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Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beta Released 429

Posted by Zonk from the enjoy-your-irritable-deer dept.
vivaoporto writes "The Beta version of the popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu 7.04, was released today. Codenamed Feisty Fawn, the CD images can be downloaded from the Canonical Servers, and the final version is due to be released next month. Get it while it's hot! Read more about it on the official wiki."
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Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beta Released More

Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) Beta Released

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  • download speeds... (Score:3, Funny)

    by crazyjeremy ( 857410 ) * on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:30PM (#18463067) Homepage Journal
    I'm at 130KB/s before this news goes public... I wonder how for it will go down after the story hits the front page...
  • How does this compare to the amazing OpenSUSE 10.2?

    • Re:How does this compare (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:36PM (#18463199)
      Basically it's about 3.18 less.

      I'm hoping SuSe gets turned all the way up to 11. That'd rock!
    • Is that the one with the broken package manager? or was that 10.1? I gave up on Suse very fast after realizing this problem. A non-beta release should at least have working package manager and update application working after an install with the default options? What I want to know is, does this one finally have a 3D desktop?

  • Damnit... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <[moc.liamtoh] [ta] [oarigogirdor]> on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:31PM (#18463103) Homepage
    And I still haven't managed to give away all those 6.06 CDs I got from ShipIt!

    • Re:Damnit... (Score:5, Informative)

      by an.echte.trilingue ( 1063180 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:57PM (#18463615) Homepage

      And I still haven't managed to give away all those 6.06 CDs I got from ShipIt!
      That's OK because

      A) 6.06 is the long term support (LTS) release, meaning that it will be good for a couple years to come

      B) After the last upgrade fiasco, the Ubuntu devs are putting special care to make sure the update tool works this time, so people can just install 6.06 and then use the update manager to update to 7.04 if they decide they want it.

      C) They won't ship CDs of another release until the next LTS release, so there won't be any 7.04 CDs either.

      • Re:Damnit... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Markrian ( 931172 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @03:45PM (#18464419)
        Just to clarify, the upgrade process cannot skip interim releases. That is, to upgrade from 6.06 to 7.04, the recommended and supported path is to go from 6.06 -> 6.10 -> 7.04. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes [ubuntu.com]
      • On that note, do you know when the next LTS release is planned?

  • I've been waiting for this one (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rnmartinez ( 968929 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:31PM (#18463113)
    I must admit that Windows Vista almost got me. Its not even the eye candy, its just the thought of looking at something different from XP. I can't wait to go from 6.10 to 7.04, I've really enjoyed ubuntu since I siwtched to it from Debian. I hope that wireless and 3D is a bit easier in this release. I also heard that there is an applet that helps install media codecs, that should really come in handy too (Although I think easybuntu does this too)

    • Re:I've been waiting for this one (Score:5, Informative)

      by fl!ptop ( 902193 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:38PM (#18463215) Journal
      for restricted formats, this link is invaluable check out

      Restricted Formats [ubuntu.com]
      for a neat wireless/lan/modem managment tool look here

      DebianAdmin.com [debianadmin.com]

  • new name, please! (Score:5, Funny)

    by fakeid ( 242403 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:35PM (#18463167)
    It's hard enough for me accept the name "Ubuntu", let alone their release names. I wonder if they could have a contest to actually make the version names somehow worse. I'm sure I would get a lot of street cred with the other IT guys when I tell them I run "Feisty Fawn". I'll have to make sure to wear my neckerchief...

    • Re:new name, please! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jeffrey Baker ( 6191 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:41PM (#18463287)
      When most people refer to an Ubuntu release, they elide the noun. People running 6.10 usually refer to it as simply Edgy, not Edgy Eft. The previous release is commonly called Dapper, not Dapper Drake. So you can just call this one Feisty, or Ubuntu 7.04 if you prefer.

    • Re:new name, please! (Score:5, Funny)

      by Stanistani ( 808333 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:41PM (#18463289) Homepage Journal
      It's okay - the next release is 'Grungy Gerbil' - much more street cred.

