Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) Musings

Hey readers!

I've spent the last week using Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy exclusively. I have to say that 6.10 is the best one so far. It was a much simpler install than any other Linux so far. I'm going to make some posts about how to fix some things to make it work a little better, but let's get back on task.

The install is fast and smooth and everything pretty much works out of the box. I like that even my HP multimedia keyboard worked right out of the box! Usually, to get anything working on Linux that was made since 1995 you have to download a source pkg plus fifty library packages it depends on and build it. Ubuntu seems to have most things up and running on the first boot.

My network enabled Brother HL-5250DN (a VERY impressive network-enabled duplexing ) printer required a download from Brother, but they had great instructions with the manuals. My BlueTooth dongle (who made up that word?) activated immediately and found my phone and Palm devices right at plugin. A small amount of command-line tweaking had to be done to enable file transfer, though.

The mouse worked correctly - and with the correct acceleration I might add. That's a first! The software selection was pretty good, and with synaptic a plethora of other things can be added. One nice idea is the so-called "Meta packages." There are a handful of these, such as Kubuntu, Edubuntu (both desktop and classroom server), Xubuntu, etc. These will add all the stuff to your installation for each flavor of Ubuntu. I will say that there should be more meta packages, but I'll elaborate more on that in my rants below. The KDE desktop has a bit better package manager than synaptic, so I use that.

The color schemes are pleasing and the community support is amazing! One more point... the boot process is lightning fast! This is due to Ubuntu's new boot system "upstart." It's replacing init. It's condition based and not sequential. Very impressive!

Now for my list of things that need work...

All this business about restricted codecs is annoying to no end. Fortunately, there is Automatix2. Install that before you do any updates. There is also Easy Ubuntu, but I like Automatix2 better, because it's more complete. Follow their link for all the particulars, but it adds all the codecs you need, plus a whole bunch of other goodies like NTFS read-write (right on target for readers of this blog) and a Ctrl-Alt-Del taskmanager. Maybe I shouldn't fault Ubuntu for not putting some of this stuff in, but anything you have to add for basic funtionality is going to get listed.

Next is the package management. I am starting to think deb may be superior to rpm. Apt-get almost never seems to have a problem. I LOVE the 'apt-cache search' command to look for packages from the command-line. Synaptic also has a good search feature. It still seems to me that some of the package rolling is done haphazardly, because I just can't imagine why installing Java 1.4 requires me to uninstall democracy! I can have multiple instances of Java, but just not 1.4! I would like to see a way to install meta-packages and then remove components I don't like without removing the whole thing. We need to progress to that end. Also, meta-packages should be structured not to interfere with one another. That seems to be the case with some of them.

The nVidia drivers! I'm sure every blog on the web has had something to say about this. Automatix2, EasyUbuntu, and I think, Ubuntu CE all install a commercial nVidia driver set. It always crashes the computer. YOU MUST DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE NVIDIA DRIVER FROM THEIR SITE AND LET IT BUILD to get the right one. This reinforces my point at the beginning about having to download a bunch of other stuff, so it can build. If you're limited on HDD real estate, forget it. Fortunately, I'm not.

I have gotten a number of games to work on Ubuntu. I'll make posts about each of them, with relevant links. Whew! That's a taste of what's inside Ubuntu 6.10. Version 7.04 Feisty is in beta right now, with a release expected 19 Apr 2007. From all the feedback, it's looking pretty good. If you arent' using Ubuntu yet, give it a try.

Later,
Xiz