So, I updated my laptop to the beta version of the next release of ubnutu over the weekend.
I’m just starting to get my teeth into it, but I’ll keep updating this posting as I make new observations.
Biases: I’m a longtime Debian user, and have come to take the magic of apt for granted. I have, in the past, configured my system using automount and udev to deal with USB drives appearing and disappearing. I’m a command line junky, so I have very little use for Gnome and it’s ilk. I long ago decided that X11 is for web browsers, and getting lots of terminal windows on the same screen.
The good:
- As advertised, bootup times are much improved. And, since I’m currently running on a laptop, that’s important. The post-login, especially, noticably faster.
- The fonts are terrific. I noticed an immediate improvement in web pages through firefox (which is my primary non-terminal application).
- visually, the new theme is nice. There are a couple of small things I’m not quite so keen on, but it’s a good improvement in eye candy.
- apt-get install sun-jdk-java5. What else can I say?
- I’ve had at least one person shoulder-surfing at work remark with some surprise … desktop linux has come a looong way.
The bad:
- I can’t figure out how to configure the Network Manager that the upgrade page advertises. From what I can find, it’s pretty much supposed to work automagically. It finds none of my wireless networks, either at work or at home — and there’s pretty much a whole building’s worth of wireless networks at my apartment. I havn’t found any config files to edit, and near as I can tell, I have everything installed that it needs. It’s not a huge deal, but hey … this is a laptop. networks change, and it’d be nice not to have to throw a password to do so.
- It appears that there’s still no ruby gems installer in the base distribution. This is obstinantly due to some kind of packaging disagreement between the langague folks and the distribution … but, if it works with CPAN …
The Ugly:
- My laptop has media keys along the far right of the keyboard. They’re your standard “pause, foward, back” type keys … I havn’t figured out how to get ubuntu to recognize them.
- default desktop. This is more of a “I don’t like gnome” sort of complaint, but … I hate desktop icons. They’re not compatable with how I work, and they just get in the way.
I havn’t figured out where I need to go to turn them off.In order to turn them off, you have to run gconf-editor (because the gnome people, for some reason, think a registry is a good idea. The mess in windows is apparently not enough of a deterrant) and disable the key/apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop.