Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon: A Quick Look
Sunday, November 25, 2007
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I know that I enjoyed the days off of school, and thankfully having nothing better to do than finally install the latest Ubuntu: 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon." So onwards now, lets see how it fared:
As usual, I downloaded the i386 architecture Live CD. I didn't go 64bit mainly because of poor experiences I have made in the past concerning 64bit Linux. If life would be so kind as to grant me more time... I will check out the 64bit version and report on that. After popping the CD into my drive, I waited for the system to boot up. Oddly enough, startup time was fairly long, around the 5-6 minute mark. This really isn't all that horrible seeing as the Live CD performed beautifully after it got started; however, I am used to shorter startup times, even from a Live CD.
When the Live CD was finally fully up and running, I was ecstatic to see that my default screen resolution of 1680*1050 was detected by default. This was a very pleasant surprise as the standard resolutions really don't look all that great on my high-res, wide screen monitor. Also nice was the fact that my wireless card was once again detected by default. The updated network manager showed all the available networks to connect to in a nice drop-down menu from the tray icon. After entering the WEP key for my wireless network, I was for the interwebs. Just for fun, I also tried the networks of my neighbors foolish enough not to have their network encrypted... needless to say, they all worked flawlessly.
Moving on, I went straight to the install. As usual, installation was flawless. No major updates were made to the installer, and there really wasn't any need. Perhaps the most confusing part of any Linux install, to the Linux newbie, is partitioning the hard drive. Ubuntu does a great job of making this process as painless as possible. The guided partition setup can make use of any available space on the disk and doesn't prompt anything that could make a new user uncomfortable. Due to the more complex nature of my partition setup, I went to the "manual" option. This loaded a fairly full-featured partition manager similar to gParted. Selecting the disks to be formated was as simple as checking a box, and mounting options were also intuitive.
After the standard array of questions pertaining to you (area, username, password, etc), the true install began. As is Ubuntu fashion, there is no addition package customization, which is beneficial to the new user who may get confused by such choice. A more "seasoned" user, such as I, may like to see customization of package selection integrated, but is by no means necessary.
Install time itself was a little longer than how I remembered my Feisty install, but none-the-less came in under 35 minutes on my AMD 3700+ (2.2Ghz) system.
Ubuntu initial boot, I experienced no major difficulties. As with the Live CD, my screen resolution was again set correctly, and my wireless connection was easy to set up. I could insert a long rant about the "Human" theme now, but really, it simply isn't worth it as it is so simply to install a different theme. The default desktop wallpaper is nice although a tad dark. It actually made me think of chocolate... and so... I got chocolate.
Upon the finishing of my chocolate, I noticed that the restricted drivers manager was notifying me of available proprietary drivers. For me, this was the official nVidia driver for my graphics card. Others may see different drivers available. After checking the box for this driver to be used, Synaptic handled the installation. Upon the required reboot, I was greeted by a fully function graphics accelerated desktop. Apparently, the installation of the proper video card drivers will automatically enable Compiz Fusion to start up.
The default configuration for Compiz Fusion was subtle (no cube, just basic animations, expo, window switching, etc), but gave the whole operating system a very professional feel.
Media support in Ubuntu is always an interesting issue. By default, mp3 playback and such is not available. However, if you try to play and mp3 file, Ubuntu will present you with a nice option to install the necessary (proprietary) codecs. This is excellent for almost any user, as it simply makes full media support that much easier to come by. Upon installation of Amarok, I was again asked if I would like to install the necessary packages to play mp3 files. As any sane person would do, I agreed, and Synaptic popped up, did its thing, left, and... there was mp3 support! Very nice.
As I continued to explore the many small improvements, Gutsy was truly shaping up to be a winner. Then... I opened Firefox. As I waited in anticipation for Google to load, one second passed... two... three... four... five... six... seven... EIGHT?... NINE?... TEN?... ELEVEN? After about 11 seconds, my Google homepage finally loaded. I immediately recognized it as the same problem I had in openSUSE 10.2... slow internet... no solution? I searched Google and again came up with many people reporting the same issue. Apparently ipv6 was the culprit once again... but however many guides I followed which apparently "fixed" the issue.. I couldn't get my internet to speed up. Just do a Google search for "slow internet Ubuntu Gutsy" and you will see the others that share my plight. I am not sure what the solution is... or even what the problem really is, but in any case, such an issue is definitely something keeping me away from permanently upgrading to Gutsy.
Overall, Ubuntu Gutsy features a plethora of small updates that uphold the great Ubuntu quality. However, the issue with my internet will keep me from permanently upgrading.
