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Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" Is Out
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Oct 18, 2007 09:58 AM
from the while-it's-hot dept.
from the while-it's-hot dept.
Many readers are sending the news that Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon has been released. Download options include mirrors and torrents. Wired has a review based on the release candidate: "Gamers and hardcore media hounds may still feel left out... but we found playing music and watching movies in the new Ubuntu to be every bit as pleasant as it is under OS X or Windows... Wi-Fi, printing, my digital camera and even my iPod all worked immediately after installation — no drivers or other software required... I did have to install additional codecs to get MP3 and Windows Media Audio support."
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Ubuntu Dev Summit Lays Out Plans For Hardy Heron 261 comments
Opurt writes "On the first day of the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Boston this week, a roundtable session focused on the vision for the upcoming Hardy Heron Ubuntu release. Unlike Gutsy Gibbon, which brought a handful of experimental features along with some new functionality, the focus with Heron will be on robustness as it will be supported on the desktop for 3 years. 'The Compiz window manager, which adds sophisticated visual effects to the Ubuntu user interface, will be a big target for usability improvements. Keyboard bindings and session management were noted as two areas where Compiz still needs some work.' PolicyKit and Tracker will also be significantly tweaked, while Heron is also likely to see a complete visual refresh."
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What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amarok. There's nothing like it on any other platform.
IU Mirror (Score:5, Informative)
ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/linux/ubuntu-releases/7.10 [iu.edu]
- or -
http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/ubuntu-releases/ [iu.edu] (separate server)
Ubuntu release days are fun for mirror operators. It lets us test our hardware and bandwidth.
(Internet2 connected)
Re:IU Mirror (Score:5, Funny)
Not for long
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release notes (Score:5, Informative)
The release notes for the beta version give a good overview of what you can expect:
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/gutsybeta [ubuntu.com]
With 3D desktop effects and NTFS write support enabled by default, and fast user switching and improved X configuration, this is one of the most significant Ubuntu releases in a while.
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New logo? (Score:5, Funny)
I didn't know that Ubuntu's new logo was a red spiral!
Re:New logo? (Score:5, Funny)
You -> O
/|\
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The summary contradicts itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The summary contradicts itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Lucky for you, there is Ogg Vorbis, which is technically superior to MP3 anyway, in terms of quality per byte.
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Re:The summary contradicts itself (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Charge for the version of the distro that includes the software, pay the licence fee to the licensor, disallow redistribution of the licensed code
2) Give the distro away for free, pay the licence fee to the licensor, disallow redistribution of the licensed code
3) Reimplement the required code, distribute only in countries with a more enlightened attitude towards software patents (eg the EU)Superior or not, that doesn't help me with all the music I have in mp3 (and no, I'm not about to re-rip it).
The OP's point is valid - the experience is not as good out of the box as that of OS X or Windows, with regards to music playing.
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Re:The summary contradicts itself (Score:5, Informative)
What still is an issue is DVD encryption. Sadly DeCSS can't be legally obtained in the US. Much as I am opposed to software patents, some practical solution needs to be given, while we continue to struggle to change the patent system. Paying a few bucks for legal DVD playback in the US seems the only feasible option at this point, and Ubuntu should facilitate this somehow, if only by providing links to third parties that provide this service (e.g. Fluendo I believe were working on this).
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Ob: Bittorrent (Score:5, Informative)
Currently: 1938 seeds, 4389 peers. and it's going *very* quickly.
Has support from Dell and Novell (Score:5, Interesting)
It's got a slick UI and the package manager is well done.
Add in support from Dell [dell.com].
All that is missing now is a really awesome developer environment [microsoft.com].
Re:Has support from Dell and Novell (Score:5, Informative)
I would just cite emacs, but since you seem to be interested in something more...graphical...I'll just list these three:
* Eclipse [eclipse.org]
* KDevelop [kdevelop.org]
* Netbeans [netbeans.org]
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Don't download the new Ubuntu... (Score:5, Funny)
THINK OF THE CHAIRS!
Damn! (Score:5, Funny)
Seems very newbie friendly (Score:5, Informative)
After the few guided clicks to get that done, a reboot later and suddenly Compiz was also activated without any user actions needed. Hmm, so how do you configure those 3D effects then? No way we could find, but from reading an online computer magazine, we found out that the Compiz Config Settings Manager wasn't included. We installed that one, and it then integrated nicely into the Desktop Settings as a new "Custom effects" option. Why that one wasn't part of the distro by default is still unknown to us though. It seemed like an obvious choice to let the user customize the window effects?