    • Re:new name, please! (Score:5, Funny)

      by AP2k ( 991160 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:42PM (#18463301)
      Just wait till the release after the next: Ubuntu Hungry Hippo

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by chebucto ( 992517 )
      How about calling it 'Version 7', and forgoing the use of a code-name for a publicly-developed project? Though, I must say 'Feisty Fawn' is better than some of the other zany names they've used. Hoary Hedgehog and Dapper Drake are especially lame.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Aladrin ( 926209 )
        Because it's not version 7. 7.04 refers the target release date, 2007-04. 7.10 will confuse the hell out of everyone you convince to call it version 7.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nuzak ( 959558 )
        > Hoary Hedgehog and Dapper Drake are especially lame.

        No, that would go to "Edgy Eft". What the eff is an eft?

        (yes, I do actually know what an eft is, that's not the point)

        The trend is increasing toward version numbers now. Ubuntu's version of "stable" is 6.06LTS, and neither "Dapper" nor "Drake" appear on the page, just an appended "LTS" (for "Long Term Support").

        You still need the adjective for apt repository names though.

    • Re:new name, please! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ArcherB ( 796902 ) * on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:47PM (#18463413) Journal
      It's hard enough for me accept the name "Ubuntu", let alone their release names. I wonder if they could have a contest to actually make the version names somehow worse. I'm sure I would get a lot of street cred with the other IT guys when I tell them I run "Feisty Fawn". I'll have to make sure to wear my neckerchief...

      Are you running the "Stoned Beaver" [wikipedia.org] "Out of Detox" or "Feisty Dunnart" kernel?

      (in other words, code names suck, but there is no way around them)
    • I'll have to make sure to wear my neckerchief...

      I'd think that your customers might be more concerned about that hippy and the talking dog that follows you around in that weird green van you drive.

      Yeah, yeah -- I know you like to call it an "ascot" ...

  • still a long way to go (Score:4, Interesting)

    by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:42PM (#18463323) Homepage
    still a long way to go in terms of usability. A friend of mine recently installed 6.10 for the first time. He's basically never used Linux before. I briefly explained how to use Synaptic. He got the hang of things for a while, but then he interrupted a dpkg process when Synaptic was running by hitting the power button. I have no idea why he did this, but you probably know what happened...he tried to run Synaptic later on and it said 'you have to run dpkg update -a to fix these errors!' or something along those lines. Big mistake number one: it told the user to type in commands at the shell. Big mistake number two: it didn't tell him to use sudo.

    He was immediately stuck. He even figured out how to access the shell, but he didn't understand why it kept saying that he needed superuser privileges to continue. The problem with these kinds of things is that if even one little glitch happens like this, the user gets stuck and then usually gives up and goes back to Windows. It has to be perfect. It has to be flawless. Or else it won't attract brand new users.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LiENUS ( 207736 )
      Windows has those same issues, ever gotten the error message about the registry size being too small? How long do you think it takes a user to figure that one out on their own? Plus Ubuntu has great user support on irc.freenode.net in #ubuntu.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by FishWithAHammer ( 957772 )
        The difference is that Windows fixed that problem. XP and later have no registry size limit.

        And here's a tip that really should be a clue-batting, but I'm feeling nice: telling end users to use IRC for help is the dumbest fucking thing you can do. And for the record--with a few exceptions, the people in #ubuntu are dumb as a box of rocks. Completely useless for almost any questions. (This is not a slight against the half-dozen helpful people on the channel--just the 400+ who suck.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by manno ( 848709 )

        ever gotten the error message about the registry size being too small

        No, I can honestly say in all my time of using windows computers, and working on them(far to many MSPC's to count) I have never seen that message. For the most part Windows isn't that bad, and I find it a lot more polished, and easier to use that Ubuntu that's for sure.

