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Thats rather strange; you may wish to lodge a bug report with Ubuntu because that will cause some major issues for those who are trying to do upgrades rather than a clean install.

The official upgrade instructions are on http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/tribe5 namely

Upgrading from Feisty

If you upgrade from feisty, please make sure that you have update-manager 0.59.23 from feisty-updates installed. Then run "update-manager -d"

Worked fine on my PPC Powerbook, with one minor reported bug in that I had to manually remove evms package. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evms/+bug/115616
But that's what alphas are for finding out.

Note however there is a bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/141060 which can cause problems in getting update-manager to see the new test release.

If you can't stand that sort of bug, wait until the official release. But my thanks to everyone who helps the testing!

Edited 2007-09-24 09:41

Yes, and this why I suggested that a bug to be filed against the issue - yes, alpha/beta there to find out those bugs, but if you don't report those bugs, they won't get fixed.

I never slammed Ubuntu or the beta, I slammed those who do find bugs, whine on osnews, then wonder why those bugs aren't fixed when the 'gold master' is shipped.

I've been hearing the tired old "this is the year of desktop Linux" since revolutionary Mandrake Linux 9.0 was released way back in 2003! I've used Ubuntu Linux off an on for about a year and a half and the one thing that has always struck me about the Ubuntu community is that everyone there seems to live in a perpetual state of waiting for the next big release. Once it drops, then the nitpicking begins and then it's "wait for the next release..." ad nauseum! There's no denying that Ubuntu isa fantastic Linux OS for personal desktops (for servers, I prefer pure Debian, but that's another topic.) The Ubuntu community needs to perhaps slow down and analyze each release and work out needed improvements before dropping a release only to move immediately to the next one. That's why there are niggling little bugs that have persisted since Hoary!

Hehe :-)

Welcome to the growing crowd of "this is the year of desktop Linux" sayers.

I am saying this phrase now since 2001, because that was the time, when I first was able to use a complete Linux Desktop (Mandriva 7 I think), without having to boot into Windows for anything I wanted to do (except gaming, and that was not critical for me).

Since then, every year someone in the press anounces a year of desktop Linux.

Well, THE year of the Desktop Linux will be, when at most PC-stores you can select either Windows or Linux or both (!) for your PC, without one of the two being in any way "undermarketed".

On the other hand, MY year of Desktop Linux has already happened. And somebody else's year of Desktop Linux might never happen.

But it is a good sign that Dell started, giving feedback to the community, about what needs to be improved to get from the backrow of the shelfs to the front.

Wait until the stable release then.

My laptop's battery is dead (not even 1.5yrs old) so can't help you on this one.

My battery is dead also, I am considering a new dell, thus my curiosity. Perhaps Eugenia will weigh in.

Well, when I first ran Gutsy, it had the same battery life as Windows Vista (translate, not very good at all) then I put Debian Sid back on there for a while and it was much better. But now It's working much better and I have quite long lasting battery.

Also as a side note, the battery monitor actually works properly now for my Logitech Wireless Mouse as well. If it's low on juice, it pops up (which was working before) but now it actually tells me it's charging and when it's fully charged. Very nice addition

So for anyone who was wondering about battery life, or just saving power in general, the future looks bright:

http://www.lesswatts.org/results/mobile/

All you have to do on a debian based system for cpu-freq to work is run 'dpkg-reconfigure gnome-applets' or on Ubuntu 'sudo dpkg-reconfigure gnome-applets' then it'll explain why it's not available in the first place, and give you a warning about it running SUID, then once you enable it, just add the CPU Frequency Scaling applet to your panel and it works. At least it does for both my AMD64 Desktop and my Intel Centrino Laptop. I did notice that Fedora 7 has this enabled by default.

CPU frequency scaling is handled by default. We don't support manual overriding out of the box because:

a) it's difficult to do in a way that doesn't allow denial of service, and
b) the kernel generally knows better than you, especially now that the ondemand governor is well tuned.

The only machines where it won't work automatically are Celerons (which don't support voltage scaling, so there's little point in frequency scaling) and some older Pentium 4s (which have similar issues, with the addition of extra latency to make the experience even worse). If you're having problems with another chip, please do file a bug.

Yeah, that's basically what I said Fedora 7 has manual override on by default, under Debian and Ubuntu you have to reconfigure the gnome-applets to set SUID for manual override and it does give the appropriate warning.

Sometimes I like to use it when I'm watching a movie on my laptop while using my battery so that it doesn't use it all up, since usually to make smooth DVD playback, the CPU tries to jack itself up to maximum, even though the 798Mhz that it runs as the slowest speed works. Though I have found that under Windows XP, there was a slower speed that the CPU could clock itself too, and I had it working under Linux as well at one point, but I had to modify some files which I can't recall at the moment.

as soon as possible: this will next year, from MS point of view ;-)

What exactly defines "The year of the LINUX Desktop"

If it means increased market share then the last 5 years have qualified.