That's all for today's quick look :-)
As usual, I downloaded the i386 architecture Live CD. I didn't go 64bit mainly because of poor experiences I have made in the past concerning 64bit Linux. If life would be so kind as to grant me more time... I will check out the 64bit version and report on that. After popping the CD into my drive, I waited for the system to boot up. Oddly enough, startup time was fairly long, around the 5-6 minute mark. This really isn't all that horrible seeing as the Live CD performed beautifully after it got started; however, I am used to shorter startup times, even from a Live CD.
When the Live CD was finally fully up and running, I was ecstatic to see that my default screen resolution of 1680*1050 was detected by default. This was a very pleasant surprise as the standard resolutions really don't look all that great on my high-res, wide screen monitor. Also nice was the fact that my wireless card was once again detected by default. The updated network manager showed all the available networks to connect to in a nice drop-down menu from the tray icon. After entering the WEP key for my wireless network, I was for the interwebs. Just for fun, I also tried the networks of my neighbors foolish enough not to have their network encrypted... needless to say, they all worked flawlessly.
Moving on, I went straight to the install. As usual, installation was flawless. No major updates were made to the installer, and there really wasn't any need. Perhaps the most confusing part of any Linux install, to the Linux newbie, is partitioning the hard drive. Ubuntu does a great job of making this process as painless as possible. The guided partition setup can make use of any available space on the disk and doesn't prompt anything that could make a new user uncomfortable. Due to the more complex nature of my partition setup, I went to the "manual" option. This loaded a fairly full-featured partition manager similar to gParted. Selecting the disks to be formated was as simple as checking a box, and mounting options were also intuitive.
After the standard array of questions pertaining to you (area, username, password, etc), the true install began. As is Ubuntu fashion, there is no addition package customization, which is beneficial to the new user who may get confused by such choice. A more "seasoned" user, such as I, may like to see customization of package selection integrated, but is by no means necessary.
Install time itself was a little longer than how I remembered my Feisty install, but none-the-less came in under 35 minutes on my AMD 3700+ (2.2Ghz) system.
Ubuntu initial boot, I experienced no major difficulties. As with the Live CD, my screen resolution was again set correctly, and my wireless connection was easy to set up. I could insert a long rant about the "Human" theme now, but really, it simply isn't worth it as it is so simply to install a different theme. The default desktop wallpaper is nice although a tad dark. It actually made me think of chocolate... and so... I got chocolate.
Upon the finishing of my chocolate, I noticed that the restricted drivers manager was notifying me of available proprietary drivers. For me, this was the official nVidia driver for my graphics card. Others may see different drivers available. After checking the box for this driver to be used, Synaptic handled the installation. Upon the required reboot, I was greeted by a fully function graphics accelerated desktop. Apparently, the installation of the proper video card drivers will automatically enable Compiz Fusion to start up.
The default configuration for Compiz Fusion was subtle (no cube, just basic animations, expo, window switching, etc), but gave the whole operating system a very professional feel.
Media support in Ubuntu is always an interesting issue. By default, mp3 playback and such is not available. However, if you try to play and mp3 file, Ubuntu will present you with a nice option to install the necessary (proprietary) codecs. This is excellent for almost any user, as it simply makes full media support that much easier to come by. Upon installation of Amarok, I was again asked if I would like to install the necessary packages to play mp3 files. As any sane person would do, I agreed, and Synaptic popped up, did its thing, left, and... there was mp3 support! Very nice.
As I continued to explore the many small improvements, Gutsy was truly shaping up to be a winner. Then... I opened Firefox. As I waited in anticipation for Google to load, one second passed... two... three... four... five... six... seven... EIGHT?... NINE?... TEN?... ELEVEN? After about 11 seconds, my Google homepage finally loaded. I immediately recognized it as the same problem I had in openSUSE 10.2... slow internet... no solution? I searched Google and again came up with many people reporting the same issue. Apparently ipv6 was the culprit once again... but however many guides I followed which apparently "fixed" the issue.. I couldn't get my internet to speed up. Just do a Google search for "slow internet Ubuntu Gutsy" and you will see the others that share my plight. I am not sure what the solution is... or even what the problem really is, but in any case, such an issue is definitely something keeping me away from permanently upgrading to Gutsy.
Overall, Ubuntu Gutsy features a plethora of small updates that uphold the great Ubuntu quality. However, the issue with my internet will keep me from permanently upgrading.
That's all for today's quick look :-)
1
Comments:
My strongest impression is it's considerably slower than 7.04. So switching back...
My Dell Inspiron 1300 is too old for this.
My Dell Inspiron 1300 is too old for this.
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