        I use Ubuntu, exclusively at home now, I have been for a year. I get caught on snags in it EVERYWHERE. For some reason every so often after logging in it doesn't detect mouse clicks, unless I reboot. Synaptic is buggy I still have "pending u

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by karnal ( 22275 )
          Come on.

          If you think it MIGHT be your hardware, look into that. Seriously. It's possible (I'd give it 60/40) that it's your hardware or something outside of the OS's control. I once (back in the day) installed ECC memory into a box that clearly was non-ECC. That was an interesting couple of days before I realized why things were crashing inconsistently....

          Run Memtest - heck, it's right on your Ubuntu boot cd! If that shows no errors for a pass or two, find something that's CPU intensive and run it for

      • Re:still a long way to go (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Pausanias ( 681077 ) <pausaniasxNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday March 23, 2007 @04:58PM (#18465403)
        The problem is that he told the newbie to use Synaptic at all. Synaptic is not the right tool for newbies. This is the mistake experts make when trying to "help" their friends learn Linux: they tell their friends how to do things the complicated way, and then when their friends can't figure it out, they conclude that linux isn't ready for prime time.

        The proper way for a newbie to install software is Add/Remove programs right off the ubuntu menu... just like in fracking Windows, for Pete's sake.

    • Re:still a long way to go (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Oriumpor ( 446718 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:49PM (#18463463) Homepage Journal
      Cause a user never has had a corrupt office install and had to call on their sixpack of beer a fix friend to hack their registry and reinstall office.

      Shit happens, but yeah there should be an automated system to solve package issues. The brilliant bit is, you can submit a feature request to the ubuntu team and it might actually get implimented.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Danse ( 1026 )

        Cause a user never has had a corrupt office install and had to call on their sixpack of beer a fix friend to hack their registry and reinstall office.

        The thing is, everyone knows someone who's pretty good with Windows and can help them with their problems. Five minutes with Google usually does the trick. How many people know a linux geek to help them with that? Probably not nearly as many. So, linux remains a daunting prospect for people who don't know who they can turn to for help.

        • Re:still a long way to go (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TheMeuge ( 645043 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @04:03PM (#18464767)
          Really? Cause 5 minutes on Google is what it took me to fix EVERY major issue with Ubuntu I've had thus far, and I have no Linux geek to turn to for help...

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Danse ( 1026 )

            Really? Cause 5 minutes on Google is what it took me to fix EVERY major issue with Ubuntu I've had thus far, and I have no Linux geek to turn to for help...

            5 minutes for you. My mom wouldn't even begin to know what to search for. I'm talking about the friend that knows how to fix stuff. He could find the answer pretty quick and know what to look for in the hits so that he doesn't end up in some ad portal hell.

        • Re:still a long way to go (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Bogtha ( 906264 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @05:45PM (#18465877)

          he tried to run Synaptic later on and it said 'you have to run dpkg update -a to fix these errors!' or something along those lines. Big mistake number one: it told the user to type in commands at the shell. Big mistake number two: it didn't tell him to use sudo.

          The thing is, everyone knows someone who's pretty good with Windows and can help them with their problems. Five minutes with Google usually does the trick.

          When I put dpkg superuser Ubuntu into Google and hit "I'm feeling lucky", it took me straight to a page [ubuntuforums.org] where somebody had exactly the same problem and was shown exactly what to do, with a link to a tutorial as well.

          How is "five minutes with Google" not enough in the Ubuntu case?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by stim ( 732091 )
      Its not really a long way to go. Ubuntu has already gotten way more usable and intuitive than Windows is or ever will be (try walking a noob though a registry edit). The thing is there is a double standard when it comes to linux, and that is that it needs to be perfect. Linux is and always be a work in progress, allways changing to incorporate the newest and greatest thing. This will always leave some little quarks in some of the process. It probably should have just put sudo in front in the error message,

    • Re:still a long way to go (Score:5, Funny)

      by Knara ( 9377 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:54PM (#18463543)
      Er... yeah, cuz Windows *never* gives cryptic error messages.

