Submitted by Bang on target, the new version of Ubuntu Linux is available for our downloading pleasure. Amongst various changes it sports updates to the installer, improved networking, and a new ‘Mobile USB’ version geared towards the blossoming netbook market. Grab a copy from the Ubuntu website, and check out Linux Format’s hands-on look. Or the one at Simple Thoughts. Or the one at PolishLinux. And probably a few other websites as well.
Ubuntu 8.10, also known as Intrepid Ibex, comes – as usual – with the latest versions of all popular open source software packages, such as Linux kernel version 2.6.27 (which has the new Atheros driver, improved webcam support, and support for the UBFIS file system, among other things), GNOME 2.24 (with its associated improvements), and X.org 7.4.
X.org 7.4 delivers improved hotplugging for input devices, welcomed by many desktop users. Ubuntu 8.10 also packs Network Manager 0.7, which brings support for 3G and PPPoE connections. Another notable improvement is Dynamic Kernel Module Support, a framework originating from Dell that magically recompiles kernel modules when the kernel has been updated.
Some things didn’t make the cut, such as OpenOffice 3.0, Mono 2.0, and Python 2.6. Empathy, which normally comes with GNOME 2.24, also isn’t included; the Ubuntu team decided to stick with Pidgin for now, with Empathy making its debut in the next Ubuntu release.
More information can be found in the release notes. As always, Kubuntu and the other variants also saw new releases. Kubuntu ships with KDE 4.1.2.
Ubuntu: http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.p…
Kubuntu: http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.p…
Xubuntu: http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.p…
That is some ugly wallpaper on Ubuntu.
Edited 2008-10-30 20:44 UTC
Ubuntu screenshots just seem pointless
ooo.. more brown.. and it’s still gnome!
Kubuntu 8.10 is neither brown nor GNOME.
http://www.thecodingstudio.com/opensource/linux/screenshots/index.p…
If you can’t abide the Kickoff menu, then just add the Lancelot menu item to your panel instead.
As an added extra-special bonus, it comes with no Mono installed!
Be warned though … some nvidia cards have a serious 2D graphics bug which greatly slows down performance of KDE 4, Firefox 3 and OpenOffice 3 on Linux systems, so KDE 4 may not be right for you.
http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/Is_KDE_4.1_for_you%3F
If KDE4 is not for you, you might consider Ubuntu Studio, also released today, which is still GNOME but not brown.
http://ubuntustudio.org/screenshots
TBH, if I want it to look good, I’d just use the Dust theme (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/DustTheme), which looks great if you like dark themes. Much better than Ubuntu Studios theme
Why should anyone want to use Kubuntu? Kubuntu’s KDE is really bad generally and 8.10 made it worse.
On my work PC where (K)Ubuntu is installed, KNotify crashes constantly, user management is no longer in SystemSettings but in a separate app called KUser, Adept is as bad as ever, translations where imported very lousy, and the system tray is completely broken.
Just have a look at this screenshot: http://picasaweb.google.com/kamikazow/KDE#5263349303565209554
Nobody and nothing keeps you from choosing a different wallpaper, theme, DE or bootsplash.
Take a look at Gnome-look, KDE-look, XFCE-look or god-knows-what-else-look.
If you want to turn your desktop into a Christmas tree or Disco, you are free to do so.
Doing a dist-upgrade as I type, and needless to say, the download-speeds aren’t as great as the use to be
se.archive.ubuntu.org that is…
If you can bear with a scratch install, use the torrent. It’s way more social, anyways… avoiding to piss off the ubuntu mirror providers and leaving the mirrors for the people who cannot fetch from torrents.
http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/8.10/ubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.i…
http://releases.ubuntu.com/releases/8.10/ubuntu-8.10-desktop-amd64….
Downloading ubuntu-alternate-amd64 and xubuntu-desktop-i386. I was already beta testing intrepid, but I will be doing a fresh install.
If I didn’t need Skype I wouldn’t have to bother with i386, dammit.
If it helps, those who need to download the ISOs, I have opened up one of my Dedicated Boxes. The ISOs can be downloaded from http://Ubuntu8.pAsM-Mirrors.com . I uploaded the iso and tested a download, it took only 34 minutes. Happy Downloading
I did all my dist updates on Wednesday so they were very fast, as I knew it would be crawling once it was released.
