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Software Upgrades Linux

Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Released 214

Posted by kdawson from the heron-your-chest dept.
markybob writes "Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 beta has been released. It features GNOME 2.22 and uses Linux kernel 2.6.24. Furthermore, it uses Firefox 3 beta 4, and PulseAudio is enabled by default. To ease the transition of Windows users, it includes Wubi, which allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application. It does not require a dedicated partition, nor does it affect the existing bootloader, yet users can experience a dual-boot setup almost identical to a full installation."
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Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Released More

Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Released

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  • WUBI? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by scubamage ( 727538 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:21AM (#22818894)
    Anyone have any information about this? I prefer having a linux environment but my work laptop *must* run windows thanks to company software. This seems like it may be a much better solution for me compared to, say, cygwin.

    • Re:WUBI? (Score:5, Informative)

      by SpecTheIntro ( 951219 ) <spectheintro@gma ... minus herbivore> on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:25AM (#22818936)
      I think it's new enough that there isn't a lot of first-hand experience with it. The FAQ [wubi-installer.org] describes it in Alpha, although the download link refers to it as Beta... in any case, my suspicion is that it is likely not very stable yet. You may want to experiment with it on a home PC before putting it on your work laptop.
      • It you are planning on installing it on a work laptop, my only advise (I have not tried this at all) is to make sure there is a documented uninstall process.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by jslater25 ( 1005503 )
          I would simply make a ghost image of your work laptop as is before installing any other OS. And dual boot between Linux and Windows. When you are required to turn in the laptop, simply reimage the laptop with your original settings, and all are none the wiser.

    • Re:WUBI? (Score:5, Informative)

      by binaryspiral ( 784263 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:26AM (#22818950)
      Take a look at http://wubi-installer.org/ [wubi-installer.org] and see for your self. Essentially it uses a large file on your windows OS as the file system. When you install it, it modifies your bootloader to give you the option of booting to that machine.

      If you decide you don't like it, just reboot into Windows and uninstall it via add/remove programs.

      Performance is slightly slower due to the extra hoops your *nix OS has to jump through, but you won't notice if you're running on modern hardware. I liken it to being able to boot to a VMWare image.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        So it's like UMSDOS? A good idea though, ZipSlack [slackware.com] was the easy way to try Linux that got me started.

        • Re:WUBI? (Score:5, Informative)

          by diegocgteleline.es ( 653730 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @11:46AM (#22819998)
          There's a small difference. UMSDOS was a (ugly, but useful) hack that allowed to use FAT files and directories as if they were UNIX-like files and directories. So even if you booted in MSDOS/win you could read the linux files. WUBI is different: It stores a whole Linux filesystem in a file. Wubi then mounts the NTFS filesystem with NTFS-3G, and the big file containing the linux filesystem is mounted with the loop device as an ext (or reiser, or whatever) filesystem.
        • IIRC, this is different from UMSDOS.

          UMSDOS still used the host file system to manage the individual files.

          This is storing the Linux filesystem as a loopback file on the NTFS partition.

      • ** How does this compare with VMWare server perf? (Score:5, Informative)

        by scuba_steve_1 ( 849912 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @11:28AM (#22819736)
        I use (the free) VMWare Server (not ESX) on Windows boxes for various Linux installs...including Ubuntu. I do not understand an earlier comment stating that VMWare Server is complex. You install it as a Windows application, fire it up, select "new VM", choose a linux distro (Ubuntu 32 and 64 are options) for the VM architecture, and away you go...you now have a VM ready for a Linux install. The Live Ubuntu CD works with no issues...as does the default Ubuntu install.

        You can also tweak the number of processors, hard disk size, and memory that you assign to the VM, but VMWare suggests low-end (working) default values. I have run VMWare on numerous machines (laptops, desktops, servers) and it just plain works. It is a fantastic way to test out various distros without putting the Windows partition at risk. If you take the time to mount and install VMWare Tools in the VM's hosted OS, switching back and forth between the host and guest OSes (including copying and pasting) is a breeze. You can also have as many VMs (and OSes) installed as you please. Want to play with 8.04 without losing 7.10? No problem. Create a new VM.

