Hoary Hedgehog Ubuntu 5.04 Released

Simon (S2) writes "Ubuntu Linux 5.04, code name 'Hoary Hedgehog', is now available. It offers the following new features: Simple and fast Installation, live CD's for Intel x86, AMD64 and PPC, GNOME 2.10.1, Firefox 1.0.2, first class productivity software, and X.org 6.8.2. Read the announcement and the complete release notes. Quick download links for the i386 architecture: ubuntu-5.04-install-i386.iso.torrent (587MB) and ubuntu-5.04-live-i386.iso.torrent (625MB). Install CD and live CD images for AMD64 and PowerPC computers are also available." Kubuntu is out in a new release as well. Screenshots available of the Kubuntu release. Update: 04/08 14:21 GMT by Z : Made the direct ISO links torrents.

Please install!

[Alibloke]

Ubuntu Linux is the best distribution I have ever installed. The guy behind this (I forget his name) has invested a small fortune, and I am sure it will become one of the top distributions very soon.

I emplore all Slashdotters to at least have a brief look at Hoary. It really is the "Mutts nuts"!

KDE and Gnome

[gr8_phk]

I like that the distribution originally picked one desktop (gnome) rather than burden the install media with duplicate packages for both. It's nice that they also now support the other (KDE) with a different CD. Me? I'm a gnome fan and don't want all that extra stuff to download, but it's nice that they support the KDE folks the same way now.

Gnome 2.10?

[Futaba-chan]

It's interesting that Ubuntu, a binary distro based on slow old Debian, has Gnome stable on 2.10.1, while we bleeding-edge Gentoo users are still on 2.8....

Real question

[Frogbert]

How do I upgrade my current warty install?

WTF?

[FreeLinux]

OK, I'm not trying to troll here but, can someone please explain to me what the sudden infatuation with Ubuntu is? I tried Ubuntu. It was OK. Nothing stupendous but OK. It wasn't so good as to make me want to switch from any other distro.

Why the hell is everyone so totally infatuated with Ubuntu. It seems to have eclipsed Gentoo, so far as fan boys and that just seems ridiculous.

A desktop candidate?

[bogaboga]

I wonder whether we could finally finally have a Linux desktop candidate in Ubuntu/Kubuntu. The reviews so far and the fact that folks at Distrowatch ahref=http://www.distrowatch.com/ [slashdot.org]http://www.distro watch.com/> have Ubuntu at #1 says a lot about that potential fact. I also understand that it is quite fast.

I will be doing my eveluation too, but I will go with a somewhat biased mind I have to admit. If the Kubuntu folks have not trimmed down: for KDE - sane defaults and for GNOME - making it easier to do common desktop stuff, this will be just another distro.

I wonder whether they will be considering autopackage ahref=http://www.autopackage.org/ [slashdot.org]http://www.autopa ckage.org/>. Anyone know about this?

Does the LiveCD write anything to the hard disk ?

[yusufg]

According to this blog entry [glazman.org] by Daniel Glazman of Nvu fame, the ubuntu LiveCD destroyed his MBR Can anybody confirm/deny such behaviour by Ubuntu's LiveCD or LiveCD's in general (don't they mount hard disks read-only)

Re:Gnome 2.10?

[Illissius]

If you don't have it then you are not, in fact, bleeding edge. It's in portage, just not yet marked as stable. (Last I checked it was hardmasked, don't know whether it's moved to plain ~unstable yet -- don't use it myself.)

Re:Distrowatch

[Slack3r78]

Not only that, but try changing the dataset to the past 3 months or past month, and you'll see that Ubuntu has been averaging nearly 30% more hits per day than the next closest distribution.

It'd make sense that the 6 month number would be a bit off as Ubuntu is on a twice-a-year release schedule, with the first release having been 6 months ago now. (The version numbering scheme is Ubuntu Year.Month, hence Ubuntu 5.04).