It will NEVER wipe out Windows so stop dreaming.

As far as LINUX being ready for the desktop, I believe it is there, I think it was more or less there with Edgy. Everything since has just been frosting.

I think OO.o has incorporated the efforts by this project http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/

thx, so .docx import should be availible on windows oo.org 2.3 too ?!
I thought the XLS based slolution was rejected by sun, to be replaced by an c++ implementation

Edited 2007-09-24 20:21

I'm a GNOME god.

No, seriously: right-click on an unused area of any panel, Properties, Background tab, select "solid colour", mess with the "style" slider.

Enjoy.

Edited 2007-09-23 15:59 UTC

Always wanted to do that, thanks for the tip Thom.

It's a shame the transparency in the GNOME panels isn't 'real' transparency, it's merely a faded imprint of whats behind the panel set as it's background.
If you are using a compositing manager (like Thom is in the review) the gnome-panel transparency is "real" in that it is hardware accelerated.

Gnome 2.20's foundation is gtk 2.12. This version has some serious improvements for composite awareness and using it to it's fullest capacity.

http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Ubuntu+Grass+%28Logo...

perfect, thanks!

You misunderstood me. I am not saying the messed up upgrade is good - I'm saying that the fact that I can now do a fresh install is good. That is something completely different. A fresh install is much better from a reviewer's perspective, as it creates a much more objective environment.

Edited 2007-09-23 16:53 UTC

The one time I tried a dist-upgrade, I corruped my system so massively (like ls and pwd wouldn't find all the files I could see in nautilus) that I was forced to wipe the drive and install Xubuntu 6.06 from scratch.

IIRC Ubuntu actually reccomended that people not do the dist upgrade to get from 6.06 to 6.11, there were so many corrupted installs.

What does this say about the upcomming Gutsy Gibbon release?

That you should follow the recommended procedure of using update-manager instead of dist-upgrade? lol

It's somewhat ridiculous to do so, if the usual way should be an upgrade without new install in Linux. You know like the professionals, not Windows *g*

Most people with a clue put /home in its own partition so that you keep all your data and configuration and can have the luxury of doing a fresh install with the assurance that all your settings and files are preserved across installations.

Edited 2007-09-23 21:46

Most people, in this case don't include your average user, or your average distro maker because the default is not to put them in their own partition but to put them all on one partition. Most users just run through the defaults. You can't really blame them for that.

Apoclypse,

I agree. I actually think it's a bug not to default to having /home in its own partition. I even filed such a bug report with Ubuntu a while back.

I am not blaming the average user for this as, by definition, they don't have the time or interest to understand partitioning schemes. It is the job of the distributor to inform and educate the user, which can be done with a simple tooltip in the partitioning tool.

Mandrake since time immemorial has put /home in its own partition, which made my initial tribulations with Linux much easier as I had the certainty and assurance of keeping my data safe and being able to reinstall at will.

So, I am not disagreeing with you. I think we, more technically inclined users, owe to our friends and family to help them understand some of these issues, such as partitioning. Eventually, though, I hope to see all desktop distributions default to a separate /home partition.

You obviously didn't get it.

1. It was the author's fault, he didn't follow instructions for upgrading and payed the price. If you did something stupid like that on windows you'd end up with broken windows as well. If anything, Thom deserves a beating for FUD spreading.

2. This is a BETA. When Vista BETA had bugs people didn't cry sh*t about it either.

So, next time, please do your research.

Like I said. You don't use a sledgehammer to hammer in a 1.2mm by 3cm nail. GIMP is absolute overkill for very minor image editing needs - stuff like resizing, cropping, blurring out email addresses, and so on.

In fact, to this day, I haven't found nor a Linux GNOME, nor an OSX application similar to Pain.NET. A simple yet powerful image editor for those smaller tasks that do not need a Photoshop-grade application.

Edited 2007-09-23 17:53 UTC

What about KolourPaint?

Oh noes, that means there's more applications in the KDE menu. Of course that causes bloat/fluff/slowness because there's an extra application that apparently people want actually? what a surprise... Gimp isn't even all that useful these days anymore anyways, at least for HDR photography.

So Thom, how long has gaim supported resizing, cropping, and blurring? Is this a new plugin? </sarcasm>

Edit:
If you like paint.NET so much, why not use it on Linux?
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/May-15-1.html

Edited 2007-09-23 17:53

I always use gthumb for resizing, cropping, etc, but don't know about blurring email addresses.