Support Mark and get cool swag:
https://shop.canonical.com/
( I wish the wearables were a bit more subtle/classic .. just the circle of friends in one color .. but arguing about taste. )
Or you could just do what I do when a new update comes out: donate the cost of 2 extra large deluxe pizzas and a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew to the cause.
Coders can’t live on love alone, y’know.
.. Oh, I get it, it’s an Ibex! LOL
Thankfully, backgrounds are not hard-coded
Love the background try it with the “darkroom” theme
Just in case this happens to you:
I did a dist-upgrade to 8.10 from 8.04. When it got to the stage of upgrading some mono packages, it tried to stop and start Apache. I don’t know what it was doing, but it hung forever (I let it sit there for several hours). Finally, I realized it was never going to finish. I tried hitting Ctrl-C, but that would have killed the whole upgrade and would have required me to install from scratch. The key was to open a terminal and do a “killall apache2”, which allowed the process to continue.
I reported this at Launchpad, but I thought it might save someone out there from having to re-install their system.
No, apt-get is much more robust than that. You can ctrl+C and restart most of the time. You should also keep in mind that for ubuntu, apt-get dist-upgrade is not the recommended method: update-manager -d is.
To clarify, I was doing update-manager -d. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I restarted the process. Thanks for the input.
One other “show stopper I had is logging into gnome after the upgrade. After logging in, I never got to the desktop, it would just sit there with the brown background. KDE worked, so I figured it was just gnome being picky about the network. The wireless card was buggy after the upgrade. I have to enter my WEP key 2 or 3 times each time I login for it to “take” with 8.10. I’ve seen that as a common problem with 8.10. Anyway, the gnome solution was to 1 time do the “gnome safe mode” session (or whatever it is called). I then made it to the desktop, and I’ve had no trouble since. Upgrades always represent a challenge, but with Ubuntu this is actually the first time I’ve had any. I remember going from 7.04 to 7.10 to 8.04 without a problem. I don’t think these issues were that major, but they might throw some people off so I posted the solutions.
Edited 2008-10-30 19:32 UTC
Why is Ubuntu’s boot splash still as boring as Windows XP? and why when I hit escape do I get a horrid dos like screen.
Fedora and Suse both have much nicer terminal fonts and layouts during boot.
Also even Grub on Ubuntu is dissapointing.
Ubuntu artwork in general is usually fairly horrid. I think that they believe in having an ugly identity as opposed to no identity at all.
then again the boot splash in fedora was more hit and miss and often didn’t work.
The best of the bunch is really suse. It really is nice and most of all it is consistent all the way to the gui.
You know, not every place on earth share the western preferences for color schemes (thank GOD). I think it’s pretty nice that not very distro base their schemes on dull blue.
Well, that “horrid dos like screen” is what keeps one sane when booting an ubuntu-system, those few times that happens…(kernle/dist-upgrade).
Come on! Whats with beutiful colors and moving bars when booting the system? Isn’t it much much better to be able to watch what happens? It’s one big thing I miss in front of a windows-system(possibly OSX to but not that much exp. with that one
) To know what is going on…
(yeah, im serious, some might not hink I am…)
Have you checked out Fedora’s terminal screen recently, yes you can see all the modules and services being loaded/started, but it looks nice too.
Don’t get me wrong I like Ubuntu a lot, but that doesn’t mean we can’t wish for a better boot splash and boot terminal screen.
Why is Ubuntu’s boot splash still as boring as Windows XP?
Maybe the bootsplash wasn’t a priority this time? Anyway, you only see it at boot. I hope you spend most of the time on the desktop and not in the boot process.
and why when I hit escape do I get a horrid dos like screen.
That is per design. If something goes wrong,you can hit [ESC] and see the dmesg screen, which does tell a lot to people familiar with it. That “horrid DOS like screen” tells you what the system is doing in the boot process; where it succeeds and where it fails. It is a great help with troubleshooting. If you aren’t in to console screens, just don’t hit [ESC].
All this, for free! Zilch. Nadda. Gratis.
We all need to sit back and think about that a bit more.
… while we download the distribution =)
Naah, we need to complain (also known as “whine like spoiled brats”) about how the colors are “ugly”, how Ubuntu does not “contribute”, how Ubuntu generally sucks etc etc ad infinitum.
