Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger" Released

An anonymous reader writes "Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger" has been released! Direct links for the US install iso or the US install torrent file." Update: 10/13 18:08 GMT by Z : Linux.com has a look at the release, in-depth.

Kubuntu is also out.

[JabberWokky]

It would be nice to amend the post to note that this means that Kubuntu "Breezy Badger" is also available. They are, after all, a matched set:

http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php [kubuntu.org]

--
Evan

Upgrading

[cloudmaster]

The poster forgot the <a href="bash:apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade">direct upgrade link</a>. :)

BTW, if you're looking for an easy to set up LTSP-based distro, Ubuntu's a good choice (IMHO).  The release candidates have been very good improvements over 5.04 - mostly in terms of (lots of) more subtle polish type things.

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[shadowknot]

Nothing really special about it when compared to Debian except that it seems to form a more focused and complete desktop installation. I must admit though, whenever I have installed it it's been perfect for use as a desktop machine for just browsing the web/checking email etc. Wouldn't install it for development though. On the subject of the install it's just a (very very) slightly streamlined version of the stock Debian NCURSES installer.

Don't like brown?

[Marc D.M.]

If you're not a big fan of the Ubuntu brown default theme, check out the Blended metacity theme [gnome-look.org] and the nuoveXT icon set [gnome-look.org]. They definetly add a 2005.10 (modern day) feel to the system.

Go Ubuntu!

First Linux distro where...

[josh2112]

...everything "just works", the first time, without massive twiddling of configuration files. Or at least Hoary Hedgehog did. This is the Linux distro I recommend first and foremost (Eric, time to switch to Linux buddy!), and 5.10 will definitely be going on my box this weekend.

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu is Linux for Human Beings, not Linux That Uses Very Optimized Compile Options For That Extra 0.1% Performance.

It does the big things (technical stuff) right, and the "small" things (smoothness of UI, user experience out-of-the-box) right. It has Ubuntu Manifesto that emphasizes the "human touch" and general friendliness towards others (also "small" things).

Re:Live cd ? USB/Flash stick version ?

[Swampy0007]

Well, if you insist on the livecds... Here is the x86 livecd [umn.edu] or torrent [umn.edu]. Here is the PowerPC livecd [umn.edu] or torrent [umn.edu]. Here is the AMD64 version [umn.edu] and the torrent [umn.edu]. Happy now?

Also just released...

[going_the_2Rpi_way]

Other linux flavours released in the last 24hrs include:

Piebox Enterprise Linux 3-U6, 4-U2
Frugalware Linux 0.3
Damn Small Linux 2.0 RC1
B2D Linux 20051011
PHLAK Beta 1 "Littleboy"


So why are the "-buntu" releases getting all the buzz? It's the animal names, isn't it? And is it pronounced OOBOONTOO (orangutan for overhyped) or YOU-BUNT-TOO (a veiled baseball reference)?

;)

List of Mirrors

[Znarl]

Here is a list of updated mirrors [ubuntu.com] as the main site is very slow.

Re:Upgrade working?

[lord_rob the only on]

Not sure about ubuntu, but I'm pretty sure you don't need a new install given that ubuntu is based on Debian SID. You know, when I first installed Sid, packages were compiled with gcc 2.95. Then Debian team changed their default compiler to gcc 3.2 then 3.3 then 4.0. I've never had to reinstall Debian at all, just apt-get update && apt-get upgrade. I've been using sid for more than three years now.

Re:Upgrade working?

[DoddyUK]

Will apt-get dist-upgrade update me to breezy or do I need to adjust my repos?

I adjusted my repos to Breezy (as opposed to Hoary) to be sure, although sudo apt-get dist-upgrade works fine for me. However, there's no repository for Breezy Backports yet, so leave your backports repo as Hoary.

I'm sure the guys at Ubuntu would have figured that a fresh install would have given their users serious headaches (especially with a system as customised as mine).

Re:Upgrade working?

[gers0667]

If you apt.sources file is fairly stock, then just change every reference of "hoary" to "breezy"...

Then, just run sudo apt-get update, followed by sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. This takes a while, but once it is done, reboot to the new kernel and you are at breezy.