    • Re:still a long way to go (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chandon Seldon ( 43083 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:57PM (#18463597) Homepage

      It has to be perfect. It has to be flawless.

      That better not be true, because it's impossible. But we know that it it isn't true - Mac OS X and Windows Vista are far from flawless, and yet people still manage to muddle their way through using those systems. In fact, lots of people manage to use Ubuntu right now even with a couple of bugs.

      The fact that it neither recovers in that situation nor gives the "correct" command to recover is legitimately a serious problem - I hope you filed a bug on it - but it shouldn't seriously prevent anyone from being able to use the system. Pasting any chunk of the error message into google gives the answer, as does asking anyone who knows anything about Ubuntu directly.

      Switching to any different operating system will be non-trivial, unless someone else is administering it. There's no way around that, however much people trying to switch to various Linux distros demand that it not be so. Ubuntu is well beyond the point where anyone can easily use it if they are willing to slog through the difficulties of learning the basics of a new system - and no new system can ever be significantly better than that.

      • Re:still a long way to go (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Have Brain Will Rent ( 1031664 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @03:53PM (#18464549)
        You're both right. It needs to be better and it can't be perfect.

        Here's my take on the particular situation the OP brought up.

        1. telling the user about the problem
        1A. it can detect the problem well enough to tell the user what needs to be done... so why doesn't it just ask if it is ok to do that and then do it itself so the user doesn't have to figure out how to type in a command.
        1B. if 1A is too much work then at least tell the user "you will need to type this in a window; you get the window by...."

        2. telling the user about privilege
        2A. It should, tell the user his account doesn't have the privilege necessary...
        2B. It should tell the user in words a newbie is most likely to understand, not "you need to be superuser" or something similar but "you will need administrator privileges to do this; here is how you can get them for the purpose of running this command". Administrator is a plain English word whose plain English meaning is exactly right for this context.

        I know, it is a PITA to explain every last thing to newbies, but if you aren't willing to put the effort in to do that then you will never win over new users... they will hit something like this, throw their hands up in the air and go back to something more familiar - whatever that is. That's human nature, it isn't going to change, you have two choices: get used to it and work around it or give up. That's all there is to it.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by xtracto ( 837672 )
          1A. it can detect the problem well enough to tell the user what needs to be done... so why doesn't it just ask if it is ok to do that and then do it itself so the user doesn't have to figure out how to type in a command

          That is something I have always wondered about Synaptic and the dpkg -i ??'xxasdf issue, he tells *me* to do it, and it is the first thing to try... why dont it just *do it*... it is not for security reasons (it already has the gksudo credentials)! just fucking do it!, if it does not fix the

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by delire ( 809063 )
      That's a fairly obscure situation, and so can hardly be used for generalising the state of Ubuntu's useability overall. Nonetheless, the issue itself is an important one (especially the lacking sudo instruction). Now that you've witnessed it you'd do well to register a bug report.. better still, teach your friend how to do it and why it's important.

      Problems like these don't wilt and die on their own. They have to be noticed, you have to point the torch at such things and tell other people to come and hav
    • Try hard powering off Windows when it's half way through a service pack or security update, see how well Windows deals with it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      While I don't mean to insult, if you've ever done a hard reboot in the middle of a Windows update you'd know that's a good way to end up with a broken or even unbootable system. Granted, it should have been handled much better, but that's hardly the worst example I've heard. The biggest step 1 would be getting hardware where everything works out of the box in the first place, that's always a killer for people trying to install it on random hardware...

