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Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released 744

palegray.net writes "The latest version of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) has been released. Offering numerous enhancements for both desktop and server environments, this release includes notable features like Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud images, the Ubuntu One 'personal cloud,' and Linux kernel version 2.6.31. Please be sure to use a release mirror close to your geographic location to help reduce the stress on Ubuntu's primary servers; using BitTorrent for downloads can help alleviate the load even more. If your organization has adequate network and server resources, please consider hosting a mirror as well."
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Ubuntu 9.10 Officially Released

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  • by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @08:30AM (#29909265) Journal

    A lesson for Windows Engineers. Aim for 256MB, not 2GB. The era of Netbooks is upon us, and it looks like Microsoft will miss the bus.

    • My Compaq laptop with XP only has 112 MB of memory.

      Aim for that. ;-) And no I have no idea why it says 112 instead of an "even" number like 96 or 128. That's how much the laptop has without any expansion installed.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29, 2009 @08:41AM (#29909397)

      MS doesn't miss the bus. The problem is the MS bus is a short bus.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re:Not true... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:46AM (#29910325)
        I have to think those reviews were written by people wearing the rosiest of rose tinged glasses. I mean I'm a die-hard Windows user myself but I did try the Ubuntu 9.10 beta on one of my older laptops and it ran like a dream on the 192 MB of RAM it had in it. On the other hand, Windows 7 on my Acer Aspire One netbook with 1 GB or RAM seemed to run well at first but after a few days, the sluggishness showed through. Little delays here and there and the Aero effects stuttering just started driving me up the wall. I just went on and put XP back on it though, I'm very seriously considering putting Ubuntu on it now. I can't believe it but I finally think Linux might be ready. That beta on my old Toshiba with the 600 MHz Celeron certainly made a believer out of this Windows user.
    • by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Thursday October 29, 2009 @08:47AM (#29909473) Homepage
      The era of Netbooks is upon us, and it looks like Microsoft will miss the bus.

      The first generation of netbooks ran linux. Just about everything after that ran windows. Sounds like linux will miss the bus.
    • by gad_zuki! ( 70830 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @08:51AM (#29909527)

      I can barely run xubuntu on a machine with 256megs or ram let alone full ubuntu.

      >The era of Netbooks is upon us, and it looks like Microsoft will miss the bus.

      Considering netbooks are shipping with 7 and ram costs less than shipping, I'll take the 2gig model, thanks. More ram for my apps.

      • by Col. Bloodnok ( 825749 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:06AM (#29909733)

        Have you tried swapping xfce for lxde?

        I makes one hell of a difference on my old transmeta based tablet.

      • by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:50AM (#29910395) Journal

        Considering netbooks are shipping with 7 and ram costs less than shipping

        Real Netbooks are devices like the SmartQ5 and the SmartQ7 which I have got evaluation pieces from China for about $170 a piece. These devices contain the ARM-11 series processor with 256MB of RAM and 1GB of storage.

        Windows7 requires regular disk drives and that makes it a mini-Notebook; not a Netbook.

        Basically Microsoft took the Netbook, added a disk and forced it onto the market through big-name h/w vendors. This will not work with the ARM-range of Netbooks on which Windows will not run; but Maemo, Ubuntu, Fedora etc run decently enough.

      • by AdamWill ( 604569 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @10:43AM (#29911229) Homepage

        "I can barely run xubuntu on a machine with 256megs or ram let alone full ubuntu."

        Xfce's almost as much of a resource hog as GNOME or KDE these days. On a 256MB system I'd recommend LXDE for something vaguely familiar which really doesn't eat tons of RAM. Of course, then you need low-resource apps as well. Dillo's a good basic browser, Midori if you need more than Dillo can provide. I'm partial to nedit for a very low-resource text editor. And so on...