So while Distrowatch may not be the best indicator of a distribution's popularity, it certainly seems to indicate that Canonical and crew are onto to something here.

Re:Whacked names

[Reignking]

I've got to agree. I've got no idea what it is, and with a name like that, I'm not inclined to investigate.

OTOH, we were all making fun of Mandriva yesterday. It isn't easy to create a good, strong, sensible product or brand name.

Re:A desktop candidate?

[pizpot]

I installed Ubuntu (Hoary) on my main computer this weekend. It is my first attempt at linux in over a year. BTW, I was a HPUX sys admin for an engineering office for 5 years and so have lots of unix know how...

My PC was dual booting win98 2nd edition, and winxp sp2. I have two hardrives: a 30 GB with C: (fat32) and D: (fat32), and a 120 GB with G: (fat32), H: (fat32), and I: (60GB). Win98 was installed to C:, and winxp to D:, but I had xp's apps installed also to C: and I:.

I had installed xp, from within 98, and said not to upgrade, and allow me to specifiy where, so I had a boot menu saying 1) win98 or 2) winxp.

First, I went into xp control panel, admin utilities, computer stuff, hardrives and deleted the H: partition so that it became Free Space. (very important step, if you want xp to be happy, as opposed to just letting linux delete the partition)

Then I put the Ubuntu cd in, and rebooted to my bios and told it to boot from my cd drive. It did, and I went through the install routine. It saw my disks, and the free space, and I created my required linux partitions. (1GB logical swap space at end of the free space, and a primary linux ext2 filesystem with the rest of the free space). It then finished in about 15 mins and rebooted into Ubuntu.

Everything worked perfect. I was on the net, my Pentax camera icon appeared when I hot-plugged it into USB. I had a Hercules GF3 nvidia vid card, so of course it did not do 3D yet, but it was running 2D nicely. I had to run two commands and it configured itself to do 3D. I tested it with id Software's free huge game Wolfenstien Enemy Territory 2.60, and it was better than in Winxp. The frame rate seems higher, and my ping is way better. Next I tried the Gaim messenger program, that Ubuntu installed. I typed in my ICQ number and password, and *ding* there were my buddies both on and offline. Next I tried Evolution, nice but to slow to load, so: www.google.com-->"ubunto thunderbird" and then downloaded a .deb file and installed it from the command line, and its really nice.

For me, I am done. I was lucky to be in a state where my main game was available on linux, so I went for it, and boy am I happy. Sure my 5 year old will still boot to winxp for his 50 games, and my wife for her game, but if I happen to get wine running, then that will stop.

Overall, here are my ending thoughts:

- I love it - I used Symantic Package manager to auto upgrade everything and then wolf stopped working. - I gotta learn how to back it all up so I can experiment - I'm converted. - It rox - Gnome is nice. I'll try KDE too, but I did a year ago, and not see any reason to worry, its not like the debian packages aren't smart enough to install dependant stuff if required. ie) I installed a cd burn program, and it needed KDE resourses, and they were installed automatically. - I tried debian last week, and could not get it to gui no matter what install options I picked, but am glad that forced me into Ubuntu. - Mepis and Kubuntu sound cool too... - I think people who complain about GIMP are too used to Windows. It behaves like old Unix Motif/CDE programs.

GRIN! This is so ready for the desktop. I'm doing grampa, and gushing about it to my engineering, and gaming friends and they are all like: "oh good, show me how, I can't stand trying to run pirated windows these days"

:-)

I'm with WTF..

[Sfing_ter]

While there have been many LiveCD distros over the past 2 years spring to life Ubuntu is ok, and it does work, but then so does slax, Knoppix, MDK Move and on and on. My personal fave is Mepis but nobody here talks about it. It works, always has, gives you the run-from-cd option along with a gui based install (hint hint ubuntu). I prefer KDE over gnome, it stems from a problem with DeadRat 5, gnome crashed way too often. I have a long memory... :)
Cobind is nice too and is DeadRat/Fedora based.