Edited 2008-10-30 19:16 UTC
it also is a shitty debian distro!
ha! take that!
32 Bit Desktop Torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.10/ubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.iso.torren…
64 Bit Desktop Torrent
http://releases.ubuntu.com/8.10/ubuntu-8.10-desktop-amd64.iso.torre…
Use the torrent if possible avoid direct download from site and keep the site alive for other use.
So I just installed the 8.10 version via apt-get and dist-upgrade, worked flawlessly, besides it kicked out my virtual-box kernel-modules.. well, soon fixed…
HAve a question tho, you that have also installed the new version, do you get diagonal lines in FF text-boxes that aren’t “in focus”? Like the adress-bar and search-field? Just a quick question, not much to fuss about…
I don’t know if i’m doing anything wrong, but i updated to 8.10 from a working 8.04, and now all i get is a blank screen. Try to open a text console, and dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, reboot and blank screen again. Now, i can’t say i’m very happy with the new release
What? A problem upgrading a Linux OS? I thought that never happened, except to Windows. From what I hear on these boards, anyway.
lol, never said linux is free from problems! sometimes it can be as frustrating as windows
at least they are ‘your’ problems that you can do something about.
When’s the last time anyone “upgraded” a windows OS?
I thought an “upgrade” these days was identical to a fresh install except for the license. You still lose your applications and settings and have to start over…
I think XP has a wizard for keeping settings across XP installs, but what about “upgrading” to vista…can you even do that?
“I thought an “upgrade” these days was identical to a fresh install except for the license. You still lose your applications and settings and have to start over…”
Actually no. If you run an upgrade, your settings and programs all remain. You can do a fresh install off the media, which is recommended for any OS, including Linux. If you have stored your Windows settings elsewhere, like on another drive or partition, then you will not lose them. Same as with Linux, it needs to be on another partition or drive, or you will lose them as well.
BTW that’s not recommended for linux – depends on the specific distribution, of course. But many don’t recommend that at all. The ubuntu’s don’t, and distro’s like Arch linux even NEVER ask you to do an upgrade – the benefit of a rolling-release schedule.
Yeah, it’s just like Windows. Completely trouble free. At least that what people here are telling me that Windows is.
Edited 2008-10-31 07:38 UTC
dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg? Uh…that’s been gone for, well, this is the 3rd release where that doesn’t reconfigure your graphics. It’s just for keyboard and mouse. X doesn’t even need an xorg.conf anymore. It’s supposed to auto-config. Did you by any chance install drivers from ATI’s site instead of from the repos, then forget that you need to recompile them on kernel updates?
omg, actually it worked for me a week ago while trying to make a graphics card display something on the screen.
And i didn’t even have time to install the amd propietary driver! Actually i remember i had to turn off that driver with 8.04 to make x work.
I’m starting to think it’s something related with hardware combination (x1950 pro and nforce3 250 chipset).
A lot of hardware manufacturers like to actively hide information away from open source projects and write Windows-only drivers for their hardware, in some sort of hard-to-understand effort to apparently restrict the market they can sell their hardware to.
Weird, I know, but anyway …
For this reason, IMO, it is always better to download (or get via the post) a liveCD version of a Linux distribution, and test it on your hardware before installing it. Having done that, if you keep your /home directories on a separate partition, it is possible to just fresh install the new distribution right over the top of your existing one without any loss of user data.
This doesn’t help your current situation, I know, but it might be worth thinking about to avoid a recurrence of what you have now. As far as I know, none of this (liveCD to test before installing, able to download legally or get via post for a few $ only, user files on a separate partition, fresh install in 20 minutes without losing any user data) is possible with a Windows setup, so it probably is a bit of foreign thinking for many people.
Edited 2008-10-30 23:27 UTC
“As far as I know, none of this (liveCD to test before installing, able to download legally or get via post for a few $ only, user files on a separate partition, fresh install in 20 minutes without losing any user data) is possible with a Windows setup, so it probably is a bit of foreign thinking for many people.”
You are right on the LiveCD, download legally, and post for only a few $.
It is definitely possible and quite common in windows to have the user files kept on a separate drive or partition. Granted, that is in a business setting where there are System Administrators, and a machine off the shelf usually does everything in one large partition. Also a re-install of windows normally only takes about 20-30 minutes for me, same as with a Linux install.