        Downsides include:

          - It is virtualized. Thus, it is going to run significantly slower than a native install.

          - You are limited by the types of hardware architectures that VMWare simulates. That said, I have not had issues getting any sound or graphics card to work...and the networking options are fantastic. I cannot get access to all four cores however. The free VMWare server only allows me to create a VM that simulates either 1 or 2 CPUs...and I am not sure how many cores the VMWare container is using.

          - Memory...since Windows is still running, it needs its share. Thus, you need a lot.

        Of course, on the positive side, Windows is still running...so you have access to whatever you need there (e.g., Outlook, games, whatever). You can also run in reverse, and run VMWare on Linux and install Windows in a VM, but I dare say that most of us are in a situation that requires (or prefers) the VMWare on Windows approach.

        I assume that Windows is not running in the WUBI option and that Ubuntu is running right on the metal (not virtualized), with full access to the real hardware architecture and all of the memory. Putting the HD in a Windows file must have some performance impact, but most likely far less than the entire OS in a VM (which also uses the Windows file approach for the HD). Does anyone have anecdotal performance impressions for WUBI? It sounds very cool and a great option for someone who is not yet committed...but I will say that I am not much of a fan of modifying the boot loader, but perhaps I am just being overly skittish.

        Steve
        • but I will say that I am not much of a fan of modifying the boot loader, but perhaps I am just being overly skittish.

          Well, the summary says that it does not modify the existing bootloader. Not that I've RTFA yet or anything.
      • By your comment about performance being "slightly" slower, and that you "won't notice if you're running on modern hardware", I take it that this is the pseudo read/write mode provided by the kernel NTFS drivers -- that is, you can only read/write to a file, but you can't change any of its attributes, including size, and you can't create or destroy files.

        In other words, it's a mode that's really only useful for creating disk images, for things like a Linux filesystem, or swap. Not really like umsdos at all.

        I
        • No not at all. You use it just like linux. No noticeable differnce. All security, everything is there. Full read/write.

          As far as performance goes on an old laptop with winxp home installed it works flawlessly with little to no performance drop.

          If you try it you will see.

    • Re:WUBI? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SpydeZ ( 1196075 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:37AM (#22819090)
      If you *must* run windows for company apps, then Wubi probably isn't for you. It's more of a dual-boot type thing, cept it uses a file on your windows partition as it's 'hard drive'.

      You might want to try out andLinux [andlinux.org]. It's a full on linux that integrates seamlessly inside of windows.

      Personally, dual-booting is kind of a drag because of the constant reboots to get into Windows to do that one Windows-only thing, so I like cygwin or andLinux over Wubi.

      • Re:WUBI? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Nimey ( 114278 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:58AM (#22819346) Homepage Journal
        You could also look at innotek's VirtualBox. It's pretty fast if you've got an Intel or AMD CPU with the virtualization instructions, and there's a GPL version that lacks a few features like letting the VM see USB drives.

        Another free option is Qemu Manager, which is a free Windows frontend to the free QEMU. Not as fast as VirtualBox on a virtualization-enabled PC, but not bad if you enable the KQEMU dynamic recompiler. There's also MS's Virtual PC, but IME QEMU and VirtualBox work a little better with Linux. And lastly, of course, there's VMWare Server, although IME it's a little harder to set up.
        • I wish I had some mod points right now for this - I'm currently in a similar situation where I'm locked down in to Windows for 80% of everything I do and my laptop is too mission-critical to even think about messing with the partitions. VirtualBox has been a godsend, even though it seems slightly blasphemous to be virtualizing linux under Windows.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by dotancohen ( 1015143 )
          I second VirtualBox. VMWare ran Solidworks like a dog, but Virtualbox runs it perfectly.

    • Re:WUBI? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by strabes ( 1075839 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:55AM (#22819304)
      My advice is to wait for the final release of hardy, which should be rock solid stable. It is still decently buggy at this point.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by BlackCreek ( 1004083 )

        My advice is to wait for the final release of hardy, which should be rock solid stable. It is still decently buggy at this point.

