The current state of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[exploder]

Just thought I would post my experience with Ubuntu 12.04 because I see more and more people staying with the LTS releases of both Ubuntu and Mint. At this point in time the LTS is pretty responsive and there are not very many critical bugs remaining, of course there is still some development time remaining too. The LTS is working on my laptop with ATI graphics, my main machine with NVidea on-board 9100 graphics and I have tried the daily build on a system with on-board Intel graphics and it is working with all of my hardware configurations.

Something interesting is that Plymouth, (when it displays) is no longer giving me the big ugly text it has in previous releases and I have not done anything to try and modify it. I know that is of no consequence to Mint because Clem uses a black background with Plymouth so no one is disappointed with a crumby boot experience but it surprised me that the Ubuntu developers had made some headway with this. The reason I find the behavior in Plymouth interesting is because I am using proprietary drivers for the ATI and NVidea graphics. Even when Plymouth does not display at startup, I see a purple background for a few seconds. The boot time is very quick on all of the hardware I have tried the LTS on.

It really looks like most people are going to see much better hardware support than we have seen in awhile. I am seeing problems with some multimedia players at the moment, minitube is not giving me any video currently but I can still manage to download videos in mp4 format most of the time before it crashes. I think the issues might be coming from gstreamer packages and I have seen other distros having these same issues with some of the updated players. Flash playback is working but it hesitates occasionally, for the most part multimedia playback does work pretty decent. I think it is pretty safe to assume that the remaining problems will be fixed before the final release.

Unity is much more user friendly at this point in time, the new features definitely give it a more refined and mature feel and it is pretty pleasant to use after having a little time to get used to it. The developers have made sure that people that want Gnome Shell and Gnome Classic will not be disappointed either and that makes things better for everyone. I honestly think that Ubuntu users and all of the various distributions that build off Ubuntu are going to be happy with this release. My computers seem to be the ones that have repeatedly had problems with hardware support with previous releases but they all seem to work just fine with 12.04.

Most people around here know that I am not a Ubuntu fan but I have to give credit where credit is due and the Ubuntu developers really have done a fine job on the LTS release. This must have been the release that Shuttleworth was talking about in his keynote speech when he talked about the fly in the ice cream. It is nice not to have to jump through hoops to get things working and I think many people that have had problems in the past are going to have a much better experience with the 12.04 release.

[Myself]

After being forced to spend most of today with 12.04 all I can say is, "Oh! My God what are they doing!".
Yes, it looks good but try using it is another story.
It's like the old saying, "Far off fields look greener!".
It takes far more clicks to get anything done.
One has search for or remember and type program names to open them.
Switching between open applications is another delaying process.
It takes me a split second to do this in LMDE Xfce ... ...or even old Windows, which I hate.
Next is the issue of Ubuntu's Hobbled programs that are installed from Ubuntu's repositories.
Why re-invent the wheel?
Why waste time, efforts and resources - well, I guess the man has too much money - when the programmer/s that provided the programs actually spent time, effort and money to make them work properly.
Ubuntu has rewritten programs so that there is either no menu or a restricted menu to make the various setting changes required by various users.
Ubuntu 12.04 is just FRUSTRATION.
Thank God for distributions like Linux Mint where they fix the mess.
I tried posting earlier but was disconnected just as I posted due to my IP address changing - I'm being seriously interfered with by my ISP, or their political Lord & Master, and was using a solution to get around it.

[MALsPa]

Thanks, exploder -- looking forward to the final release in a few weeks!

[exploder]

I put all my most used apps in the launcher, so I don't have to do much looking for anything. You do have other options to using Unity as well, Gnome Classic and Cinnamon immediately come to mind. The only thing that bugs me about the LTS at the moment is the problem with the gstreamer-backend causing problems with some media players. In my case, I use minitube quite a bit and it is crashing due to the gstreamer bug. I am pretty confident that the bug will be resolved though and someone on the Ubuntu forum has successfully worked around the issue and has even offered to help me with it should I need some help.

I was not originally interested in Unity but after some time I have grown to like it, the same goes for Gnome Shell. I understand that not everyone is going to like Unity and that's fine because there are so many other options available. Just looking at the 12.04 as a base is very promising this particular release cycle because the hardware support is looking so good. I think that Unity will have the same kind of appeal as Android to new users and manufacturers, that is of course only my opinion. I did watch a side by side comparison of Unity and Gnome 2x to see which could run a given set of tasks quicker, Unity won by the way.

[badmotor]

My Software Centre has stopped working I just presumed that it may have been broken by an update and would be fixed soon, but after a bit of Googling around it seems I'm the only one having this problem? When I try to install any app, it has a graphical freak-out and the computer locks up and the only way out is to hold the power button down to kill it.