  • Newbie Question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pinkocommie ( 696223 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:45PM (#18463389)
    I'm installing Ubuntu (Kubuntu actually, a KDE fan) for the first time, looking to migrate from SUSE. I got a copy of 6.10 and thought I'd use that and then do an in place upgrade to 7.04 next month (from what I read online it was a matter of issuing a single command). What do you guys recommend? A straight up 7.04 beta or 6.10 followed by the upgrade? I'm somewhat of a newbie with ~nix (but with relatively standard hardware). Thanks

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Aladrin ( 926209 )
      Straight up 7.04. It's pretty doggone stable and upgrades always suck. The upgrade from Edgy to Feisty (6.10 to 7.04) is supposed to be a lot better than from Dapper to Edgy, but I wouldn't take the chance... Just get the newest.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
      I did an upgrade from edgy to feisty while it was very much still a moving target, days prior to the beta release and there's been packages flapping every which way - and the upgrade STILL appears to have worked with the possible exception of gnome-network-manager. I'm fairly confident that by official release time they will have it pretty well worked out. But the beta is working so well for me right now that I would just go ahead and go to the beta right away.
      • The updates are NOT always perfect.

        If you've used EasyUbuntu or something like that, you may have problems.

        If you're not sure of your comfort level with fixing something like that (or if you depend upon a wireless NIC for connectivity) then you should just go with a clean install.

        People with more experience will be able to identify possible problems BEFORE upgrading and also be able to handle them AFTER the upgrade.

        I've had no problems but then I use an old NIC and I have a decent amount of Linux experience

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by voislav98 ( 1004117 )
      You should try MEPIS instead of Kubuntu, it's also based on Ubuntu and uses a lot of Ubuntu packages but it's much better (as far as KDE environment goes). It's now in the release candidate stage for 6.5, so the new version should be out any day. It also has Beryl, codecs and video drivers installed by out of the box, no need for Automatix and such.

  • Beta People (Score:5, Informative)

    by LiENUS ( 207736 ) <slashdot@@@vetmanage...com> on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:51PM (#18463495) Homepage
    Please, If you are new to linux don't run the beta version, Use 6.10 its much better and more supported. The beta is not intended for mainstream use. In the #ubuntu channel on freenode there have been people coming in asking questions about Feisty Fawn for months. Those people belong in #ubuntu+1. The beta releases are not supported by the mainstream support, don't install this and expect to be fully supported.

    • Actually, I see no reason why someone new to Linux wouldn't do fine with the Feisty Beta - as long as they understand the concept of Beta software and won't be too disappointed if something breaks. The Feisty beta seems pretty stable, and includes some stuff like Compiz that might be fun for a new user.

      Just remember, if you're using beta software: If it breaks you get to keep both pieces - after you report the bug.

  • Kubuntu 7.04 beta also released (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Kubuntu 7.04

    http://kubuntu.org/announcements/7.04-beta.php [kubuntu.org]

  • Some thoughts on Feisty (Score:5, Informative)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday March 23, 2007 @02:55PM (#18463559) Homepage Journal

    I did a dist-upgrade from edgy to feisty about three days ago. Nothing has gone downhill and things have only gotten better. I have had a few problems, though I write them off as transitional issues. After all, it was pre-beta software.

    My biggest problem has been with the nvidia kernel module. For those who don't know, you can make sure this is installed properly by doing:

    sudo aptitude install linux-restricted-modules-`uname -r` nvidia-glx

    This is all well and good but for some reason the nvidia kernel module was just randomly disappearing! No joke. I ended up using module-assistant (sudo it) to build my own nvidia module, which worked great, and got everything working again.

    There is a new restricted module manager which explicitly informs you that you are using restricted modules, which may not be supported. The system may have made it easy for you to install binary drivers, but it makes damned sure that you know you're using them and what the downside is.

    The network-manager gains zeroconf support in this release, but there's still no WPA options in the network-manager. I thought that was coming in this release? I have network-manager-gnome installed, but it doesn't look anything like this [chadda.se]. So I don't know WTF is going on. And I'm in the middle of installing a bunch of packages so I can't find out at this moment, either. The default driver may not support WPA, I wouldn't know, but my network-manager applet still is a pale ghost of what I'm seeing in screenshots.

    In general, what most beta users of Feisty are going to notice in comparison to Edgy is graphical. Various theme elements have changed slightly. The biggest change, of course, is the official inclusion of binary drivers, which is much easier to get working. You won't need envy to get those nvidia drivers working any more (assuming you were unable or unwilling to do the install manually, envy seems to have been the most common way to install 'em.) Envy, of course, does not support Feisty.