        I second that. There are loads of broken things in Hardy right now.

        I have been upgrading to the Ubuntu "beta" release some 2 months before the official release for some 2 years now. Hardy is the one that gave me the most trouble so far. Never had to fill so many bug reports.

        1. They made a truly royal mess with scim (sorry you can't uninstall).
        2. My bluetooth headset doesn't work anymore.
        3. They are using a new wireless driver (for intel) that is giving me loads of trouble.
        4. The time it takes for desktop logout
    • I use vmware which works great if you have 2GB of memory or so. (You can run it on a lot less, but I find 2GB is enough to mean that I don't have to worry about it running, and can just leave it always on)

    • Alternative : LiveUSB (Score:5, Informative)

      by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @11:18AM (#22819616) Homepage
      In addition to what other /.ers said about WUBI, there's also the possibility to use Live USB distribution.
      PenDrive Linux [pendrivelinux.com] has a lot of resources about this kind of distributions.
      I've been using their Quick and easy Pendrivelinux [pendrivelinux.com] for quite some time.
      You can buy commercial preinstalled ones from companies like Mandriva Flash [mandriva.com].

      It works to a very similar way to WUBI, but on a flash drive.
      Essentially it puts 2* big files that contain the file system on the USB drive, and make the USB stick bootable using "syslinux". You start it by hitting F12 when the BIOS starts and choose to boot on the USB drive instead of your hard drive.
      (whereas WUBI puts a big file with the partition /on the windows drive/ and adds a new entry to the Windows boot loader to make the system. So you boot you hard drive normally and then use Windows XP's boot menu to select Linux instead of WinXP).

      So in that solution, your hard drive is virtually untouched (not that creating a file and adding an entry are *that* much big change) so it may please more the paranoid admins at your company.

      Last-but-not-least there's also the running-Linux-inside-Virtualbox [virtualbox.org] (or some other virtual machines that have native-speed performance) solution. It's a bit complicated, but has the benefit of letting you run your Linux apps along side the Windows desktop (with possibilities for native integration, either using a X-Window server for Win32, or using the virtual machine's client tools).

      * - most Live USB solutions tend to use 2 files : one is a big read-only file containing the live system, the other is read-writeable and used to store and remember modification (newly installed software, upgrades, user settings, user's home, etc.) between session.
      This is because most Live USB distribution are descendant of Live CD distribution (where the CD-Rom is read only and holds the live distro and a RAM-disk holds the modification, using a UNIONFS to bridge the 2 together).
      The big advantage of this system is that in case of a big fuckup, you can still reboot using only the original live system (just like a LiveCD) and fix/rebuild/create a new read-write big file.
      Of course there are also other solutions for partitioning and installing linux on a USB stick the same way you install it on a harddrive.

    • Re:WUBI? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 21, 2008 @11:19AM (#22819640)
      A working Linux system requires at least 3 parts:
      1) a root filesystem, where the bulk of the files that comprises the system reside
      2) a kernel which understands your hardware (or at least the disk hardware and filesystem format and of the root filesystem, other parts can all be loaded as modules later on)
      3) a boot loader, which is executed by the BIOS, and knows where to locate and execute the kernel

      In most common Linux installs, the root filesystem resides on a dedicated partition on the first hard disk, usually in the ext3 format. The kernel is often a also in this partition, but can be in a seperate /boot partition. Its location is unimportant as long as the bootloader know where to find it: you could put it on a FAT partition and use a DOS based bootloader like loadlin if you want. Nowadays the standard Linux bootloader is Grub, which understands many common Linux filesystems like ext3, jfs, reiserfs, so if you put you kernel on one if those filesystems it can boot.

