. If you are a Linux/FOSS "purist", you really need to think very carefully before installing Ubuntu, and look at some of those things.
I have installed Karmic on my Fujitsu S6510 Lifebook, HP 2133 Mini-Note, HP Pavillion dv2-1010ez, and ASUS N10J, with only the few problems mentioned above.
My next few days will be spent looking at UNR 9.10 and the Kubuntu netbook release. I hope to find some nice things to talk about there!
jw
PreviousComments on this post
Some good points. I've been getting steaily more uneasy about ubuntu because of the blurring of the FOSS-Closed line.
interesting viewpoint in that you seem to buck the trend (not getting over-excited/caught up by the hype).
I installed 9.10 on my main laptop, and apart from 1 single occasion where I needed to use specific software, I haven't reverted to Windoze in all this time.
That said, I, too, have noticed a couple of problems.
1. on booting up, the splashscreen fails, and has to switch to another resolution. If I have the time (& inclination) I'll hunt up some more info about this, & try to fix it.
2. less of a problem, but annoying nonetheless; Handbrake no longer works in ubuntu. apparently this will be fixed in the next version, but until then I have no way to convert video for various handheld devices.
small niggles, but I'm enjoying the hell out of 9.10 so far, and the fact that I've spent longer in it at a single stretch than at any other time is testament to the overall feel of the OS.
> creeping even more in the "commercial" direction, with the addition of things like Ubuntu One
I thought the source code for Ubuntu One was going to be opened up? I know there were lots of complaints about Canonical's Launchpad service, which were possibly premature:
http://blog.launchpad.net/general/launchpad-is-now-open-source
And it sounds like yet again hardware support is the biggest bugbear (if you can squeeze Grub 2 into that category!!).
Looking forward to hearing about how you get on with ubuntu netbook remix. I'm not a big fan of the maximus window maximiser, let us know how you get on!
I try not to get caught up the the hype, although sometimes it is so overwhelming that it's difficult to avoid.
Sometimes it seems like what I do more than anything else is just load the various distributions I am interested in on the rather wide variety of hardware that I have available. I think that results in me being more interested in base functionality and usability than in the flashy parts that seem to generate most of the public clamor. That is why I run into things like the change to GRUB 2, and integration of new/updated drivers, sooner than most.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
jw
The more I read about this first wave of problems and complaints about Ubuntu 9.10, the more I am starting to think that most of it has to do with X.org and kernel mode setting. Fedora seems to have had to start dealing with this a little sooner than Ubuntu did, based on the complaints about it I found in their forums. Too bad Ubuntu didn't get a chance (or take the chance, I don't know which) to learn from that.
In short, it seems that with some graphic controllers, most prominently older Intel controllers, X.org tries to use kernel mode setting and it doesn't work, to the point of giving a black screen, which you can't even switch to a text console. Pretty much the worst scenario imaginable, because for most people and most situations, the computer is "dead".
I can only say that on the various systems I have tried, this has not been a problem. Those include the following graphic controllers:
- Intel 965
- Intel 945/950
- ATI Radeon 200M
- ATI Radeon 3410
- VIA Chrome 9
All of these worked properly, when I made a clean installation of Karmic. I can not speak for an upgrade installation, as I don't do that with my Linux systems.
I haven't tried my ASUS N10J with the nVidia GeForce 9300 graphic controller enabled yet. I will try that in the near future.
jw
I had some problems upgrading my Dell Vostro 1500 notebook too...
First problem was with WifiRadar. It didn't work at all. Fixed uninstalling it.
Te second problem was a kernel panic... Don't know why... Reported via launchpad...
There are little annoyances too... for example the login sound sounds almost four seconds before the login screen appears... or the graphical boot process it's interrupted, a character screen appears one second and then the graphical boot process continue... Nothing of this happened with 9.04...
Regards,
Daniel
Jake: the complaints about Launchpad were hardly premature. it's great that Canonical finally open sourced it, but they were promising to do so for literally years before they finally actually did. The complaints came during the period from, oh, one year after they initially said it'd be open sourced, up until the time it actually _was_ :)
@dvanzo - Yes, I have noticed the odd delay between the startup sound and the login screen, and the graphic/text/graphic jumps. I shrugged them off as insignificant cosmetic flaws, but my tolerance for those sorts of things is pretty high, and in fact they really can be distracting.
I haven't had a kernel panic yet on any of my machines, nor any WiFi problems. I have to say honestly, though, I was quite surprised when the installer crashed on my ASUS N10J, because as far as I know that is a very standard netbook. In particular, because it crashes so late in the installation that you are still left with an incomplete but still apparently functional system, inexperienced users will very likely not even realize that something went wrong. But the resulting system clearly has some problems, and behaves oddly in some common situations, such as plugging in a USB disk. It is disturbing to hear of such problems, and the graphic problems that are getting a lot of attention right now, in such a ballyhooed release.
Ubuntu is getting a heck of a lot of publicity right now, because of the rash of "Window 7 vs. Ubuntu 9.10" articles. It would be a shame if a lot of new users tried Ubuntu as a result of that and ran into these kinds of things, and thus got a bad impression of LInux.
jw
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