Um, released. Some impressions on the changes

[a.different.perspect]

I'm using it right now, and apart from a new splash screen that resembles the forums [ubuntuforums.org] theme and the replacement of the GNOME foot with the Ubuntu logo in the top left corner, the most immediately obvious changes to the end user are the features introduced by GNOME 2.12. Namely, the menu editor, disks manager, clipboard daemon, Evince document viewer, drag-and-drop preview, type-ahead-find for Epiphany and GNOME's help browser, and so on. That stupid gedit focus bug is fixed. The switch from OpenOffice 1.1.3 to OpenOffice.org 2.0 (Beta 2) is a substantial one as well; xine 1.1 and AbiWord 1.1, unfortunately, were released too late Breezy's dev cycle and aren't included. Similarly, 5.10 has shipped with GStreamer 0.8, which is still unusable for video, so you'll want to install totem-xine over totem-gstreamer as soon as possible. Under the hood, Ubuntu is now using the 2.6.12 kernel, modular X.org and GCC 4.0.1. Ubuntu has also updated their ATI fglrx drivers to 8.16.20, which gives a significant performance boost (from crap to less crap) for those cursed with ATI cards.
 
Overall, my end user impressions are that this is a worthy and welcome upgrade to my distribution of choice, but apparently I'm only really scratching the surface. According to the release notes [ubuntu.com], the major features of 5.10 are advanced thin client integration, an OEM installer, the Edubuntu project [edubuntu.org] for deploying Ubuntu in schools, and Launchpad integration ("Launchpad.net is the new infrastructure that Ubuntu and its derivatives use for translation, bug tracking, sharing code patches, fixes and technical support."). So, in short, I like what I'm seeing, but what I haven't seen looks even better.

Release page slow..

[David McBride]

The release page is running very slowly; the official Ubuntu Bittorrent tracker (complete with copies of the .torrent digests) is here: http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/ [ubuntu.com]

Re:Upgrade working?

[a.different.perspect]

Open /etc/apt/sources.list and replace the instances of "hoary" with "breezy". Then run sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. A big download later, and viola!

Why is it so good?

[xutopia]

We always get that question whenever some story about Ubuntu comes out.

• 1 CD (Freely sent to you by snail mail)
• Most things are more stable than many other distributions yet is cutting edge
• It is debian based which means that you can just send off one command to update everything
• It looks nice

Anything else you'd like to add?

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[Marc D.M.]

If you've used Debian, you'll understand why we like apt-get and synaptic. If you haven't, I say try it out for a week, and see if you go back.

I originally arrived at the Ubuntu party back when "Warty Warthog" was the tune everyone danced to. I stepped in fresh from the Suse 9.0 party after being thrown out by bad Gnome support.

When I arrived (after installing WW on a 3rd partition), I was greeted by a desktop that had all the gnome/mac-ish looking fonts and everything seemed to be just SIMPLE. No need to wade through 2000 menus to figure what is already installed. And no more YAST.

Configuring the Synaptic thingy was easier this time than any previous experiences getting yast or yum/rpm to download packages and their dependencies. The closest I got to that on Suse was red-carpet/rug.

Ignoring all the hype (as hard as it is), I use Ubuntu because it works (like everyone else says).

I currently use Ubuntu "Hoary" as my main OS in daily work. I've been using it since the day it released. To upgrade I opened synaptic, changed the repository distribution labels from warty to hoary, hit save, hit the reload button, then click "mark all upgrades". After applying the selection, I switched workspace and went back to what I was doing before.

 

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[elebrin]

- Ubuntu is nice due it's quick install.
  - Features also tend to work immidately: I spent three months trying to get a TV tuner working in various Redhat/Fedora Core releases and it never worked properly.
  - The ubuntuguide is another great plus: it is possible to know very little about setting up a linux box, and get Ubuntu doing what you want it to quickly.
  - Debian package management (no more difficult then gentoo package management, without having to wait for it to compile)
  - 1 install CD instead of 3 to 6
  - A great community that makes this a distro one that anyone can eisily download, install, and set up; it is ideal for people who want to migrate, or even for more experenced people who don't want to spend 65% of their time maintaining the computer and the rest actually using it for work or play or whatever.

Now, if they had mplayer packaged such that it installed, and played DVDs correctly without as much effort (i.e. getting the source from the developers and manually compiling it, not that this is difficult, but it should be unneccessary), I would be happier.

Re:Also just released...

[Anonymous Coward]

So why are the "-buntu" releases getting all the buzz? It's the animal names, isn't it? And is it pronounced OOBOONTOO (orangutan for overhyped) or YOU-BUNT-TOO (a veiled baseball reference)?

That's a pretty racist statement considering Ubuntu is an African word. Are you saying black people are like orangutans? Please take your ignorant attitude somewhere else.