      Wubi makes use of the fact that the Linux kernel can mount single files as if they were disks/partitions. This is called loopback mounting a file, and many users have already used it at some point when mounting .iso files. But that file must still reside on some other partition/filesystem that has already been mounted. So what Wubi does is, it installs the normal Ubuntu root filesystem in a single file, and puts that on your NTFS formatted Windows partition, along with the kernel (which can mount NTFS partitions read-write these days thanks to ntfs-3g), and the grub4dos bootloader. Grub4dos is a modified version of Grub, which can locate the kernel on NTFS disks, and can be chainloaded from the Windows NT bootloader (meaning, the NT bootloader can boot grub4dos which in turn boots the Linux kernel). Wubi packages all this in a user-friendly Windows installer. Note that although you can add and remove Ubuntu like other Windows apps, you cannot run it alongside them. This is _not_ emulation or virtualization, it's still dual booting, with the only twist that it leaves your existing Windows partitions untouched.

      To recap:

      Normal Ubuntu startup
      1) BIOS loads Grub
      2) Grub loads the kernel from an ext3 partition (which also conains the root filesystem)
      3) the kernel mounts the designated ext3 partition and uses that as the root filesystem (actually it starts off with initramfs, which is a root filesystem in memory that is swapped with the on-disk "real" root filesystem later in the boot process)

      Wubi startup
      1) BIOS loads the Windows bootloader NTLDR
      2) when selected from the menu, NTLDR loads grub4dos
      3) grub4dos loads the Linux kernel from the Windows partition
      4) the kernel mounts the Windows partition, then mounts the file on that Windows partition where Ubuntu was installed in and uses that as the root filesystem

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DeeQ ( 1194763 )
      The only experience I have of WUBI is a bad one. Granted the install of it went very well and worked. However since its on the same Partition as windows there will be some issues if ubuntu gets messed up.

      I dont know if Im an only person this has happened to but this is my case.

      I was doing updates when my PC lost power. For whatever god given reason it messed up the boot loader. So i figured okay no problem Ill just use Grub or something. However even when using grub It would no longer boot my windows partit
    • Hey all, thanks for the ton of responses! I should have been a bit more descriptive - I'm a tech at my company, and the network admin, so I can pretty much do as I please with my kit. However we're mandated by company policy to have lojack4laptops installed and our motherboards have a bios module that does this without our interaction - sadly the module only works in windows. I was going to dual boot but vista won't shrink the partition small enough for me to do so (for some reason it has stuff stored at th

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MyDixieWrecked ( 548719 )
      A friend of mine actually used Wubi a couple days ago- it was the first I'd heard of it.

      Installation went without a hitch. It basically created a couple of disk-image type files on his C: partition and Ubuntu boots from that.

      It's pretty neat because when you look at the output from the 'df' command, your drives aren't mounting from /dev, but rather /media/wubi

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by shellbeach ( 610559 )

      Anyone have any information about this? I prefer having a linux environment but my work laptop *must* run windows thanks to company software. This seems like it may be a much better solution for me compared to, say, cygwin.

      I have the same problem, but I get around it on my linux laptop by running XP within VirtualBox (which is free and doesn't need for a license key like VMWare). You can pause the virtual machine when you're not using it, have the desktop resize with the virtual machine window, and there's even stuff like bi-directional clipboard support. Setting up shared directories between the host OS and the virtual OS is also extremely easy. I remember trying to setup VMWare back in 2000, and the distance virtual mach

  • Bah (Score:5, Funny)

    by Garrick68 ( 1165999 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:24AM (#22818930)
    I am waiting for the Hungry Hippo version of Ubuntu...

  • wubi ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bibel ( 1072798 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:25AM (#22818938) Homepage

    To ease the transition of Windows users, it includes Wubi, which allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application.
    That's just great ... Ubuntu like any other Windows application. I am losing faith in humanity
    • Why? It seems like a good thing to me, just as long as there is an option to install it the old fasion way, if you don't have Windows. But the problem with Linux adoption is the fear of replacing Windows with Linux is a one for all problem even if you do a parition it is getting complex because there is a chance that you may damage your primary OS. This is a safer way to experience Linux. New if you fear that Windows would lure people away from using Linux because of all its great features and interface,

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by HermMunster ( 972336 )
        WUBI won't interfere with your windows partition. You can get rid of it by simply deleting your c:\wubi folder or by going into your add/remove programs and uninstalling it. You can also run the installer provided by WUBI. If you choose to just delete the folder you will still have to contend with the boot menu item. You can delete that by modifying the c:\boot.ini file.