I have also been getting a 'system error' on a regular basis. The only thing that I have done out of the ordinary is install 'Downverter' from a .deb file.

How did you get around the G-streamer thing Exploder? I've been using VLC to play videos but would rather have the proper methods working so that you get the nice preview icons for videos and Minitube and Totem to work etc. I guess it is only a matter of time before it is sorted out.

Otherwise - once these things are sorted out, I think it will be a great release. It starts up really quick - and that's on my HP mini, which is not exactly a speedy machine. It looks fantastic, and I have been adapting my workflow to the way Unity/gnome shell works and it is pretty cool.

[exploder]

badmotor, the software center is working for me on all my installs. The system error went away for me a few days ago after some updates, I was getting it on all my installs. I would wait out the gstreamer bug because it's a pretty sure bet that it will get fixed. I have not used the workaround for gstreamer yet, the workaround was offered to me though. Glad to hear that you have no problems working with Unity, I think most people that complain don't give Unity a fair chance. The final release should be really nice and they are concentrating on bug fixing now.

[craig10x]

@ myself: it's fine if you don't like unity... i am sure you probably didn't really give it a fair chance, spend some time with it (like a few weeks not a couple of hours)...and with a positive attitude and open mind...some people just can't stand anything changed or different in any way...

Firstly, one can easily put the applications that are favorites and frequently used on the unity launcher (dock bar) for easy "1 click access"...and searching for an application on unity's dash is really no different then using the search on the old linux mint's "slab menu" or say on the cinnamon menu for example...

As far as many more clicks..i just don't see what you are talking about, really...in fact, unity has all kinds of interesting short cuts (from the keyboard) that didn't even exist in the old gnome 2...and frankly, i never found the old ubuntu "fan out" menu to be very quick and easy to use at all...

But, to each his own, as they say And i (and many others) find Unity to be extremely nice to use...so do not assume that just because you personally don't like it, that everyone else feels the same way...

[exploder]

In all honesty, it took me a while to like what is now the Gnome Classic menus. Me and a guy on the Ubuntu forum argued about menus for a while and I finally used the drop down menus for a few weeks, after that I began to appreciate them. I can understand people not wanting drastic change pushed on them real fast. I chose to try Unity because of hardware support for my new laptop. I did not like Unity at first on my main computer with a 25" wide screen monitor. After a while though, I really liked having the dock and the dash sort of grew on me the more I used it. Gnome Shell believe it or not seemed more natural to use but I liked how elegant Unity was.

Lenses and Scopes finally sold me on Unity because it was a new idea and I started thinking about what people might come up with in the near future. There is an extension I saw for Unity that lets you click on the launcher icon to minimize applications, I want to try it once 12.04 goes final. My only complaint about Unity is having to minimize a window the old way by going up to the title-bar, it is awkward and the buttons are too small and too close together. I expect we will see changes in future versions of Unity that will make things easier though.

[Myself]

Typing this from yet another reinstall of 12.04.

I was about to log-in to 12.04 Unity when I had some visitors arrive so I left the screen at log-in.
An hour later I went to log-in and it went black screen with gobbldygook text.
Tried to restart but found that the hard drive was corrupted.
I guess the lesson is log-in straight away and not wait an hour - but this shows that no one has tested this possibility.

Anyway, did reinstall, updates, and now log-in with Cinnamon... ...which I find to be far superior.

[exploder]

@ Myself

Nothing wrong with using Cinnamon! You get the best of Gnome 3 and the environment you like. How is Cinnamon running on 12.04? Also, did you have to add any repos to install Cinnamon or was it in the Ubuntu repos? I have ran into problems like you did. I have a 3 year old son that distracts me quite a bit when I am trying to get things done!

[Myself]

I did a quick search on Internet (maybe I should have checked with this site 1st ) on how to install Cinnamon and got the following incorrect advicehttp://www.linuxstall.com/how-to-install-linux-mints-cinnamon-desktop-on-ubuntu/ and http://www.howtogeek.com/103691/install-linux-mints-new-cinnamon-desktop-on-ubuntu/which meant a download bit not an install due to dependency issues.

The correct procedure is actually really simple -

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-nightly
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

Worked perfectly - fast and easy to use. Love the effects. Last time I tried Cinnamon on 12,04 there was a problem, it didn't works very well, and all was lost in a wipe-out crash after installing Ubuntu Updates.

Only problem is I discovered why I am having to reinstall so much - bug in drive controller causing ext4 errors. Crashes after a set number off writes.

The one thing I do not like about Cinnamon is that when there is a problem a report is generated and then abandoned as Ubuntu will not accept it and one cannot redirect it to Linux Mint.