    Early adopters will note that EasyUbuntu and Automatix both still lack Feisty support. Way to test and be ahead of the curve, guys. But of course that's not Ubuntu's fault.

    This is a lot less painless than my last experience, attempting to upgrade a somewhat tweaked dapper to edgy. This system is no less tweaked, but the dist-upgrade went fine.

    • Re:Some thoughts on Feisty (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rutulian ( 171771 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @03:15PM (#18463943)
      The network-manager gains zeroconf support in this release, but there's still no WPA options in the network-manager. I thought that was coming in this release? I have network-manager-gnome installed, but it doesn't look anything like this.

      Hmmm, not sure what you mean by this because zeroconf isn't related to network-manager as far as I know. Anyway, your network-manager applet should look just like your screenshot. Are you sure you are running the applet? Type nm-applet at the terminal. Ubuntu ships another wireless applet with the same icon, but it isn't the network-manager applet. So make sure you are actually running the network-manager applet. And WPA configuration has been there for at least a year, so you should be able to see it unless there are driver issues with your wireless card.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

        For some reason it wasn't showing up. I executed the following command:

        sudo apt-get --reinstall install network-manager network-manager-gnome

        Then I rebooted, then it appeared. I'm not sure if just running nm-applet would have been enough, or if I needed to do what I did, but it worked :P

  • Anyone know if this'll use ELILO (in particular so I'm not limited to gentoo as my sole choice for installing on a MacTel without Bootcamp?)

    (yeah yeah, technically you can do it on most any dist, but I'm not that interesting in hacking it that much)

  • Been running it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AxXium ( 964226 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @03:01PM (#18463675)
    I've been running it for some time now as I've signed up as a tester some time back. I must say in the past I was a big Ubuntu hater as I am part of another Linux distro's admin staff. However, I gave it a spin and must admit, as far as polish, ease of use, stability and the latest software goes, Ubuntu is by far the ultimate "free as in beer" ditro in my book. My previous biased opinion was quickly shattered. In retrospect I wish I have tried Edgy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Nimey ( 114278 )

      I must say in the past I was a big Ubuntu hater as I am part of another Linux distro's admin staff


      You're pretty young, then? Early twenties?

  • mobo RAID support? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by postmortem ( 906676 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @03:07PM (#18463807) Journal
    Today, more and more people opt in for using home RAID arrays, primarily from free chipset controllers that implement RAID 0,1, (5) capabilities in software. It is free performance upgrade for anybody with more than one hard drive.

    For long time, no Linux distro would support this 'winRAID'. Then dmraid project was created at RedHat, and soon after, Fedora Core 5,6, SUSE 10.2, and RHEL 5 have installer support for it.

    Last I've heard that future Ubuntu releases will contain support for dmraid... does anybody can verify that is the case, that is Ubuntu 7.04 can be installed on RAID0 device created on onboard RAID controller?
    • Why not just use the software raid built in? With the mobo raid I've found issues where swapping a motherboard can be problematic. You can avoid the problem by using software raid completely. Not to mention significant ease of use imho. That's one of the number one advantages Linux has (for the end user) imho.

  • Ubuntu is now automatically prelinked (Score:5, Informative)

    by sygin ( 659338 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @03:17PM (#18463987)
    This Ubuntu release 7.04 boots faster and is snappier than the previous 6.10. It no longer requires prelinking to increase speed.

    From the ubuntu forums:

    "UPDATE 1/2/07: Prelink is no longer necessary in Feisty. Feisty uses a new linking mechanism called DT_GNU_HASH which dramatically speeds up the linking process without the need for continuously running the prelink program."

    Another great improvement is hardware (esp. wireless and graphics) support.

    Now thats progress, each release faster and better than the last.