        WUBI is an optional way to install Linux. The 8.04 ISO image is designed to be booted and run as a live CD where you choose the install

  • Sweet Stuff (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:36AM (#22819072)
    Just installed the amd64 version on my quad core box. I am really liking the goodies -

    Startup is quicker than previous version on the same hardware. Filesystems are now mounted with 'realtime' flag out-of-box - yay for even more speed!
    I was able to install it inside of Windows (Vista x64) without any performance loss using the Wubi installer - Ubuntu entry appeared in Windows boot loader and I did not had to partition my NTFS formatted disks - you can try and see how it works without losing data or even disk space when you am done trying it. Cool.

    Firefox 3 - my favorite browser is bundled and integrated - can't ask for more!

    Got to try KVM /virtio - KVM is something that never worked well for me.

  • ubuntu a windows application (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dspolleke ( 1139333 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:43AM (#22819150) Homepage

    which allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application.
    Since when is Ubuntu a windows application? It isn't even an application.. It is a Linux distribution. If Wubi get's out into the world as "the way to install Ubuntu" noob users will assume they need Windows to install a Linux distro.. why is no one creating an app to turn it around? You can convert your Windows partition to a VMware disk and save it to an USB disk or network store.. Install a Linux distro, install a Virtual Machine player (Innotek virtualbox, VMware) put the disk back and load windows from within Linux.. And install and uninstall windows like any other Linux distribution software package

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kaos07 ( 1113443 )

      Yeah, except the point is to make it easy for Windows users to install Ubuntu so as to drag them away from this DRM infested and buggy hell and into the wonderful paradise of Linux.

  • Can somebody change the typo "relatime" to "realtime" in this page: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/beta [ubuntu.com] Thanks, Sundar

    • Not a typo (Score:5, Informative)

      by GerbilSoft ( 761537 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @10:51AM (#22819240)
      The "relatime" mount option tells the filesystem to update atime only when it is older than mtime or ctime. This is better than turning off atime entirely, but doesn't have the performance issues of the older atime functionality.

  • I remember hearing about this in past updates, but no info in the summary. I've tried to install Ubuntu a number of times on my PC and laptop but I always ending up having graphics card errors and the fixes I've tried either failed, were too convoluted and time consuming or just way above my depth of knowledge. I've heard that that 8.04 will solve a lot of these issues as well as making Ubuntu even more painless to install.

    Anyone have any more info on this?

  • Looks like the update servers are being hit pretty hard. Does anyone have a link to the torrent?
  • I am using the Ubuntu beta since the early Alpha versions and I should admit that everything is going into place very well. Actually using it, you'd never say it's a beta given how polished and smooth the user experience is. A little bloating on the other hand is pervading the desktop setup and maybe too many services are active by default. With 512mb RAM you will need to disable something to have a better experience but compared to some competing OS the situation is really good.
    Comparing the Ubuntu 8.04 be

  • PulseAudio (Score:4, Interesting)

    by quanticle ( 843097 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @11:15AM (#22819578) Homepage

    How's the PulseAudio decision working out so far? I've run into lots of PulseAudio problems in Fedora (which enabled it by default in Fedora 8), so its a little bit surprising that Ubuntu has decided to enable PulseAudio by default. Personally, I don't think PulseAudio is yet ready for mainstream use, so I'm wondering what the justification for this decision was.

    • How's the PulseAudio decision working out so far? I've run into lots of PulseAudio problems in Fedora (which enabled it by default in Fedora 8), so its a little bit surprising that Ubuntu has decided to enable PulseAudio by default. Personally, I don't think PulseAudio is yet ready for mainstream use, so I'm wondering what the justification for this decision was.

      Indeed there are problems with PulseAudio, and I agree, this was a risky choice for an LTS release.

