Ubuntu Linux 10.04 Review (Lucid Lynx) 567
JimLynch writes "The open source world has been eagerly anticipating the final release of Ubuntu Linux 10.04, and now it's finally here. Canonical has been working extremely hard and it shows in the quality of this release."
I heard the same about 8.10 and 9.04 and 9.10 (Score:5, Interesting)
... and I've given up. Between the backport madness, button relocation debate, purplification, and a complete disassociation with the community I did something which I didn't think I'd ever do. After 10 years of .deb distros, I'm running Fedora.
And you know what? It's nice. F12 is stable; yum seems to address all of those rpm complaints of old. I don't have strange oddities, there's actually SELINUX support. F12 works so well that in 10 years of running Linux I find myself (for the first time) in the situation where there is a beta out of the new Fedora and I haven't installed it as my system works flawlessly (I did boot the live CD and F13 beta is looking good too - I just don't want to upgrade until its baked).
What will they do for release 24? (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope someone sees that the naming scheme is going to run into trouble when they reach the letter 'X'.
What is the best they can do? Ubuntu 24.0 (Xanthic Xerus) ?
Re:Except... (Score:5, Interesting)
Has it?? i've been running beta2 for a few weeks and it dual boots Win7 just fine. Did they break something?
Speaking of which, my impressions of 10.04 aren't as thrilled as the summary (can't read TFA yet). I ran 9.04 for nearly a year, skipped completely over 9.10, and now that I'm on 10.04, I honestly can't tell what's different from 9.04 aside from the new purple/grey/orange colored interface bars, moved min/max/close buttons, different IM tool (which I was already using in 9.04 anyway), and the login tool already knowing my name. Oh, and some icons for cloud computing (which I'm not sold on at all) and integration with facebook and twitter.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but with the short 6-month release schedule, it doesn't seem like -any- release of Ubuntu is worth "eagerly anticipating". It's not like we're talking the 6 year feature/design gap between XP and Vista, or even the 3 year gap between Vista and 7.
It seems like it basically comes down to "install whatever release is current, get it configured to your liking, and run it until support ends." I saw no reason to upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10, and I wouldn't have upgraded from 9.04 to 10.04 except I needed to wipe the HD anyway.
Re:What will they do for release 24? (Score:2, Interesting)
Been using Kubuntu 10.04... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I heard the same about 8.10 and 9.04 and 9.10 (Score:0, Interesting)
That's just the newest you're seeing. You're in newbie "awesome" mode. Just wait till you get to the Fedora/RedHat warts. Like if you do any kind of development you will be cursing them in no time. Hate that those RedHat based distros because you can develop something that works on everything from BSD, OSX, Windows, to Debian but then you have to make a special effort to get the damn thing to work on fucking RedHat.
Also note how there are like 50 thousand different package/dependency managers on RedHat system (yum is just the tip of the iceberg). It's because they all suck. Try running Fedora on an old computer and you will see how poorly those package managers perform.
Re:Except... (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll go out on a limb and predict that Phoronix concludes that the latest Ubuntu release is the greatest thing ever. All their benchmarks conclude that Ubuntu is the fastest thing that ever existed, even if it doesn't come in first. I stopped even reading their Ubuntu R0x0rs articles.
Re:I heard the same about 8.10 and 9.04 and 9.10 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Except... (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting. Then maybe it is some more specific device ID that is affected?
Maybe you could comment on the bug report.
Re:Not even close to ready for prime time (Score:4, Interesting)
9.10 is rock solid on my Acer Aspire R1600. It's got similar specs, except the gpu is a Nvidia ION instead of Intel 950. The only reason I reboot is for new kernels or moving the pc. I go weeks with zero problems and I play a lot of quake on it.
Re:quality? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Except... (Score:2, Interesting)
"Has it?? i've been running beta2 for a few weeks and it dual boots Win7 just fine. Did they break something?"
Yes, Win7 still boots for some, and that is an unacceptable security risk. The inbuilt malware is pretty scary, and most antivirus programs will not detect it.
-Charlie
Re:I heard the same about 8.10 and 9.04 and 9.10 (Score:3, Interesting)
etc-update? I moved on to dispatch-conf a number of years ago, and thought everyone else did too. etc-update is a pain in the ass, and always has been.
Re:quality? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Except... (Score:3, Interesting)
The other reason is when your current version is no longer supported. That's why I'm eagerly waiting for this release, since it's a "long term release", so I'll not be upgrading for a long time.
Re:Except... (Score:5, Interesting)
While I'm criticising... the recent patch to turn off SMART monitoring, because it apparently damages some SSD's, could have been handled better. On my system it seemed to have a side effect which manifested as all the file systems suddenly going RO - while I was running and editing something important. Even inserting a thumb drive to try and save the work resulted in it coming up RO. And it wouldn't "shutdown".
Long story short, after cycling the power it took the better part of half a day to get things straightened out. Yes there was notice of the change but honestly who reads every single little description of every single patch? Something this major should have had lots of bells and whistles to attract attention - not because of the headache I suffered, although it would have been nice to avoid the frustration and wasted time - but because turning off SMART monitoring without making damn sure the user knows the health of his disks aren't being monitored anymore is assinine.
Re:Been using Kubuntu 10.04... (Score:4, Interesting)
Tabbed windows? Isn’t that called a two-level task bar?
If you are like me, you start thinking outside of the box. I completely removed any task bar from my system. There’s no point in it. ...and finally... .xsession-errors log, calculator, clock, calendar, weather, system information, system tray, minimized windows (as big icons), and whatever else I need in there.
I use corner clicks for everything. Which corner does not matter.
Right click: Compiz zoom overview of all windows.
Thumb click: Overview over all desktops (expo).
Left click: Toggle the KDE4 dashboard, which includes the K menu, the
The rest is all different keyboard and mouse shortcuts. Like Win+LMB = drag, Win+RMB = resize, or Win+End = end program / close window, etc. So I don’t even need window title bar buttons.
Works very nicely. Unfortunately the dashboard is pretty slow, and gets slower when you add more stuff. But it’s bearable. And I filed a bug, since I think it’s caused by one.
Re:No GIMP?! Seriously? (Score:1, Interesting)
yeah and fedora drops f-spot and tomboy for Showtell and Gnote.. and removes all mono from live CD. Suprised Ubuntu using more mono
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No GIMP?! Seriously? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is Ubuntu still clinging to an install CD while all the other distros are using DVDs? Again, Ubuntu is not Windows, and it is not made by MS. Why follow MS's weak design choices?
If Ubuntu claimed that a CD version could not include OpenOffice and instead included Abiword, I would not be arguing. But the GIMP is almost as central to Linux as Gnome or KDE. It is a staple, like rice or bread. Without it, the desktop will be "undernourished".
Ubuntu also is not Puppy Linux. It does not take up a mere 100MB of disk space. It does not run on 20 year old computers. Why should the default install not include the best and brightest of the Linux world?
Re:Except... (Score:3, Interesting)
Use Debian?
Sadly, last I remember, they were looking to quicken the pace too due to people flocking to Ubuntu and generally complaining about Debian being "too old". I loved it the way it was. I switched to Ubuntu just to see what the hullabaloo was all about. I'm slowly switching back my workstations to Debian again. I've always been on Debian for servers just for that reason. I develop software. I need a stable target. Debian is it. And it's solid.