Otherwise, I think Compiz didn't lag or anything even once when maximizing windows or rotating the desktop, etc, and this was on a laptop without a *that* hot graphics card. So we were impressed about how smooth the UI was. No interruptions from some service suddenly kicking in to work a bit like every user of Vista has no doubt grown used to take for granted by now with the SuperFetch, System Restore, Search Indexer etc services. They seem to kick in at the most inappropriate times -- not even when the computer is idle! Come on! Maybe Ubuntu's new desktop search indexer make it suffer too, but nothing we could see anyway.
After doing this, we unplugged the network card, and voila, it automatically discovered our WLAN. We didn't have to do anything, really.
So let's try open the (already mounted and ready) NTFS drive with Windows Vista on it? Oh, we can simply drag a file there now too -- cool! NTFS-3g apparently installed and ready.
We seemed to have to install Windows Media Audio support though and as we're still quite some Linux amateurs, we have still not got around that part as the work day is over. It's been fun experimenting though, and getting up to date with what a modern "desktop Linux" distro can offer. Looking at the feature list of Ubuntu 7.10 [ubuntu.com], and summing that one up with the new features of GNOME 2.20 [gnome.org] gives one a mighty impressive list of new features compared to just 6 months ago.
Linux desktop development (GNOME, KDE, desktop distros,
I have some pretty high demands of novice usability though, which makes me hesitate still as for some distros. E.g. SUSE Linux 10.3 had a few quirks on my home stationary computer. Its NVIDIA driver install having me to use the command prompt and special "SUSE for NVIDIA" instructions is unacceptable for amateur usage IMHO, although I finally got it done. It also even failed to install the distro to the hard drive the first time around, because it couldn't mount the SATA drive it had just formatted (??). A reboot, and then it could do it like it was no problem at all. *shrug* That also gave an early feeling of "still aimed for geeks" that I'd so much like it to see it move away from.
But back to Ubuntu 7.10 -- so far no problems here, and I was left with an excitement to play with it more after the day.
"Gutsy Gibbon" Is Out? (Score:5, Funny)
"What is it Gutsy?"
"...I'm tired of living a lie..."
Works great on my new laptop! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm very impressed. Wireless networking worked out-of-the-box. Battery support works out-of-the-box (if I remove the power cable, Ubuntu will switch to power saving mode just like Vista would; battery meter is shown by default). I can plug and unplug USB mouses at will. Partitioning the system is painless because it supports non-destructive NTFS resizing out-of-the-box. I have absolutely no idea why so many people are complaining about Linux laptop support.
Ubuntu Server needs work. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So what's next? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:So what's next? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:will it wipe my /home? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Just do (n00b question).... (Score:5, Informative)
OK, you know how you are prompted to install updates from time to time, right? Usually for security or bug fixes or whatever?
This is essentially the same thing, except you're installing newer versions of packages rather than just ones with fixes applied to them. You won't need to edit or format partitions or anything like that. It's just another package update, really, but a BIG one that will take a long time, and which will occasionally ask you "do you want to replace such-and-such configuration file, which appears to have been altered, with the new one", and unless you recognize the file you'll just want to say "yes, I want the new one" to all of those.
Video drivers: not sure, but Gutsy prompts you to install restricted drivers with a little icon up by the clock (in Gnome, don't know about KDE). So, if the upgrade breaks your restricted video drivers (I suspect that it will, as I doubt that the Ubuntu folks feel comfortable including non-free drivers in a mostly-automated major update) then it should just prompt you to re-install them the first time you log in, after a reboot.
As for the resolution thing: if you manually edited any files (probably
If you did not manually edit a configuration file to get your resolution how you want it, then my advice is to either stick with what you have, or just give Gutsy a go and take the risk. It might mess it up, it might not. Probably not, in fact, but it's possible. In any case, the forums and IRC support will still be there if you need them, and should be able to help you get things back in order should the upgrade cause any breakage of any kind.
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Re:Props to Shuttleworth (Score:5, Informative)
You forgot to describe what that 'humble benchmark' is, but in any case it depends on what your needs are. What do you feel is lacking?
You may need Photoshop, DRM or games, so you use XP.
I need 100% legal software on a low budget; a rock solid, cross-platform programming environment; audio routing across almost any 2 audio applications. I don't want to wait for minutes and minutes when searching for a file- I want it NOW. XP just doesn't cut it for me.
Interesting enough, more and more software that started out as Open Source software for Linux only is becoming available for XP. Do you use Firefox? Thunderbird? Gaim? Gimp? Audacity? Open office? Free software is becoming an increasingly realistic alternative to closed software.
If you like that philosophy, you may want to order in a free live CD and take it for a spin. It won't cost you anything- you won't even have to install anything.
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Re:Feisty Doesn't Know (Score:5, Informative)
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