      Here is one example bug: audible stuttering, pops [launchpad.net]. It appears to be primarily a PulseAudio matter, in that sound breaks up under CPU load: even alt-tab to another app like Firefox that renders at 100% CPU for a fraction of a second. However it may also be related to the new scheduler (CFS), since desktop responsiveness in Hardy seems poor compared to previous Ubuntu releases, particularly on low-end hardwa

    • Forcing App Support (Score:2, Informative)

      by chunk08 ( 1229574 )
      I partially agree, however, pulseaudio is a full-featured, low-latency audio server. What's missing is app support. While I don't entirely agree with it, this seems to be a move to force applications to support pulseaudio. The Ubuntu developers will probably be writing patches for a number of libraries and applications and sending them upstream. For legacy ALSA and OSS applications, there is pasuspender (pause pulseaudio and give a single app direct ALSA access) and padsp (emulate an OSS device for an appli

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pembo13 ( 770295 )
      I'm guessing the Fedora and upstream got a large amount of the bugs out, so Ubuntu is ready to use it.
    • What sort of problems though? Your post is too vague to comment on. I'm running a version of PulseAudio now on Hardy Heron and I'm not having any issues.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )
      It's been working fairly well for me (I have been using since way too long ago, and must in the future remember to at least wait for Beta).

      I have had very few audio problems.

      I did have Amarock stop making sound at one point, and had to configure it to use pulsaudio (by default I think it was auto-detecting?)

      Currently (noticed last night) vlc is making no noise, and I have been using Movie Player (Xine) instead. I would guess it is a similar problem.

      Audio does seem more prone to skipping than it should (but

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by One Childish N00b ( 780549 )
      I'm wondering what the justification for this decision was.

      The feature-for-feature pissing contest they have with Vista. Vista says they have per-application sound support? Ubuntu has to slap in PulseAudio, despite it's obvious unreadiness for mainstream adoption, just to say "YEAH, WE HAVE THAT TOO!". It's just another checked box.

      It's a shame, as I'd rather Ubuntu spent more time enhancing the features that make it better than Vista than getting involved in buggy tit-for-tat feature creep.

  • What's new (Score:5, Informative)

    by Aaron Isotton ( 958761 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @11:36AM (#22819848)
    Here's what's I think is important (and new) Ubuntu 8.04 Beta, with my comments. There are more new things, but I don't care about them.

    Xorg 7.3 - the main advantage should be easier configuration, especially in multi-monitor setups. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say. But it can only be better than what we have now.

    Linux kernel 2.6.24 - The new & neat things here are dynticks for amd64 (power savings), the new CFS scheduler (you should experience less lags when your system is loaded). I'm mostly interested in the dynticks part.

    PulseAudio - this is supposed to clean up the linux audio mess. I say wait and see.

    Firefox 3 Beta 4 - I tried Beta 3 and it's *really* an advance over Firefox 2. I can't say that I personally witnessed any real speedups, but the new location bar is really cool. It takes a day or two to get used to it, but it really changes the way you surf.

    Transmission - a new Bittorrent client. I'm using it regularly since months, and it *rules*. It's exactly the way a bittorrent client should be.

    Brasero - a new CD/DVD burning program. I have never used it, but I can only hope that it is the way Nero 5 was.

    World clock for the clock applet - that's really handy. Never type "what's the time in california" into google again!

    Virtualization - it's supposed to be some super-easy and clicky integration of virtualization. I'm looking forward to it.

    • Dual monitors in Hardy (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SEMW ( 967629 )

      Xorg 7.3 - the main advantage should be easier configuration, especially in multi-monitor setups. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't say. But it can only be better than what we have now.

      Having had a rather bad time trying to get dual monitors set up in Gutsy, I've just tried the new screen applet (using the vanilla auto-configured xorg.conf).

      Looked pretty good at first; it shows the two monitors side by side, showing the one I hadn't been using with a screen resolution set to 'off'. I set that to 1152x864, and pressed 'apply': Lo and behold, it turned on and showed my desktop at that resolution -- except that the monitor I had been using before was now set to 'off'. I used the apple

  • KDE4 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by spikenerd ( 642677 )
    I installed Kubuntu beta with KDE4. Almost everything just worked.

    Had a tiny issue with KNetworkManager. It only wanted to recognize one network card at a time. I had to manually edit /etc/network/interfaces to fix it. That's the only old-style hackery I had to do. Did everything else via the GUI.

