Michael Dolan Dot Com

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

Who cares about late Leopards, and crazy Vistas - download Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon now!

The guys/gals on #ubuntu were a bit annoyed that I said this, but I was sneaky and found a LiveDVD ISO for the final Gutsy release and have actually been using the final bits for a few hours now. I am confident to report the bugs that I referred to in the alpha/beta releases are not present. This is as clean, simple, and rewarding of a Linux install I’ve ever been through. This release is going to be the best desktop distro - period.

Immediately after starting, Ubuntu notified me there were ‘restricted drivers’ available for my desktop. I click on the balloon box that gave me this notice and click a button to install them. The installer pulled the drivers from the install DVD and then suggested I restart. I did, and logged in to find that Ubuntu had already made all the changes to present me with a 3D desktop effects interface. That was seriously it - no config files, no restarting X, no flickering screens - it was simply amazing in simplicity.

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I went to espn.com and Firefox notified me there was a plugin to install (Flash). I clicked on the button to install this plugin and it presented me with options - Gnash (the open source GNU plugin) or Adobe Flash. I chose Adobe’s (my experiences with Gnash have resulted in gnashing teeth). Without even restarting Firefox, I was able to view Flash content - and I’m even running 64-bit (I didn’t know there was a 64-bit Flash plugin… need to investigate).

The Gnome 2.20 interface is very nice. The System Monitor has improved steadily with each release. Network Tools seems to have taken a lesson from Apple. The only issue I still have with Ubuntu is that I prefer the ’slab’ menu that OpenSuse has gone forward with - it’s much easier to use. I like the “Visual Effects” simplified menu for the desktop effects, but it is crying for an “Advanced” options button or something to also add in Beryl effects… those looking for cubes may find the default effects disappointing. Nonetheless, the transparency, shadows and shadings on the interface are outstanding. I do recommend turning on subpixel smoothing for LCD screens for a slightly tweaked experience. I’m not so fond of the darker default desktop wallpaper background.

I was stunned that Ubuntu actually configured my monitor at the correct widescreen 1400×900 resolution setting - no Linux distro to date has done that correctly. I always have to pull up a terminal, edit xorg.conf and restart X. This deserves an award. Even in the RC release, Gutsy did not do this correctly, so kudos to whoever fixed that!

One of the problems/bugs I encountered in the beta was the inability to mount my USB FAT32 drive. I am happy to report that bug is long gone. As is Firefox crashes (so far).

The Tracker Search - where did this come from? It’s amazing - I can’t tell if it’s based on Beagle or something else. I suspect it’s not Beagle only because 1) it’s not crashing, 2) it’s not consuming all of my processor and 3) it’s indexing the right things… Check out all the customizations you can make too in System->Preferences->Indexing Preferences.

OpenOffice is v2.3 and even comes with an Ubuntu template (nice attention to detail). If you haven’t used 2.3 yet, I HIGHLY recommend it - the Calc charting updates alone will save you hours.

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Pidgin has become my favorite IM client - and Gutsy comes with a nice new release (much easier GTalk setup finally).

That’s all I have for now. I fully expect this release will light up the blogs tomorrow as more people get their hands on it. The Ubuntu team has definitely earned a job well done in my book. I forced myself to use Vista for two months - it’s Hasta la Vista time as I’m back on Ubuntu now. Up next, virtualization.

Now let’s get Adobe, Canon, and Intuit all supporting their desktop apps on Ubuntu.