[badmotor]

Sadly, I have had to abandon 12.04 on my HP mini
Even being completely up-to-date, I was getting the regular system error and Software Centre was still locking up the whole computer. So I thought a reinstall should fix that - I grabbed the latest daily build and installed that... and ended up in exactly the same place with the same problems. Weird - it's a bit frustrating when you are the only one having a particular problem.

I'll probably wait until the final and see how that goes.

[craig10x]

Yeah...i was going to suggest that...re-install after the final release....my updates have been going quite well...though i still don't get the ubuntu greeting sound when booting up...there might be some other regressions i don't know about right now....but i think i will likely re-install myself upon the final release on April 26....

[exploder]

Maybe I am just lucky but both my installs run fine other than the gstreamer issue. I doubt I will see any difference between what I have now and the final release. The install on my laptop is a couple of months old and the install on my main computer is only a couple of weeks old and they run the same.

[Myself]

Latest daily build of 12.04 refuses to install.
Keeps crashing at about 70%. telling me that the USB drive I'm installing from is faulty.
I'm not installing from a USB drive.
I burnt the daily build to the a CD-RW as I normally do.
Tried a new DVD-RW but get the same problem.
Ubuntu's bug reporting refused to accept the error messages.
Does not look good for the final release if this is happening at this stage.

[craig10x]

@exploder: actually, the only problem i have really noticed on my beta 2 install at this point is that i still can't get the start-up sound and it just hasn't gotten fixed in mine even with all the updates that have come through...wonder if i should really care, though...was never that crazy about the bongo drums anyway
Also, i understand it's turned off by default anyway (though i did re-check it on the start up menu but it made no difference for me)...

Haven't noticed anything else wrong...which does make me wonder if i will get any advantage in re-installing after April 26th...

[exploder]

Not sure why they keep messing with Ubiquity when it was working fine. There are some doing RC testing even though there is no planned RC. The gstreamer bug is still present and I get scratchy sound for a few seconds when I start VLC. In previous releases I could set VLC to use alsa but I get no sound at all doing this with this release. Canonical has put a lot of effort into 12.04 and they are wanting it to be the release that puts them in the mainstream, so I am just going to be patient and see if they can work out the remaining bugs.

Like many here I have worked my way through my share of development releases and they almost always get things in good shape for an LTS release. I see a lot of users staying with the LTS releases too unless they need support for new devices but they do add support to the kernel on the LTS for new hardware. If I remember right even the daily builds continue for LTS releases. Texstar and the PCLinuxOS Team really taught me to have patience and just hang in there.

I have been seeing a lot of bug fixes coming in the last couple of days and things keep getting better so I am pretty confident that everything will turn out good in the end. The developers keep refining Unity too with Updates and it really shows that they are doing everything they can to make 12.04 one of the best releases to date. The gstreamer bug effects other distributions too so there are a lot of developers hard at work trying to get this fixed.

Graphics card support is the best I have seen in a long time and that is very encouraging. I am the guy that always has the hardware that has issues but that is not the case with 12.04. There is nothing worse than having to jump through hoops to get your graphics card to work right in any release, it's a show stopper for many of us. I have ATI graphics on my new laptop, NVidea 9100 graphics on my main computer, NVidea GT 220 graphics on the machine I set up for my wife and all of them work fine with the proprietary drivers installed. I was surprised that I did not have to use startupmanager to adjust things for Plymouth to display half way decent.

@ craig10x

They are changing the startup sound in 12.04. I think they just haven't put out the update for it just yet. I had the startup sound but I don't right now and all other system sounds are working fine, so it's just a matter of time before the startup sound returns.

[craig10x]

very good...i will be watching for the update on the start up sound... it will be interesting to see whether it does it for me...i didn't get it at all... right from the install...but all other sound functions work perfectly fine...Power management keeps improving even more...first with the new kernel patches and something else in recent updates seem to make it even better...i get lower temperature readings now then i did even a week ago

[badmotor]

It's funny - normally I have a smooth ride while everyone else has the bugs. Not this time. I found that it ran best several weeks ago and then has gotten progressively more buggy in the last week or so.

And no bongo drums? Sacrilege!

[craig10x]

It's funny - normally I have a smooth ride while everyone else has the bugs. Not this time. I found that it ran best several weeks ago and then has gotten progressively more buggy in the last week or so.

And no bongo drums? Sacrilege!

too funny

I think i may re-install anyway after April 26th....i have noticed that too...sometimes the updates have improved certain things while other updates made them worse...
So, just to play it safe...i think i may go that route...
I think in the future i will just wait for the final release...i guess i got impatient