    Now it's functioning as a gateway, interfaces with Windows machines on my home network via samba, set up apache and all that stuff. KDE4 is a bit tough to customize. The features are pretty sparse. I can't te
  • Compiz/Beryl takes away OpenGL resources, and pulseaudio doesn't work right with ALSA, let alone the ALSA Wine driver.
    I'll be spending so much more time telling people to turn that stuff off.

    Oh thank you so much, Ubuntu team!

  • Already installed (Score:3, Informative)

    by cuby ( 832037 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @12:38PM (#22820774)
    Hello, even if not recommended for, a main machine (at home), I've installed 8.04 beta. I cleaned the system partition (/home is safe elsewhere) and made a fresh reinstall. My current installation has several upgrades on it and I want a good LTS, free of old stuff.

    My first impressions... The theme is almost the same, the menus are the same, but there are some theme inconsistency between windows...some processes lunched by root get a different theme. Emerald not working.

    the new applications rock, lots of changed applications, upgrades and beta software... As an LTS I think the developers chose soft that may be maintained longer, even if it is still in beta.

    By the way, Firefox 3B4 integration with gnome is fantastic.

    Only a thing that is not so good. If you have multiple accounts in the computer, the installer won't scan /home for users, so you will have to add them manually... The problem is that the GUI to add/change groups don't let you assign a new user to an existing /home/stuff dir. Also, nautilus (running as root) is broken when you try to change the ownership of something.

    All hardware running well, no strange things happening. Yet. Congratulations and many thanks to the ubuntu dev team.
  • I have an earlier version ubuntu. Can I just upgrade in place?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Flooded77 ( 730881 )
      You can update to the current Hardy Heron beta by typing 'update-manager -d' in your console. I upgraded from Gutsy just fine, but be warned - it is still in beta. YMMV

  • Upgrade to 7.10 was broken, is this better? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spitzak ( 4019 ) on Friday March 21, 2008 @02:22PM (#22822110) Homepage
    Rather annoyed at Ubuntu. It worked great on my Dell Precision M90 laptop in 6.? (whatever the one before this was). I upgraded to 7.10 and the sound, wireless, and suspend all broke.

    I managed to fix them by doing a lot of Google and package installation (here is what worked: the sound required the installation of something like "ubuntu_backports". The wireless (an Intel chip) required the installation of the i386 drivers (as opposed to the "generic" drivers used by the non-default version of the kernel). The suspend required installation of something called "ps_suspend" though I tried a lot of scary-looking other suggestions before this worked, with the annoying fact that I had to reboot every time a test failed. I'm quite certain that most people would not have figured out or tried any of these. (hint for googling: use the animal name, ie "gutsy")

    Normally you can blame lack of hardware manufacturer support and/or lack of resources to test things, but not when it worked in the previous version AND the system can be fixed to work in the new version.

    From my Google searching it sounds like a lot of people complained about the lack of such quality compared to the previous Ubuntu.

    Any word on whether I can expect the same, better, or worse from this new version?

  • The move to pulseaudio as the default sound systems is welcomed.  It's mastry of emulating OSS, ALSA and ESound are simply awesome and supposedly these are emulated more efficiently than the origtional competing sound systems.
    The problem is that there is an alsa compatibility library that needs to be fixed ASAP before this distribution gets released.

    To see the breakage just run the VoIP client named Ekiga and get into it's audio wizard.  It just hangs there.

    I've been studying long and hard to learn Asterisk and I'll be damned if I will run a distribution that can't provide audio to SIP client software on my laptop.

    https://answers.launchpad.net/alsa-plugins/+question/27568

    I was an early adopter of pulseaudio on my 7.10 laptop and have suffered not being able to run voip clients such as:
      X-Lite
      iaxcomm
      Ekiga
      Twinkle
      Kphone

    I really like Ubuntu, but I'm concerned they may loose significant market share if they don't resolve this matter FAST in the beta stages of 8.04.

    -Joe Baker
    GPG Key ID DDEC0260

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