"application similar to Pain.NET"

Nice Freudian slip.

Try kolourpaint. I don't know Paint.NET, but kolourpaint is just MS Paint on stereoids. And it received quite some work in KDE 4 as well. Imho we now have a decent range of applications -> Kolourpaint for the basics, Showfoto (from digikam) for photo editing, and Krita for real painting. And Gimp, of course, for those who hate themselves.

MS Paint no, it's too limited, no but Paint.Net definitedly!
I dislike very much Gimp weird interface (I've never used Photoshop so this is not related) whereas I found Paint.Net relatively easy to learn (for my limited usage).

And if a MS Paint-like application is needed there's always GNU Paint from the add/remove programs tool.

Edited 2007-09-24 01:26

Gimp is horrible, Inkscape way over the top as well. If I just want to rescale & crop a picture, with some effects, Showfoto does better. If I want to change a few more things, I often use Kolourpaint (the paint thing Thom believes doesn't exist on linux. typical.). I use Krita for the complex stuff, and only start Gimp if I need a good laugh.

Sigh. Reading is very difficult, isn't it? I said that I never *found* a decent one. I did not say: "it does not exist".

Reading is difficult, I know.

Sorry. Well, at least you can now be a happy happy guy - the app you where seeking for exists. Enjoy.

and only start Gimp if I need a good laugh.

If you think that your bashing to GTK+ applications will makes us switch to Krita or KDE think again, it really sucks that a good project like KDE is infected with trolls like you.

Edited 2007-09-24 16:57

Nah, you shouldn't. And I'm not really bashing, merely stating the obvious. Or would you say Gimp is the pinnacle of usability? Promoting it as a Photoshop alternative is a good way to scare ppl away from linux. Thom is right when he asks for an easy to use paint app. It took me some time to find one, but I did find it in Kolourpaint. And as I wrote, I occasionally use Krita.

Anyway, sorry, I do get carried away sometimes. I should not transfer real-life frustrations on G-apps...

I'm not using Devil's Pie. I was just looking for a way to do what I described I wanted to do. Didn't know the place plugin took care of these matters. Thanks.

There are so many plugins, it's sometimes hard to see the trees through the forest.

Update: Damn, that place plugin is impossible to use. What a mess to configure.

What I want is this: right click application entry in the menu or in the taskbar, and just select: confine to workspace x. That's it.

Edited 2007-09-23 17:59 UTC

If you use KWin as windowdecorator in Compiz, does that use the KWin functionality or only the look? If it uses the functionality, you have all this kind of stuff in there by using rmb on window -> special window settings. There you can set anything you want on an application.

And having all that in a submenu - what, are you insane? ;-)

(this is one of the things I'm happy KWin gets compositing - Compiz is still behind on the REAL windowmanagment. Of course, a Gnome user is used to Metacity, so they actually have MORE with compiz).

Don't get me started on that one. Metacity is a downright MESS. I'm so happy with Compiz/Emerald.

Well, I wouldn't say mess, as far as I can tell - it's just a bit too basic for my taste.

That's not a contradiction at all. Preference panels are just that - preference panels, and not applications. Tabs in preference panels have absolutely nothing to do with those in applications.

I detest tabs in applications because to me, each window represents a different workflow, and therefore, I want to manipulate it as one. When I'm instant messaging, I may have, say, 4 different conversations. Some of those are highly active and important - I want those to be bigger. Other ones might only get like one msg each 30 minutes - those can be small. Even other ones, like the conversations I have with Eugenia, are little blurbs of activity for like 5 minutes, then nothing for 3 hours, and then another blurb of activity. Each of those different cases requires its own window size.

On top of that, I want *one* place to switch between workflows - the taskbar. When you use tabs, more often than not you end up with multiple places to switch workflows (the tab bar in Firefox, the tab bar in Pidgin, the taskbar itself, and so on).

Utter, utter, hell. Tabbed applications are the seed of the devil for someone like me. The only thing I hate more in graphical user interfaces are vertical text labels.

Imagine my horror when I see a vertially text labeled... Tab.

Edited 2007-09-23 18:31 UTC

Funny. To me, every application should use tabs. Office applications the most - I heard OO.org is moving towards that and I await that day. There's nothing I hate more than having N windows opened for the same application. I even would love a Fluxbox-like "tabbing" of different applications being implemented on all window managers...

By the way, I think this just demonstrates that the possibility of personalization must be king, instead of relying on the "the dumbest fits all" mentality of some usability experts (yes, GNOME folks, that's for you, sorry).

Yes i like Gnome but only with compiz-fusion,kiba-dock,devil-spie and mac4lin. You can't say compiz-fusion and co don't have enough options to set.