Exactly so. Most users would not be at all confident in partitioning their drive, and so Microsoft sees to it that most machines are shipped with Windows occupying a single partition taking up the entire disk, which is a moderately effective strategy to keep most users from being able to dual boot (and hence discover Linux).
Wubi is your friend here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_(installer)
Meh.
It typically takes a lot longer than that with three reboots for just the OS, several other installation CDs for motherboard and video card and printer drivers, also requiring a reboot each time, and yet more installation CDs for basic applications such as a virus scanner and an Office suite (some of these even requiring a reboot).
Then you may have to spend 20 minutes on the phone getting it re-activated or registered or whatever.
Typically a Windows install disk is a couple of years old, and so there will be tons of updates to download and install (some of which you really don’t want but can’t refuse) … whereas an Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex liveCD (released just today) is far more up-to-date with correspondingly way less updates to contend with.
Edited 2008-10-31 00:23 UTC
“It typically takes a lot longer than that with three reboots for just the OS, several other installation CDs for motherboard and video card and printer drivers, also requiring a reboot each time, and yet more installation CDs for basic applications such as a virus scanner and an Office suite (some of these even requiring a reboot).”
Well, we were talking just the OS itself. To have my system totally ready from a bare system on a rebuild, with my scanner and printer working, as well as webcam and office software, takes a total time of 60 minutes. So 1 hour from bare bones to being completely ready on the windows side. For Linux in the same scenario, by the time I have it configured to see everything and work just as good as windows takes about 60 minutes as well from start to finish. In the Linux case however it is the hardware that takes a bit to get working properly, as Office software and the like is already there. I will agree with you on that point.
“Then you may have to spend 20 minutes on the phone getting it re-activated or registered or whatever.”
I have heard of this, though I have never personally experienced it. Due to my constant learning and purposely breaking things at times, this system has been rebuilt with the same Windows XP retail cd about 20 times. Most likely I have not had to call as the system itself has not changed.
“Typically a Windows install disk is a couple of years old, and so there will be tons of updates to download and install (some of which you really don’t want but can’t refuse) … whereas an Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex liveCD (released just today) is far more up-to-date with correspondingly way less updates to contend with.”
No disagreement on this score at all. Is one place where Linux does shine IMO.
Hmm, I’ve tried keeping user files separate in windows and having a similar setup to the Linux way – but windows just isn’t designed to work like that. Applications dont work correctly and its definitely not possible to do a fresh install of a LATER VERSION of the OS and yet still keep your data and settings intact (as it is with almost any Linux).
Also, 20-30 minutes to install windows would be ONLY the base OS. Linux could IN THEORY be installed in about 2 minutes with all the functionality that windows has “out of the box”.
A windows install, whilst keeping all of your applications and settings intact (including ALL of your applications upgraded to latest versions if available), would be impossible in say less than 2 hours…
You’d need to install each application individually, and a lot of windows apps come on CD or DVD making the process a lot more tedious.
You may prefer windows for many other things and I dont question that…
but OS installs and upgrades are one area where Linux simply smashes the competition, mainly due to the UNIX-like design.
Another thing I hated about windows was when upgrading a motherboard or something – it would refuse to boot due to drivers etc and often a reinstall was necessary, followed by all my applications and then settings. In Linux, it’d just boot right up with the new hardware – no setup needed.
I know there are reasons for that – but yeah, just pointing out a couple areas where Linux really is better.
“A windows install, whilst keeping all of your applications and settings intact (including ALL of your applications upgraded to latest versions if available), would be impossible in say less than 2 hours…
You’d need to install each application individually, and a lot of windows apps come on CD or DVD making the process a lot more tedious.”
I honestly disagree with your time frame. I know for a fact on my machine it really does only take 60 minutes from bare bones to fully functional, and that includes all my programs and hardware. The 2 largest applications I have are MS Office 2007 and Nero 7. Office only takes 5 minutes to install, and Nero about the same. The rest all take around 2 minutes each at best. I do have a slipstreamed install I use with the latest updates, so I will concede if I actually had to download all the Windows updates, it would take quite a bit more time.
“I know there are reasons for that – but yeah, just pointing out a couple areas where Linux really is better.”