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by CSMatt ( 1175471 )

        That's because the Xubuntu team (on Jaunty at least) decided to destroy all that is good and wonderful about Xfce to the point that Ubuntu actually uses less recourses than Xubuntu. [linux-mag.com] I'd wait for Lubuntu to come out or do as another poster suggested and install LXDE from another Ubuntu flavor.

  • no it wasnt.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    no it wasnt..

  • Looks like somebody jumped the gun. Download link is for 9.04 as of now...
  • I mean seriously, how hard is it to go look at http://www.ubuntu.com/ [ubuntu.com] to check?

  • The RC was just released a few days ago. But the final 9.10 is still not on their website.

  • by QBasicer ( 781745 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @08:47AM (#29909469) Homepage Journal
    The new Ubuntu seems to have a lot of new stuff that I feel slightly uneasy about. I'm not sure if Ext4 has proven itself yet (then again, I haven't been paying attention), and grub2 isn't even available on Gentoo yet (my somewhat crude stick of measuring when things are considered "new" or not). I like the progress, I'm just interesting in hearing some discussion about it (hal deprecation, new input system, NX, AppArmor, etc).
    • by BlackCreek ( 1004083 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:00AM (#29909625)

      Ext4 in Ubuntu 9.10 is specially problematic, as there are reports of corruption when writing large files:
      http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910#Switching%20to%20ext4%20requires%20manually%20updating%20grub [ubuntu.com]

      https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/453579 [launchpad.net]

  • by Rik Sweeney ( 471717 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @08:52AM (#29909535) Homepage

    Karmic Karmic Karmic Karmic Karmic Koala
    Download and install
    Download and innnnnstaaaalllllll....

  • by delire ( 809063 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:19AM (#29909901)
    From the Release Notes [ubuntu.com].

    Possible corruption of large files with ext4 filesystem

    There have been some reports of data corruption with fresh (not upgraded) ext4 file systems using the Ubuntu 9.10 kernel when writing to large files (over 512MB). The issue is under investigation, and if confirmed will be resolved in a post-release update. Users who routinely manipulate large files may want to consider using ext3 file systems until this issue is resolved. (453579)

    Ubuntu One client requires post-install upgrade


    A serious bug in the Ubuntu One client software included in Ubuntu 9.10 that could potentially result in loss of data has led to disabling file syncing access for this client version on the Ubuntu One servers as a precaution. Users who see a "Capabilities Mismatch" error when trying to use Ubuntu One should install the post-release upgrade of the client that will be made available immediately after release, fixing the original bug and restoring file syncing access to the Ubuntu One servers. Files are still available via the web interface at http://one.ubuntu.com./ [one.ubuntu.com]

    Contact syncing and tomboy syncing services are not affected by this issue.

    Package list must be manually refreshed before installing drivers

    The "Hardware Drivers" tool (Jockey) requires up to date package lists before it detects and advertises necessary driver packages. Immediately after a new installation, these package lists will not be present. Before running Jockey for the first time, update the package lists using System->Administration->Software->Update Manager (on Ubuntu) or "KPackageKit" (on Kubuntu). (462704)
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Nukenbar ( 215420 )

      Bugs like this always make me worry about Ubuntu's hard release dates. The Ubuntu One bug sounds like a pretty big problem. Would it have killed them to fix this problem and delay the release? I know slippery release dates cause other problems (DNF [wikipedia.org]), but do you really want a major release to have serious problems like this?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by godrik ( 1287354 )

        Hey it is ubuntu. It is not supposed to work! :)

        Seriously! When microsoft treated user like beta-tester we hated them. And now we praise ubuntu which does even worse...

        I am very happy with my debian stable. I know there are no such critical bugs in it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ACS Solver ( 1068112 )
      This is a serious WTF. I understand their predisposition towards fixed release cycles, but we're talking about possible data loss here. Just about every standard I know considers bugs that cause data loss/corruption to be of critical severity, meaning that you don't ship with it. Files that are >512MB in size aren't even that rare today. They say writing to such files is suspected to result in data corruption, and I do not find it likely that the devs believe this to be anything less than a critical bug.
    • Bloody hell!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by syousef ( 465911 )

      I've done installs of Ubuntu on a virtual machines a couple of times but my initial experiences led me to stay away because I really like the development tools in Ubuntu and development really isn't Ubuntu's core strength - the end user desktop is or was. Installing dev tools felt like a right pain the behind and the fact that they didn't seem to allow let alone encourage custom kernel compilation put me right off. Fair enough I thought. I'm a geek I can stick with something else.