Question about the quality

[codepunk]

Now for a usability question, can it play mp3's out of the box? Does it include
all the movieplayer codecs? If not because they are patent encumbered or restricted give me a frigging button to press that will install support for these. Hell it would take fifteen minutes max to build a gdialog installer with python to do this crap for me.

From the ubuntu web site

"If you add the debian-marillat repository to your Ubuntu sources.list (use testing/main), you can use Synaptic or apt-get to install MPlayer, lame, and other tools to deal with non-free formats like DVD and MP3."

Re:Sweeeeett!!!

[Swampy0007]

My friend, let me introduce you to Cedega [transgaming.com] and CrossOver Office [codeweavers.com]. So what were you saying about Half-Life 2 and Microsoft Office not working again?

Official upgrade instructions

[Chris Pimlott]

For those upgrading from a previous release, instructions can be found on the official Ubuntu wiki [ubuntu.com].

But yes, essentially "apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade" is it.

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[jc42]

It just works.

Not here. I have a several-years-old Dell box with an old RH installed, wasn't using it for much, so I decided to try Ubuntu. It seemed to be installing ok (though it's hard to spot error messages when they scroll off the top too fast to read). But when it settled down, all I got was a brownish-green screen with a typical pointer arrowhead in the center. That's all. It doesn't respond to anything on the keyboard, and the mouse doesn't move the arrow.

This is with the "live" CD. I also tried the "install" CD. This did demo that the keyboard and mouse work with Ubuntu, as I could use both of them during the prelim parts of the install. I got as far as the part about partitioning the disk, and can't get past that. It insists that I partition the disk, but nothing it shows me makes any sense. No info about the disk that it wants partitioned, and no matter what I select, it just leads back to that first screen about disk partitioning. After a few times around each path back to that screen, I gave up.

I suspect that they could use some filling out in their online troubleshooting stuff. I don't seem to find anything saying what to do when it behaves the way I see.

One thing curious is its remark that it won't repartition if there's already a linux installed. There is one installed, the old RH system. But it keeps insisting that I do some sort of partitioning, and won't advance past that point, not even if I tell it to accept the partitions. That just bounces me back to the first page about partitioning.

Anyone have a pointer to clues about installing it over an existing linux installation? Any way to say "wipe the disk and start from scratch"?

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[Mjlner]

"OK. I give. What is so amazing about Ubuntu? Do they compile thier stuff with special options or have some whiz-bang installation program?"

It seems to me that you're not familiar with Debian. (?) Debian is a Linux distro which has often been praised for having very good software package tools, ie. tools you use to install software packages. Debian's APT was the first really good package tool, which is nowadays mimicked by eg. Fedora's Yum, but APT is still very popular and holds it's own against the alternatives. (APT is also available for Fedora, which IMO proves it's worth and popularity.)

The long standing problem with Debian, however, has been a very slow release cycle for the stable branch, meaning that if you want to use the newest and coolest software, you need to use the testing or the unstable branch. Many users are reluctant to use these branches, because you can easily break your system by installing software versions that do not mix together well. Eg. installing a new version of a library (DLL) might break several software packages dependant on an earlier version of that library.

Ubuntu leverages all the benefits of APT, but eliminates the problem with long release cycles by having two releases per year, enabling you to use the newest and hottest versions of all your favourite software. You don't need to wait for a new version to come out for longer than six months. This only in the rare case that the new version is released just after the latest Ubuntu release.

Upgrading to the newest version of Ubuntu is also quite easy. You edit a config file to refer to the newest release, issue the commands apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade and Bob's your uncle! Editing a config file might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I think there might bee GUI tools for this. I don't know, because I have no problems with config files.

My experince with breezy has been great so far

[dmouritsendk]

I've been running the unstable/preview release for almost a month, and after resolving a minor DBUS problem i had right after upgrading, its been running extremely solid. The only noteworthy problem I've had is evince like to chrash when reloading/refreshing .dvi documents, this is really impressive for a unstable release IMHO.

I've been using Ubuntu now for almost one year (I was seeking an open/free alternative to Gentoo), and since then it has become the only Linux flavor I run (well, that and debian for my server). Simply because it gives me the choice of choosing what I want to spend time on. Meaning, I'm not forced to read a multiple pages of documentation to get my digital camera to work, it just works when plugged in. And then if someday I'm like, "Hey, I wanna learn more about HAL/DBUS/whatever" I'm free to mess around with it.

I know its like this with most distributions today, but since I'm a gnome user ubuntu is a perfect fit with their release schedule trying to follow the gnome one.

The only remotely bad thing about Ubuntu is the documentation, not that the wiki isn't nice, its just no FreeBSD or Gentoo handbook ;-)

Re:Also just released...