No arguments. I use Linux mostly, Windows when I need to as required by either my job or gaming. What I was answering was nothing about being better or not, just that the items can be done and it does work. For work I am more productive on a Linux host, running a VMWare server with a Windows guest then I am running straight Windows. I Sysadmin a mixed environment with both windows and *nix, mostly *nix actually. As I have always said on any forums..whatever the right tool is for the job at hand. Just make sure the toolbox is big enough to have them all and not limit yourself.
Edited 2008-10-31 03:45 UTC
I think he must be using an early version of the OS that doesn’t come with most updates. If you need to download all the updates since the OS release, then I cannot possibly see how you can have it fully *updated* in one hour.
But I think you’re spot on with the rest – I usually only use about an hour to get it fully *functional* as well. And I guess when you’ve done quite a few Windows reinstalls, it’s second nature
A windows installation allows you to keep data files in a separate partition, but it is hard to keep all your settings in a separate partition as those are stored in the registry and $Documents and Settings, so what you are saying is not comparable to putting home on its own partition.
/home keeps everything, settings, bookmarks, background, etc.
“A windows installation allows you to keep data files in a separate partition, but it is hard to keep all your settings in a separate partition as those are stored in the registry and $Documents and Settings, so what you are saying is not comparable to putting home on its own partition.
/home keeps everything, settings, bookmarks, background, etc.”
Never said otherwise. I was just saying it can be done, to include the whole Documents and Settings folder existing elsewhere besides the C drive. Or rather the people folders in them.
It all becomes a moot point when the / takes up the whole hard drive so reinstalling wipes out the home folder. All too common unfortunately.
Latest Ubuntu and Mandriva will not overwrite your home directory even if you don’t have a separate partition for it.
So, your comment isn’t accurate either.
“Latest Ubuntu and Mandriva will not overwrite your home directory even if you don’t have a separate partition for it.
So, your comment isn’t accurate either.”
Actually yes they will if you do a fresh install, which includes a format of the disk. Of course if you do not format the disk then no, it will not overwrite it. My comment was accurate for a fresh install. If you are not formatting, that is called an upgrade.
Also a re-install of windows normally only takes about 20-30 minutes for me, same as with a Linux install.
This might be true with a fully configured disk image, but in my experience, with a regular (read: not a restore disk) Windows install CD/DVD it will take the better part of an hour. When it finally finishes, you can start installing the rest of the stuff that makes Windows usable, like vendor drivers and applications.
Desktop GNU/Linux might take the better part of an hour too, but then you have (most of) the drivers and (most of) the desktop applications running as well. It does make a difference. I’m quicker up and running with GNU/Linux than Windows.
I have to say I’m trying really hard to not defect to Fedora 10. Its looking really good so far. All the things that Ubuntu has had in its specs for about 4 releases Fedora actually followed through on. Ubuntu had a spec for seamless bootup and didn’t do squat in this area for 3 releases. I love Ubuntu, I wouldn’t trade apt-get for yum for the world but I like the fact the Fedora project actually follows through with their promises. Their artwork is incredible, there is so much polish graphically in Fedora, be it fade transitions when you change your wallpaper to fade transitions when you log in. What the hell is Ubuntu waiting for (for RedHat to hand the code over to them on a silver platter)?
I’m such a huge Ubuntu fan, but my enthusiasm is waning. Each release is starting to look like empty promises to me. Where is this new theme that they were making such a big deal about? Other than a couple of details here and there its the exact same theme they have been using since before Feisty.
I have to say I’m trying really hard to not defect to Fedora 10. Its looking really good so far
That is funny. I defected from Fedora 9 to Ubuntu 8.04 and now 8.10. I found Ubuntu did a better job integrating Pulseaudio. On Ubunutu it just worked for me. I began to dislike the perpetual beta feel to Fedora. It was a little too bleeding edge for me. I also am appreciating the robustness of apt-get. Yum is pretty good but ever try and cancel it mid-stream? You can usually cancel apt-get and start where you left off. If yum dies you have to remove the yum lock, restart yum, etc. (ugly) You could also install apt-get on Fedora.