      However pushing a release o

  • USB install (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Narishma ( 822073 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:27AM (#29910011)

    Can you install the desktop version (not the netbook edition) using a USB stick? They only provide ISOs on the official website, not IMGs.

  • Samba? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CopaceticOpus ( 965603 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:31AM (#29910071)

    I don't understand why the Ubuntu team has never simplified the setup process for Samba. It is simple enough to share a folder with unlimited access, but as soon as you want to create users and passwords, it becomes rather complex. I've had to set it up a couple of times, and I never seem to get it to work quite right.

    Many Ubuntu users are also going to be running a Windows machine on their local network. If the goal is to give them a positive experience with Linux, then setting up the connections on the local network should be brain-dead easy. Imagine sending a novice user to this page [ubuntu.com]! They would soon be throwing away their Ubuntu disk and installing Windows.

    Making an easy GUI for this configuration process shouldn't be that difficult. I hope that it will be addressed sometime soon.

  • by Kurt Granroth ( 9052 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:38AM (#29910179)

    I have to assume that there are some "secret" plans involving Ubuntu One that make a lot of sense (if you know them) and can actually explain why Ubuntu One exists in the first place. I've read through all the public documentation and, for the life of me, I can't figure out what is even remotely unique or noteworthy about the service.

    Right now, it's attempting to be a Dropbox clone. However, it's not yet there and is clearly still in beta -- even though they have the same pricing structure as the (very mature) Dropbox. Their goal for the file synchronization service is to be as full-featured as Dropbox? But not more? Seriously, if your goal is to be as good as Dropbox, then why not just use Dropbox?

    It's not even that "Ubuntu One is OSS and Dropbox is proprietary". Both services have OSS parts and proprietary parts.

    Maybe, then, they are trying to be more of an online backup service, ala Mozy? Well... no. I can't find any evidence that they encrypt your data so it would be a bust as online backup.

    So I don't get it. Why would anybody use (much less pay for) it when there are much more robust services already out there AND there's no indication that it'll actually be better than those services in any way. There must be some secret plans that I just don't know about.

    Anybody feel like letting me know what I missed?

  • Torrentz PLZ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BetterSense ( 1398915 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:51AM (#29910411)
    I can't seem to find torrents for the either 32 or 64 bit versions on the download page. Why hide the torrents, especially when traffic is so heavy right after release?
  • by KWTm ( 808824 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @09:52AM (#29910433) Journal

    Kubuntu fans can check the release notes here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicKoala/RC/Kubuntu [ubuntu.com]
    Browsing through them, I got the feeling of tired, haggard Kubuntu maintainers congratulating themselves for surviving, but not excelling in, the production of this version which still has many issues. If you read between the lines, you see that there are still quite a number of issues. "The NetworkManager applet has received some loving from its creators, and offers a more robust networking experience than it did in Kubuntu 9.04."

    I went to the Feedback page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KarmicKoala/RC/Kubuntu/Feedback [ubuntu.com] to see how KDE would do in this version. This is where you get the honest criticism that tells you what problems you might encounter. Generally people are offering encouragement but the fact is that this version of Kubuntu is still not cutting it. Comments usually start with "Great release! However ... " and then a list of bugs. These are bugs from before. One person says: "all bugs I noticed are still there: broken knetworkmanager, no sending via bluetooth, preview file in dolphin's context menu not working. I tried 9.10 in hope they were corrected, but they weren't."