[niteware]

And is it pronounced OOBOONTOO (orangutan for overhyped) or YOU-BUNT-TOO (a veiled baseball reference)?

Ubuntu, an African word from Zulu and Xhosa, is pronounced "oo-BOON-too".

upgrade instructions...

[clayasaurus]

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

replace all references of 'hoary' with 'breezy'

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Re:Do I need to upgrade

[Anonymous Coward]

First, double-check you have ubuntu-desktop installed, otherwise some new packages might be left out.

Then you need to change your sources.list. Instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BreezyUpgradeNotes [ubuntu.com]. Just search and replace hoary with breezy, really.

Then you'll need to apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade (not upgrade, which won't install new dependent packages - you'll get a message saying some packages have been held back). Make sure you look at the list of packages it's going to remove, just in case. Then...wait, and you should probably reboot as well :-)

Re:So, when will ubuntuguide.org be updated?

[anethema]

For breezy they have made a faq based on ubuntu guide, but for breezy.

http://doc.ubuntu.com/gnome/faqi386/C/ [ubuntu.com]

All the ubuntuguide goodness, just kept up-to-date :D

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[noahm]

OK. I give. What is so amazing about Ubuntu? Do they compile thier stuff with special options or have some whiz-bang installation program?

The thing I love about Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu; I much prefer KDE) is that it takes this great framework provided by Debian and actually uses it. That is, for example, when you plug in a USB storage device, you don't worry about where it's going to show up in /dev or where to mount it or what groups you need to be in in order to access it. It Just Works, with the file manager opening up a window on you desktop showing the contents of the drive. Debian has all the necessary bits to do things like this, too, but none if it Just Works by default.

It's just a really really well integrated system that works well. Somebody (Tim O'Reilley?) said that MacOS X made computing fun again. To me, (K)Ubuntu makes computing fun again.

noah

Re:Um, released. Some impressions on the changes

[ninjaadmin]

sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get dist-upgrade Would probably work better.

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[Waltre]

" Any way to say "wipe the disk and start from scratch"?"

I believe it gives you an option: Erase entire disk (hda...info), or manually edit partition table.

You want the first option.

See this osdir screenshot [osdir.com]

These fancy RH installs have messed with your mind :).

Re:A little late eh?

[melandy]

The only issue left is that it did not recognise the wireless card I have installed.. so I can't put it on the network yet.

I installed Ubuntu on an old laptop a few months ago, and also ran into trouble with the wireless card. Mine was a linksys, and they didn't have a driver for Linux. I was able to use the Windows driver on Ubuntu using NdisWrapper. Assuming you are having similar driver trouble, this may work for you too.

IIRC, NdisWrapper was on the install cd (you might have to apt-get or synaptic it to get it on your HD), so you shouldn't have to download it (which is good, since your card doesn't work yet ;^).

Here's a link to the project...
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

Here's the install instructions on the wiki...
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index .php/Installation [sourceforge.net]

You'll also need the Windows driver for you card. You can get it off of the CD that came with it, or they are usually available from the manufacturer's website.

Good luck,
-m

Re:Question about the quality

[muszek]

Easy Ubuntu [placelibre.ath.cx] and does that stuff and more:

• Add extra repositories for installing a lot of additional software.
• Install multimedia codecs for reading all videos, musics and DVDs.
• Activate the "audio preview" feature in Nautilus.
• Install the most needed Firefox plugins: Flash, Java, Real, videos. Adds Microsoft fonts, GNOME's Firefox buttons, officials Firefox icons.
• Install archiving support for RAR and ACE.
• Install the most used peer-to-peer softwares: aMule (a clone of eMule) and Azureus (for Bittorent).
• Install the Skype voice-over-IP software. (Warning: at this time Skype is not packaged for Breezy so install don't work)
• MSN: Install AMSN cvs with webcam support.
• Num lock: Active the num lock at system startup.
• Replace the GNOME foot logo with Ubuntu's logo.
• Install the NVIDIA or ATI driver for 3D support.

(copied from their site)

useless for most of Asia

[rngadam]

Sadly, it is useless for most of Asia because CJK (Chinese Japanese Korean) input is broken:

https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+sources/scim /+bug/2565 [launchpad.net]

The fonts are there, the localization strings are there, the keyboard LAYOUTS are there but the input server to transform romanized input (for example) to the Asian characters is not working. Particularly frustrating because Ubuntu has decided on not making it a core part (as it is in SuSE or RedHat) of the distro...

Re:Upgrade working?