Edited 2008-10-30 20:54 UTC
Fedora developers wrote much of PulseAudio and continue to maintain it. The only reason other distros that adopt technologies developed and integrated by Fedora first might feel better is because, including these innovative changes ahead of the pack means taking some risks and sometimes the results can be less than perfect for sometime till the pain points are sorted out.
NetworkManager 0.7, again being developed and integrated first within Fedora is now followed on by other distributions such as Ubuntu and OpenSUSE. Similar story with the Fedora’s cross platform liveusb-creator or system-config-printer that is being included in Ubuntu and Mandriva.
You will see this happen again with Packagekit in the upcoming releases as well. Those are just a few examples. There is lots more in
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Overview
Distributions that take a more conservative path should really be happy that someone else is trail brazing for their benefit instead of complaining because if everybody waits for somebody else to do the hard work, the pace of innovation will fall down in the world of free and open source software quite drastically.
I’m extremely unhappy about packagekit, btw. If it works anything like it does in Fedora then no thanks. I think Ubuntu’s packaging and update system is perfect and is far faster and better than Fedora’s imo.
One of the main reasons why I changed from Fedora to Ubuntu a while back (FC2, I think or whatever version Fedora was at when the first version of Ubuntu came out), was that it was always quite buggy and way too bleeding edge sometimes. Up until Fedora 10 I couldn’t even install Fedora on my machine, the installer would stall when it came to the disk partitioner.
While I love Ubuntu I like certain things that Fedora 10 did that blew me away. One of the cool things I saw is that it seems that likewise-open is installed by default and when you first setup the machine it picks up the windows domain you are in and joins it. The presentation of Fedora 10 beats Ubuntu badly and no a simple wallpaper or theme change doesn’t cut it in this instance since Red Hat has patched some key Gnome parts and have cool things like transitions and fades that add that level of polish that I would have expected Ubuntu to have by now (they sure like to talk a big game in the specs though). Another thing I like is that they include some incredible wallpapers in the distro and quite a few of them too. I understand why Ubuntu doesn’t do it, but I still think its nice. The art team in Fedora is focused and they carry a theme from start to finish, Ubuntu hasn’t learned that lesson at all and they don’t seem all that concerned about their presentation or consistency.
I’m not sure why but lately I’ve been starting to get irritated with Ubuntu (must be because I use a Mac more than I used to)and I hate when I see such a great ideas in the specs only to see them never make it past a concept or get defered two or three versions then dropped as the developer looses interest.
“‘I am extremely unhappy about packagekit, btw. If it works anything like it does in Fedora then no thanks. I think Ubuntu’s packaging and update system is perfect and is far faster and better than Fedora’s imo.”
Well, Ubuntu developers disagree and are moving to PackageKit. Try the latest version in rawhide and you might come away with different impressions.
Btw, the transitions effects and stuff is already pushed from Fedora to upstream. Fedora prefers it that way
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/WhyUpstream
http://bugzilla.redhat.com for any further requests for enhancements or bug reports.
Upgraded through Gnome GUI… After an hour or so, it rebooted and I have a new and shiny Ubuntu with the latest released Kernel.
My days of being a distro junkie is finally over.
I’m primarily a Fedora user, but I do like to try other distros and Ubuntu is usually one of the main alternatives I try. Firstly, I was a bit disappointed that the torrent link for 8.10 isn’t prominent enough on the Ubuntu site (it really should be the main way people download ISOs nowadays) and secondly, the fact that a DVD version is available (yes, including torrents of DVD, not that the Web site makes it obvious those exist) is again well hidden. Fedora’s torrents.fedoraproject.org is much better in this respect, IMHO.
As for the installation, I got a black screen when launching the live CD desktop using the default “Normal” setting, so I had to do the “safe graphics mode” setting to get the screen to appear. It’s a Dell Vostro with an ATI 2600 XT and a CRT monitor – not an obscure combination really and quite disappointing that it ended up with a black screen by default (8.04 on the same setup was fine).
Once the installation was complete, I noticed that the promised Firefox prefs importing from my Fedora 8 partition didn’t work (and no message to say it had failed), which makes me suspect the migration utility in the installer isn’t up to snuff yet. I installed the ATI “restricted driver”, only to find out that it wouldn’t go above 60Hz and, yep, hacking the xorg.conf was the only way to go to 85Hz (60Hz gives me a headache with its flicker)…not good. I couldn’t find a way to manually select your monitor, at least not from the standard GNOME menus anyway.