I think I'll try the torrent first

[drinkypoo]

I ordered ten knoppix CD sets the first time around. Tried it on three machines that knoppix works fine on, and it failed on all three of them. In fact the openstep livecd boots on more machines I've tried it on than knoppix has. I had to throw out the CD sets because as the local computer nerd, if I give them to people, they will come and ask me why their computer isn't working, and I don't want to get stuck supporting some Linux I can't even run! It didn't even run in a vmware virtual machine, how hard is that?

MEPIS vs Ubuntu?

[metamatic]

As a MEPIS user, I'm wondering if anyone has any factual reasons why I should look at Ubuntu?

It seems to me that MEPIS has all the same advantages as Ubuntu--bootable live CD, ten minute install, Debian based, stuff just works, up to date.

The main reason I like MEPIS is that everything from vanilla debian-unstable just works, because MEPIS is really debian-unstable with a custom kernel and better hardware detection. I've read that Ubuntu isn't quite the same--it's further from Debian, hence you can't just add the Debian repositories and expect everything to work. True/False?

Re:Why is ubuntu so popular?

[Hackeron]

>>If you need a stable desktop that you can transition smoothly, Ubuntu is for you.

What other desktop oriented distributions have you tried? -- I tried Mandrake, Ark, Mepis, Xandros, Lycoris, SuSE, Fedora, Libranet and about 3-4 or so others and I have to say while I would rank Ubuntu higher than Fedora as a distribution that "just works", I would rank it lower than all the ones mentioned above.

As for it being easy to add or change anything, deb offers no real advantages to rpm ever since apt4rpm and there are more than a few debian based distributions I prefer to Ubuntu, like Mepis, Libranet or Xandros.

My favorite at the moment is ArkLinux - it is several light years ahead of Ubuntu if you're looking for something that "just works".

Re:They will even send you FREE CD's

[bcrowell]

And here [ubuntulinux.org] you can donate to help offset the cost of shipping you the free CD's.

Re:Questions

[vhogemann]

To get MP3, and other formats working simply open Synaptic and enable the "RESTRICTED" repository. Then install "gstreamer0.8-plugins", and "mplayer" packages.

Java is a bit more tricky... You can download the official tarball (not the RPM!!) from Sun's site, and then install "java-package" and "fakeroot" packages to create a DEB package. Ubuntu will only accept up to JRE1.4.

After downloading the packages invoke the command: "fakeroot make-jpkg .bin". It will create a DEB file that you can install with: "sudo dpkg -i .deb". This will add the "java" command to your path, and install the mozilla/firefox plugin. The JRE HOME will be " /usr/lib/j2re1.4-sun/".

Or, if you want to be 100% opensource you can install the "java-gcj-compat" and "gcjwebplugin" packages. This will install a java environment based on the GNU gcj compiler and the gij bytecode interpreter. I have no idea if this is a reliable setup, I use myself the Sun JRE.

I hope that the Ubuntu guys manage to include a better way to install java support.

Re:I may switch from Gentoo

[Anonymous Coward]

What if a dependency of the app you are trying to install conflicts with a dependency of a currently installed app? I guess you haven't tried to install transcode via apt-get on Warty. I tried Ubuntu Warty for a week and that was my dealbreaker. Dependency hell plain and simple.

I guess you haven't used Gentoo.

Gentoo allows multiple versions of apps and especially libraries to be installed simultaneously. The fact that one app depends on a library that conflicts with a library. If you "emerge favorite-app" it is going to work. That is THE reason I switched from Debian.

Re:Why live and seperate install cds?

[ravee]

It could happen if it is burned in a DVD. But for installing, I personally favour both the live cd and the install cd to be seperate.

I have had bad experiences in trying to install livecd distro into the harddisk in the past (gnopix).

Any way I like ubuntu a lot. And they are doing a great service for increasing the popularity of linux by shipping it free of cost.