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Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 6:20 am
by exploder
I actually have some free time this weekend because of the holiday and my curiosity got the best of me. :) Since our next release cycle revolves around Ubuntu Maverick, I wanted to see if it might run on my hardware without some of the problems I have had in the past few releases. Much to my surprise, Maverick seems quite stable. I am using the open source nvidea drivers because there are still reported issues with the proprietary drivers but I don't do much gaming, so it's not that big of a deal for me. I should mention that I installed the 64 bit version, in the last release I had to manually install the pae kernel and I wanted to avoid that this time around.

The disk check now works! The system was very sluggish when I first installed the beta but updates seem to have taken care of that. The applications are up to date just like you would expect, Rhythmbox seems kind of slow to load up and is currently using a lot of RAM. There are refinements to the gui all over the place and with the exception of the default wallpaper, it actually looks and feels pretty nice. The most noticeable issue I have seen is with "Help and Support" and "About Ubuntu", the gui currently has unrecognisable text, the characters are just blocks... This seems pretty minor at this stage and I am certain it will be fixed long before the final release and it really does not affect us anyway.

I have had one hard lock up in about 12 hours of use, the mouse would work but nothing would respond. Xserver updates may have fixed this but only time and use will tell. I would be interested in anyone's experience with the nvidea drivers in Maverick and how it effects boot time and Plymouth. I tried the nvidea drivers once and lost Plymouth but the system still booted up. There is still plenty of development time remaining so we can all hope for a solid base for Mint 10.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 3:47 pm
by exploder
I installed the nvidea drivers from the xswat repo and added Startup Manager to fix Compiz, seems to be alright so far and hopefully the lock up issue is gone. :)

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 4:01 pm
by mmesantos1
Hey Exploder,
I too could not resist that chance to try the Beta, I installed it and did the partial upgrade and the system with the Proprietary driver ran great. The only reason I am not using it now is because I really wanted to install Mint Debian which is running great. But I was surprised while running the beta I did not get allot of crashes or other issues I noticed with previous testing versions of Ubuntu. My hope is that they do not break anything with RC to final. One can only hope. :D

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 4:09 pm
by linuxviolin
exploder wrote:I am certain it will be fixed long before the final release
Or until they release it as they'll break something in the final... like usual. Without talk about the usual regressions. :mrgreen: .

About Plymouth, well, personally I do not care a bit about it. It is not absolutely necessary frankly, everything worked very well without it... As long as the computer boots up without problem and I can do what I want, Plymouth is the last of my worries, if ever it was one. :roll:

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 4:35 pm
by exploder
mmesantos1, downloading Mint Debian right now. :D

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 5:23 pm
by mmesantos1
exploder wrote:mmesantos1, downloading Mint Debian right now. :D
Cool, let me know what you think. And show a screenshot once you customize the look. :)

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 5:28 pm
by exploder
Cool, let me know what you think. And show a screenshot once you customize the look. :)
Downloading the iso again... Brasero is not working in Maverick, imagine that. :)

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 5:49 pm
by mmesantos1
exploder wrote:
Cool, let me know what you think. And show a screenshot once you customize the look. :)
Downloading the iso again... Brasero is not working in Maverick, imagine that. :)
Man, sorry to here it Exploder.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 7:12 pm
by exploder
I just found out that the Brasero issue is my own fault for not waiting for all of the packages to be updated. There are 4 packages involved and I updated 2, the other packages are held back. Totally my fault on this one. :oops:

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 11:12 am
by exploder
I have to admit Ubuntu is starting to look pretty decent.

http://img697.imageshack.us/f/screenshotsdh.png/

Using the Radiance theme and a wallpaper from gnome-look. Other than the default wallpaper, they have made some serious improvement to the default themes. Little things like progress bars, changing the color of the pager, the arrows in the browser and nautilus, etc really make Maverick look refined. I got to thinking, this is getting competitive with Microsoft and Apple now. The software center has greatly improved and it's easy to see now that it is getting very close to standing on it's own.

I did have to go out of my way a little to install the graphics drivers and fix Plymouth but I have gone through more trouble in Windows. If Ubuntu were to concentrate on bugs and continue to refine the user interface they could compete with the big players and probably grab a large share of the market.

Plymouth is a pain right now but when it's working it gets rid of the geeky look Linux has. The communications applet in the panel is different from anything in competing systems and that is good in a way because it keeps Ubuntu from being referred to as a clone of anything else. Things are starting to get interesting again. :)

Edit: The latest NVidea drivers just made it into the default repos. One less hoop to jump through. :D

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 11:32 am
by kwisher
exploder wrote:mmesantos1, downloading Mint Debian right now. :D
Where is the Mint Debian ISO located?

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 11:36 am
by exploder
Where is the Mint Debian ISO located?
Clem had to upload the iso again because of a problem with the iso, it should be publicly available again very soon.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:02 pm
by kwisher
Will the changes Clem is making be applied with an update to the previous iso?

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:05 pm
by exploder
Will the changes Clem is making be applied with an update to the previous iso?
I don't think so. There was a problem with dpkg, if you have the Debian Edition installed and mintUpdate is working you are set.

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:12 pm
by mmesantos1
Screenshot looks good Exploder. Great work on the Desktop. :)

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:17 pm
by kwisher
I know this is the wrong thread for this discussion but I have been out-of-the loop with Mint lately due to my disgust with Ubuntu based problems. I have been distro-hopping and was previously using PCLOS 2010 Gnome. I believe that this new Debian Mint release will be much more stable and am looking forward to using it. Does this mean that Mint will be permanently moving away from Ubuntu as a base?

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:24 pm
by exploder
Screenshot looks good Exploder. Great work on the Desktop. :)
Thanks! I like the dark purple, it's different.
I know this is the wrong thread for this discussion but I have been out-of-the loop with Mint lately due to my disgust with Ubuntu based problems. I have been distro-hopping and was previously using PCLOS 2010 Gnome. I believe that this new Debian Mint release will be much more stable and am looking forward to using it. Does this mean that Mint will be permanently moving away from Ubuntu as a base?
I know what you mean about the disgust with Ubuntu, hopefully 10.10 will prove to be the better base we have been hoping for. There are currently no plans of switching to the Debian base but you never know what the future will bring. :)

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:10 pm
by exploder
An interesting thing about Maverick is there is absolutely no test displayed during boot. The disk check is working perfectly also. So far the remaining bugs are very minor with the exception of "Network" in the Places menu, I have seen this one before so I am certain it can be easily fixed. The network issue showed up today after some updates. The Ubuntu Software Center has improved by leaps and bounds, it even has a slide show for featured software! Nice!

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:23 pm
by tdockery97
@kwisher: This is from a blog post by Clem:

"We’re not “switching base”, we’ll continue to use Ubuntu on most of our systems. This Debian-based project will produce an additional system (to start with), it’s something we want to try, and if it proves successful, it’s something we’ll continue to maintain."

Re: Ubuntu 10.10

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 4:05 pm
by kwisher
tdockery97 wrote:@kwisher: This is from a blog post by Clem:

"We’re not “switching base”, we’ll continue to use Ubuntu on most of our systems. This Debian-based project will produce an additional system (to start with), it’s something we want to try, and if it proves successful, it’s something we’ll continue to maintain."
Thanks for that info tdockery97. I have installed Mint Debian on two systems today and I am quite impressed.