Amazingly, only hours after its official release, there were already 6 updates available for 8.10, *including* a new kernel! Yes, I know they probably finalise the ISO days before the announcement so that it can be mirrored, but it was still quite a surprise to see a new kernel on day 1.
I liked the Orca screen reader stuff, even if the first-time run brought up a low-tech terminal with text prompts to configure it. 8.10 also seems to be a few seconds faster to boot compared to 8.04, which is no bad thing.
I’m a bit surprised they haven’t added any finer control by default for the Desktop Effects – just 3 general level settings seems a bit coarse to me. E.g. what if I want everything *but* the wobbly windows (which are cute for 10 seconds and then very annoying after that)? Yes, I can probably install a few obscure packages via Synaptic and configure it, but why not add 4-5 sub-options that are switched on at each level and allow you to toggle them on or off?
Overall, though, I don’t think 8.10 is much of an advance over 8.04 – there’s a few minor improvements here and there, but nothing killer (and the lack of OpenOffice.org 3.0 by default is a complete disaster!). Fedora 10, out in a few weeks, I think should knock the socks off Ubuntu – it’s desperately needed after the catastrophe of Fedora 9 (beta X server for over 4 months of its 6 month life, what the freak were they thinking of?!).
The beta Xorg story is mostly a myth. Fedora 9 included 1.499 instead of 1.5 and that doesn’t really make much of a difference at all. Refer
http://www.redhat.com/archives/rhl-devel-list/2008-May/msg00854.htm…
Sorry, but the X.org server that was initially shipped with Fedora 9 *was* a beta release – claiming it’s a “myth” is just completely ridiculous! Secondly, ATI does *not* support beta X.org servers, so they didn’t have a driver for it until shortly after the X.org 1.5 server was released. Heck, even now, the livna.org repo still doesn’t have the fglrx drivers for F9!! This is a messup of gigantic proportions and Fedora make a huge mistake picking a bleeding-edge X server that has no (decent performance) 3D driver support for Fedora 9.
This is exactly why I’m still on Fedora 8 and am keeping my fingers crossed that Fedora 10 won’t have more crazy “broken” stuff that Fedora 9 had…
It’s not a “messup”, it’s what Fedora is all about. The project does not care about non-free drivers and stuff like that, if this or that blob will work or not with this or that upgrade.
Not because it wants to piss you or others off but because it’s about 100% free software. The Fedora base will end up being RHEL, which will run without blobs anyway.
Different purpose, different audience.
I like the lighter Xfce based version. I downloaded it and installed it. Very happy with it.
Just curious if anyone has tried the alternate install CD, and can tell me if there’s support for installing to UBIFS? Sounds like that would be the better setup for things like the Asus eeePC, and other SSD-based netbooks.
Been running 8.10-beta2 on my 701-4G for about a week, but did the install from the desktop CD (via USB). Gotta say, the ath5k driver in kernel 2.6.27 works much better than the driver that comes with the default Xandros install.
No that would probably *not* be a good setup for general SSD’s. The reason is that most flash-based storage devices (USB sticks, SSD’s) hide the specific characteristics of flash behind a so-called Flash Translation Layer. This makes them look like any other block device, like the harddisks we’ve known for so many years and that are supported very well by most OSes.
UBIFS is designed to work directly at the level of the flash chips (in the Linux kernel this is called Memory Technology Devices). Because there’s no translation layer to do it for you, UBIFS takes care of stuff like erasing memory blocks, wear levelling etc. The advantage is of course that it is more flexible to do that in the FS than to leave it fixed in hardware.
If you use UBIFS on a device that also implements FTL it cannot exercise its low-level control. It probably cannot get the information it needs, and its actions would be modified by the FTL anyway. I’m not even sure UBIFS will run on on this kind of devices!
It’s meant to be used on systems that have flash chips directly on a memory bus. This includes many kinds of embedded systems, but also the OLPC laptop. Removable SSD normally include the FTL though, as do the soldered SSD’s on the EeePC if I’m not mistaken.
So I would not blindly try to use UBIFS on any SSD-based laptop.
Isn’t it the same guy from simple thoughts who had posted Fedora 10? I liked this one but seriously worried about ubuntu’s slowness. Any user?