    I myself have been staying with 8.04 since that is the last version that officially supported KDE 3. (I hear that you can now get KDE 3 versions of 8.10 or 9.04, but I don't think those are official.) If I'm going to retrain myself on KDE 4, I might as well wait an extra half year and get the 10.04 Long-Term Support edition --if ever Kubuntu gets around to doing one. (8.04 was LTS for GNOME Ubuntu only, not for Kubuntu.)

    I think the Kubuntu developers need to be strongly encouraged to fix existing bugs instead of putting in new features.

    As an aside, regarding the "Known Issues" list for standard GNOME Ubuntu:
    Release notes http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/910 [ubuntu.com]
    Does anyone else think that there are more and more bugs now, and that Ubuntu simply is not the "install and use defaults" user-friendly distro that it used to be?

  • by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @10:02AM (#29910581)
    For those looking to get Ubuntu 9.10 on a ATI grfx card with a R600/700 chipset, you may want to take a look at the latest drivers from AMD. [amd.com] As opposed to the usual Envyng or Ubuntu provided drivers. There are a few people who are having a bit of weirdness with the ones shipped there (nothing big just a bit of oddities).
    I'm still looking forward to the advancement of the experimental support that X.org has added to the new Xserver (1.7 me thinks) for R600/700 chipsets, go open source drivers FTW!
  • by Hurricane78 ( 562437 ) <deleted&slashdot,org> on Thursday October 29, 2009 @10:38AM (#29911153)

    Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud images, the Ubuntu One "personal cloud"

    Oh-oh, we're getting dangerously close to a full set of buzzwords...

    What did they smoke to make those cloudy names? Did the descision taking meeting look like the car full of smoke in that old Luniz video? ^^

    This is unacceptable! I will fork this, and call it "Ubuntu Social iEnterprise Vertical e-Cloud Framework", Codename: "Twitching Twitter".
    'Cause I got a fever. And the only prescription is "MOAR CLOUDBUZZ"!

  • by Radhruin ( 875377 ) on Thursday October 29, 2009 @10:45AM (#29911261)

    My experience with 9.10 so far has been extremely positive.

    I did an upgrade at first, and then a complete reinstall. The upgrade process went very quickly, and I only had one problem - that my network card became "unmanaged" again. This is some remnant from my 8.10 install back in the day. Besides that, there were no problems and my desktop was exactly as I left it.

    The install process from scratch also went well. The partition manager is pretty friendly, and the (I think) new time zone selector is actually easy to use. I also don't need to do a whole bunch of stuff to determine my keyboard layout -- it defaulted to US english and that was that.

    The desktop system itself is much improved. The changes to Nautilus are welcome. The side bar is more user friendly, and the folders and such look a lot better.

    The notification system has some improvements so it's not quite as useless -- multiple consecutive notifications from the same application drop into the same notification window, and there's a sort of glass effect when you "mouse under" the window, making that absurd behavior a bit more palatable.

    My graphics card (GTX 280) was supported after downloading some binary drivers (although I had to restart to enable full desktop effects).

    My sound card (X-Fi Fatality edition) is finally supported in kernel, although I had to use amixer in order to get my mic working. The new sound mixer, though, is FAR more user friendly.

    I've had no problems so far with EXT4, and my load times in Heroes of Newerth have decreased since the upgrade.

    The font rendering. It's much better across the board. Firefox sees the biggest improvement, likely due to the upgrade to 3.5. Font rendering used to be far worse than Windows and is now on par with Mac (I prefer the bolder, smoother look of Mac fonts, personally).

    The HDD diagnosis tool is also handy. As soon as the upgrade completed and the tool ran, it warned me of some SMART errors on one of my drives. It's pretty easy to dig into the drives and run diagnostics and such.

    Empathy is still bad, and I switched back to pidgin after a few minutes of use. For example, I had to find an hidden check box just to "enable" the account and get it to connect. The UI is also not so hot.

    Overall I haven't regretted the upgrade at all, which is more than I can say to 9.04.

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