Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic Koala) on Netbooks - Part 2 (Netbook Remix)

In Part 1 I discussed some generalities about the new Ubuntu 9.10 distribution, and some issues related to using it on netbook computers. Now it is time to move on to the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a special version produced by Canonical themselves, as opposed to the various "Community" remixes and other derivatives. As I did for the first part, I am using my ASUS N10J netbook for this evaluation. It is a relatively standard netbook, so these comments and observations should be applicable for most netbooks in general.

From the user's perspective, UNR has been changed in two critical ways from the "standard" Ubuntu (Gnome) distribution. First, the usual Gnome desktop with upper and lower Panels has been replaced with a more obvious (blatant) Launcher which lays everything out directly on the desktop. Those who have previously tried the UNR 9.04 release will notice that the desktop has been refined somewhat, and I think the changes make it quite a bit better. The large vertical bar on the right side of the screen, which basically contained the "Places" menu, has been merged into the single remaining left side vertical menu bar. This makes the desktop look much less cluttered and leaves more room for launcher icons, which really should be one of the highest priorities for limited-size netbook screens. In addition, I think the entire desktop looks more "refined", rather than just sort of "everything slapped up there" as it was previously, but that is a very subjective evaluation. Second, application windows are automatically maximized (made full screen) when they are started. They are also represented in the task list, at the top left of the screen, by an icon only, without text. Those icons are your most convenient means of window control and selection, by the way. Simply clicking on them will minimize/unminimize/select the window, and by right-clicking you can then unmaximize, if you really want to have several windows open together on your (presumably small) netbook screen.

Other than merging in Places (now called "Files & Folders"), the content of the menus is essentially the same in Karmic as it was in Jaunty. One nice touch is the "Favorites" menu, which I consider to be sort of the equivalent to having launchers on the Panel or Desktop of the standard Gnome desktop. It gives you a way of having things handy, rather than having to slog through the menus every time to find commonly used programs. When you are in the other menus, you will see a "+" at the top right of the launcher highlight, which you can click to add that launcher to the Favorites menu. I don't recall this from the previous UNR release, and I think it is a good addition.

The top Panel/Task Bar/Title Bar/Whatever has been improved a bit in the Karmic release as well. It resembles the standard Ubuntu (Gnome) panel more closely, with the notifier, shutdown options and the like there, rather than taking space in the main screen menu bar, which seems much more logical to me.

The "selection" effect, which is show when the mouse is over an icon on the desktop, has been completely changed in the new release. Instead of "growing" the icon (my term, I don't know what the proper name for it is), it displays a box with a darker background around the icon. This is certainly less overhead than the old effect (although arguably less "cool" or "flashy"), so I was quite disappointed to find that UNR still needs 3D/GL support in the graphic driver to perform in any reasonably usable way. That means that for netbooks such as my HP 2133 Mini-Note (VIA Chrome 9) and HP Pavillion dv2-1010ez (ATI Radeon 3410), running UNR is out of the question. Of course, by far the most common graphic hardware for netbooks is the Intel 945/950 chipset, and those drivers are more than adequate for UNR.

The Netbook Remix distribution includes a few more packages than the standard Ubuntu distribution, presumably to make the netbook more "user friendly", and a few others have been removed, either to save space or because they aren't considered "typically useful" on netbooks. In the added category are things like Adobe Flash and the Cheese webcam program; while removed includes CD/DVD creators (most netbooks don't have optical drives), GIMP (perhaps they think most netbooks are not up to it, or most netbook users?), XSane (scanner support) and Remote Desktop and Terminal Server Client (not relevant?).

Ok, so much for slogging through a lot of the details. Overall, I like the Karmic Netbook Release better than I did the previous ones. I think it is visually better, clearer, easier to understand and use. Some time ago I set up an HP Mini 2140 with UNR for a friend. I will be seeing her again soon, and I will show her the new UNR release and ask if she would like for me to upgrade it for her.

It will be interesting to see what the future brings for the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Canonical has announced support for Moblin v2, and are providing an "Ubuntu Moblin Remix" for the Dell Mini 10v. I wonder if that will have any impact on the future of the Netbook Remix? Time will tell.

jw 5/11/2009