  • This is a true story (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 9gezegen ( 824655 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @04:21PM (#18464979)
    Two weeks ago, one of my friends called me. His in-laws were visiting them. Since they are Turkish, they will stay like 6 months with their daughter in US. In order to pass time, they often visit the local library to use internet and read Turkish newspapers.

    Now my friend found an old computer from his company (Pentium III, 750 Mhz, 20GB harddisk) that had Windows 2000 and thought that could save his in-laws a trip to the library. He connected it to his brand new cable connection (without any router). I had warned him earlier that he should at least install a firewall before connecting it to the internet. Of course he didn't listen me and it was the next day after the first run that he called me. Guess what, the computer started showing spam messages (I think that was the messanger bug), so he run an old antivirus program all day and couldn't find anything (the program never finished actually).

    Now, he was wondering how he can fix the problem. I said either use a free anti virus or let me install linux. Since he wanted to test drive Linux he opted for it. So we made a deal, his in-laws were going to prepare delicious Turkish food, and meanwhile I was going to install Kubuntu 6.10.

    At the beginning, the boot started fine. However, as soon as X11 started the screen went dark. I waited 15 minutes or so since that was the first time I was using Kubuntu 6.10 installer and I thought the machine was doing something. But it turned out that I had downloaded live cd (which had the installer). So spent an hour or so trying a few times, and trying install without going to the live system. I should have read little more, since apparently live cd doesn't have the regular installation options I was expecting to see (they had another CD for that). Anyway, after an hour or so, I had my euroka moment when I pressed Cltr-Alt-F1. Wholla, text console was there. Now, at least I knew machine was up but X11 had problems. So I changed X11 configuration on the live system to vesa and X started working. With the main bottleneck solved, I quickly started installation. The installer was kind enough to ask even if I want to create a partition for windows and let it stay there. My friend just said remove everything, so I just go and selected a few options and the machine was ready in 10 minutes or so. However, when it booted the next time from the hard-drive, it was again X11 with problems so I just modified xconfig file to switch it back to vesa driver. Now, I had a working machine with 800x600 resolution. A quick internet search showed me that the Matrox G250 driver that comes with the driver had a bug. So ubuntu forums had a discussion where somebody recompiled bug-free debian driver for matrox. After installing that, I had 1600x1200 resolution without any problem. Next hour spent on eye-candies. I installed firefox, created bookmarks to the Turkish newspapers, created some bookmarks to in-laws mail providers etc, added some weather and add blocking extensions. I also changed to KDE and Firefox themes to noia (to their dismay, since initially they wanted to have familiar XP interface which my heart didn't let me do it. I complained so much that they let me use Noia :)).

    Anyway, to make the long story short, the only think they wanted out-of box was Internet Explorer since some sites explicitly required it and Acrobat Reader. It didn't took very long to install IE (thanks to IEs4Linux) and Adobe already had acroread ready. My friend's wife needed an office program, so the obvious choice was OpenOffice. The final step was the installation of Flash. I also showed them how to use Adept so that they can install whatever they want very easily, and just added a button to kill firefox or IE , in case they had problems.

    Since then they are very happy with their system. My main concern which was running KDE on Pentium 3 750Mhz machine with 256MB ram was unfounded. The system is very responsive. I was wondering how long it would stay without crashing, and asked them to let the compute

  • This will be awesome because... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by purpleraison ( 1042004 ) on Friday March 23, 2007 @04:25PM (#18465015) Homepage Journal
    I just installed one of the betas on my old Toshiba Satellite laptop, and everything works perfectly for me. In fact an odd finding is that I get BETTER reception with my wi-fi card than when it was running Windows XP.

    My feelings on the current releases of Ubuntu is that it is getting VERY close to making Linux a potential alternative for average Windows users. The only shortcoming that still exists is that installing applications that are not distributed through Ubuntu is still confusing for 'normal' folks (ie. people who have no background with Linux). It would be nice if Linux would adapt a single universal installer for all Linux apps -- that would bring Linux a lot of people.

    Anyways, keep your eyes on this release -- it is nice :D

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