[Knuckles]

Read the instructions. You can fire up the GUI app named Synaptic, click "Repositories", "Edit", change "Hoary" to "Breezy", click OK, click "Mark Upgrades". No cmd line involved.

Plus, in this case you don't simply apply an SP, you upgrade the whole OS and all applications. There's nothing even remotely comparable in Windows.

DVD Install Images

[EAVY]

Ubuntu 5.10 also provides images for installation from DVD. The DVD install image includes all supported packages, including those Not installed by default.

The combined install/live DVD allows you either to install Ubuntu permanently on a computer, or (by entering 'live' at the boot prompt) to try Ubuntu without changing your computer at all. There are three editions available:

Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) [ubuntulinux.org]

Kubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) [ubuntulinux.org]

Edubuntu 5.10 (Breezy Badger) [ubuntulinux.org]

Please download using Bittorrent [bittorrent.com] if possible.

Re:Um, released. Some impressions on the changes

[TravisWatkins]

"Namely, the menu editor, disks manager, clipboard daemon, Evince document viewer, drag-and-drop preview, type-ahead-find for Epiphany and GNOME's help browser, and so on."

Actually, the menu editor is the one I wrote for Ubuntu. The GNOME one only lets you hide/unhide entries.

Re:Why LTSP?

[cloudmaster]

Honestly, I agree with you as far as the PITA LTSP setup. Like I said somewhere once before, I've tried setting LTSP up several times in other environments, and it's a royal pain, chock full of inconvenient. :) The Ubuntu roll o fit's really nice, though, and hides all that crap. It literally took me about ten minutes (not counting the package downloading and installing that happens behind the scenes without user intervention) to get three machines up and running, one as a server and two as netboot clients. If you include the time it took to set up two VMWare virtual machines and install the Ubuntu server + one client (the third client was a physical machine booting from an Intel card), we're at about a half hour of sitting-in-front-of-the-computer to get three fully functional workstations. Additional machines just take an entry in dhcpd.conf, and that's only if you use dhcp "that way".

Anyway, I don't particularly care if it's LTSP or something else - this is easy to set up and easy to maintain so far, and it coincidentally uses LTSP for its organization.

As far as NFS, well, it's about the only network file system that can be used as a network root with Linux, right? I guess with the advent of initrds (not exactly new tech, but really just recently getting useful) I guess anything could be used - but a properly-tuned NFS server is pretty nice. Sure, I use CIFS a lot now, but that's mostly because I like the mapping control I can exert through samba, not because of any real performance gain. NFSv3 has "real" locks and nearly everythign supports it. NFSv4 is pretty close to stably replacing v3 now, and it uses stateful connections - which gets rid of several of the problems people had with UDP-based NFS implementations (and gets rid of the need to run a million daemons).

Re:Um, released. Some impressions on the changes

[David Gerard]

Actually, it doesn't have modular X.Org - "X.org 6.8.2 with wider hardware support" (i.e., patches). X.Org 7.0 is still at RC0.

Re:Why do we love Ubuntu

[Knuckles]

Difference being that with Debian Stable, they backport the security fixes. You are guaranteed that a security fix touches nothing else. And you are more or less guaranteed that it won't break anything.
The same can't be said about MS service packs

Re:Pointers?

[rusty0101]

You will have to do more research for yourself, however from having looked at educational distributions in the past, the primary goal is to set up a thin client based infrastructure that allows the school to deploy a large number of very low cost workstations, often without hard drives, that the students will use as their desktop. Memory, video card, sound card, keyboard, mouse, display and case. Possibly a CD and or floppy drive, though it would be unlikely to include a cdr/cdrw drive. Possibly a USB port, possibly not.

This is then supported by one or two farily large servers that most of the applications are actually run on or at least from.

Advantages for the school include the possiblity that they can just strip out the hard drives from systems that won't support the latest distribution of Windows, and effectively have zero or very low cost per workstation to move to Linux. A centralized account management structure where the school can insure that sutdents are only maintaining school related work in their storage folders, while providing an infrastructure that is disaster tolerant if they have implemented periodic backups of that online storage. If a vandal destroys a workstation you are not spending a day or more replacing it, updating all of the software with the current patches, etc, you simply replace it with an off the shelf spare, or pick up a bare bones system and put the appropriate network boot firmware on a network card if the bios does not already support booting off the network.

User interface is usually either a X windows desktop, or possibly a vnc or other thin client desktop. It can even be rdesktop if you insist upon using a windows platform for some reason.

All that said, I do not know what of it is included in Edubuntu.

-Rusty