

Ubuntu 10.04: First Thoughts - RyanMcGreal
http://quandyfactory.com/blog/59/ubuntu_1004_first_thoughts

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mark_l_watson
I agree that the best new feature for most people is faster bootup time. I
have a dual boot (Widows 7, Ubuntu) Toshiba U505 and the difference in bootup
used to be huge (Widows 7 being a lot slower), now the difference is humongus!

Wifi support now supports my new laptop.

I have been using Linux since I downloaded Slackware over a 2400 baud modem
(1991?) and have used most of the major distros over the years. For me, Ubuntu
is the "get stuff done with minimal hassles" distro - love it.

~~~
FlorinAndrei
"I have been using Linux since I downloaded Slackware over a 2400 baud modem
(1991?) and have used most of the major distros over the years. For me, Ubuntu
is the "get stuff done with minimal hassles" distro - love it."

Same here.

~~~
nostoc
Same here. I love that philosophy, because as much as I like to tweak my
distro, some times I just want it to work.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Using Ubuntu is much like the OS X experience: things just work, little wasted
time. OS X wins a bit with apps like TexShop and OmniGraffle while Linux wins
a bit with easier package maintenance.

I hate to admit this but I will: it took me about 20 hours to get Windows 7
set up with everything that I need for development and writing. Not bad once
it is set up, but what a time-killing overhead expense. Now, I want to _not_
drop my Windows/Ubuntu laptop: nice having a Windows machine available, but I
hope to not have to spend the setup time again for many years.

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futuremint
Upgrading my eeePC 1001P right now. Hopefully my funky wireless card will
continue to work fine with the nidswrapper.

Something I appreciate is that I don't have to go to a "store" somewhere and
get a "disk" to install and do an "upgrade". Update Manager is pretty nice at
being no-hassle.

Overall my opinion is that Ubuntu is roughly equal to OS X for the little to
no-hassle OS department.

I used to run Gentoo years ago, and then I got a real job and didn't want to
spend time configuring and compiling and wanted Photoshop, so I switched to OS
X. My PS needs are much less now days and I'm quickly drifting back to Linux
and liking Ubuntu.

~~~
randallsquared
I took this same path (except for the Photoshop bit; I ended up using OS X
because support for the shiny new PB17 I'd just bought was terrible in Gentoo
-- or any Linux -- at the time), and after fighting with Ubuntu for a coupla
months, installed Arch, and things are better, now.

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hoop
I upgraded to 10.04 (server) on my Wind PC last night, which I use as a print
server and torrentflux box. Everything seemed to handle the upgrade fine
(samba needed an additional service restart, but I digress)

For those of you not happy with your upgrade/download speeds, just use a local
mirror in your sources.list. An impartial list is available here:

<http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes/1004overview>

Or you can just google for "ubuntu mirror <name of nearby educational
institution>" For example, I picked MIT

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prog
> Yet I just don't see a benefit to moving them to the left side that
> justifies the aggravation of having to unlearn a habit that goes back nearly
> 20 years.

I am a big fan of Ubuntu. Been using it exclusively for quite a few years now.
But I really don't get the point of moving the window buttons. First thing I
did after upgrade was shift the theme back to Clearlooks[1].

Apart from that the upgrade was smooth, boot time is good and I plan to stick
to Ubuntu :)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ubuntu_Clearlooks.png>

~~~
algorias
I didn't like the buttons at first, but decided to stick with them anyway.
Took me all of 10 minutes to get used to them. Most of the time I Alt-F4
anyway, so it's really not a big deal.

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alanl
Just upgraded from 9.04, took about 2 hrs. Finding the the left side windows
icons a little unnatural, but going to stick with it for a couple of days.
Otherwise it looks great, and no issues at all.

Great work Canonical, also I see linode have 10.4 vm's available already, fast
work guys...

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bho
i was looking to install this on my old laptop yesterday (Fujitsu P5020D, the
precursor of netbooks!), wiping my old install of crunchbang linux. however, i
got hit by this bug: [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-
video...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-
intel/+bug/568779) , and the liveCD booted to a blank screen even with
nomodeset.

i just put arch on it, but i really wanted to see the UI changes that were
made in this release.

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neovive
Has the font rendering improved on 10.04? I had to do quite a bit of tweaking
on 9.04 to get Firefox fonts to looks close Windows/Mac. Regardless, this
upgrade looks great!

~~~
jimmyjim
From a rough glance at the screenshots, they do seem to have improved. But if
they haven't, all you really have to do is copy the fonts from Windows 7 to
the newly installed Ubuntu distro, really just a minute-long task.

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GrandMasterBirt
Um, I can't get ubuntu one to work. Maybe because I use swiftfox... Seriously
you can't even enter your username/password into the tool directly.

I guess dropbox is the way :P

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bitwize
Best feature for me:

The "Windows XP got pissed and shit on" theme is gone.

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d0m
I have the feeling that ubuntu is trying to hard to look like Windows (for new
users) but in the same time doesn't want to copy the UI. I think there is a
decision to be made: Copy or not copy. If they really want to get new users
from the Windows world, I think they should simply include a Windows theme
with the same icons, the same X_[], etc.

Anyway, advanced users doesn't really use ubuntu.. and for some that use it,
it's really a modified version.

Last thing, I find also that if their goals is to attract new users, they
should stop with the mentality of over-configuring everything, every icons,
every possible smallest thing you can think changing and instead, provide a
clean and simple interface. Configuration files and script already exist for
those special configuration, no need to pollute every window configuration
with that.

That's my 0.02$ from someone who's been using Linux for 10 years. (I use arch,
btw)

~~~
rufugee
Look like...Windows? Really? Have you even _looked at a screenshot_?

Ubuntu looks nothing like Windows. If they're mimicking anything, it's OS X.

~~~
barnaby
Agreed. They're competing at a whole new level now, having surpassed Windows
in usability, functionality, and aesthetics a long time ago, they have their
sites set on competing with Apple. If they're going to copy anything, it's
going to be from the higher benchmark OS X has set than from Windows.

