Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 Overview.

I’ve just finished reading and incredibly mediocre post about Ubuntu Jaunty featured in WordPress frontpage. It contained a heavy amount of software, “helping” users to install software via command line in the way “sudo apt-get install (put your software here)”. Now that’s sad, as most people looking for information on installing something within Ubuntu will mostly be newbies, so it’s a quick way to scare them off. As I’m angry again, I decided to write this post to introduce the main new features of Ubuntu 9.04, in both the technical and the “mortal” way. May the force be with me… I hope I won’t end as that poor guy. So, here we go.

Ubuntu first impression.

The same installation since Edgy. Smart, easy and fast. As soon as you pop in the installation disk, the welcome screen guides you through. The installation (including tweaking original values) took me roughly 15 minutes, while an XP clean installation took more than 20. One of the main changes announced in the technical overview posted at Ubuntu Forums, was the increase of boot speed. Definitely, they accomplished it. It takes somewhere around a 25% less to boot, so it’s a noticeable change. Also, the graphic login screen has changed completely, it’s no longer the usual, beige + Ubuntu logo. It was replaced with a heavy coloured, dark screen.

As soon as the login is completed, GNOME 2.26 is loaded. The new stable version features major updates only. No new, shiny, bleeding edge software. Nothing noticeable here, as GNOME works very neatly and bug fixes rarely show up as it almost never fails. One thing I could see though, is that the CPU Scaling widget has been corrected. It no longer is randomly broken after each start.

The system introduces new features also, at system level, the “Computer Janitor” used to clean unorphaned packages, files and else consuming space in the disk. Another feature, is a new display panel (which I couldn’t use as my card is an nVidia, by the way) which helps with the connection of a monitor and/or TV. It was a daunting task to connect anything before, so it’s appreciated. Shame on me, as I won’t be able to use it for now.

Probably the most significant interface change in this version, is the new notification system. In previous Ubuntu version, an icon popped when an action was triggered. A rectangular icon popped up at the lower center of the screen each time the brightness or volume was adjusted, The network status was published as a cloud, Pidgin new messages were marked in Pidgin’s icons, and so on. Cannonical, decided it was way too decentralized, so they were bound to create a common place, were applications would publish their notifications. And again, it happened. They did it.

Notifications.

The new notification system is quite beautiful, yet useful. I only have a few regrets, which I’ll explain further. The new notifications idea model, as stated in Mark Shuttlworth’s blog, is to be a clean way to tell the user that something important is going on, without causing any clutter.

Notification system in action.

Ubuntu 9.04: Jaunty Jackalope

Ubuntu’s version 9.04 was released yesterday. Version 9.04 is coded “Jaunty Jackalope” and includes a series of major updates, as usual. According to the official Technical Overview, the updates included are mainly the last update of GNOME, updates in Kernel, boot performance, Ext4 inclusion and a new notification system.

I haven’t seen the system working in front of me, as the nearest thing to Jaunty I’ve been, is a couple of meters away from a CD-R with the ISO image burnt within. I planned a clean installation of Ubuntu, due to the fact that I’ve scarcely used Windows, or “Güindos Ve-esta” as JR an me named it some days ago. I thought that having a 50 GB partition for a system I don’t commonly use, is quite useless, so I’m formatting completely my disk. My thoughts end here. I’m installing Ubuntu. I’ll post a review as soon as I finish the system.

And now, the new logo of Ubuntu reflecting its philosophy: Free, gorgeous and ‘wow’ inspiring.

UPDATE: Read also the overview.

Ubuntu Logo

Change to Ubuntu Intrepid. Again

The previous saturday, I decided it was about time to install Ubuntu again. Since the last problem with my computer, I hadn’t installed it back because I was very lazy and because I never found time to do it. So, the last week I finished my first term exams (Which went out very screwed by the way) and I decided to do it again. As a not-so-important fact, I helped a friend to install Ubuntu in his lap, so I decided I wanted it too.

I downloaded an .iso from the server at UNAM (Mexico city) It took ages to finish because my ISP is an absolute crap. Somehow, I got it, burned it with IMGBurn, and I set off to install it. When I formated my lap, I made enough space on the disk to fit XP, my data, Ubuntu and lastly the Swap area, so the installation went on on rails. Once again, I was amazed. It took less than 30 minutes to install completely on my ext3 area, so I was kind of happy when it finished.

On my first boot, the first surprises arose, as always. 1024 x 768, no wi-fi card. So, I connected the ethernet cable, opened Synaptic and installed EnvyNG. Again. It took roughly 5 minutes to install my card, compared to 15 minutes on Hardy. Looks like the guys working with Envy are doing a huge progress.

The next (again..) was my wi-fi card. I installed NDIS Wrapper and went on flawless. After installing my wi-fi driver (using the GTK version because I was lazy) I had full signal from my router. The rest, was just software. After several tweaking, it took me something around 3 hours to have Ubuntu completely operational. Not bad at all. It took me more than 6 hours to get XP working, counting the time it took to install private software (Macromedia Studio 8, Corel, Office 2007) and getting Vista out of it.

So as that, I haven’t booted to XP unless it is completely necessary. Looks like Amarok now supports music transfer with artwork and videos, so I’m seriously thinking on stopping to use iTunes once and for all.

As soon as I get Amarok working completely with the iPod, I’ll be posting the how-to. Or a post saying that I couldn’t get it done… Also, I have some pending post (From 4 months ago XD) mainly about the XGL server, and main programs. Once again, I don’t have time for anything. I hate pretty much studying large amounts of information that I won’t fuckin’ use in my life. I’m off, I have the Organizational Computing exam. I already fear the Math and the Physics exams, so I guess this afternoon will be kind of… Helish.

Setting up Compiz Fusion

Yesterday at 8 o’clock my post about my Ubuntu installation was published in the front page of tuxmachines.org, which brought 137 views at the moment I’m writing this post. I never thought so much people would read that post, specially because I feel it was a little bit incomplete. In the next series of posts, I’ll be describing in the most detailed way I can my Ubuntu experience.

In this post, I’ll describe the “installation” of Compiz Fusion. It’s a really easy thing to do in Hardy Heron, as everything is automatic, and it will definitely give the GNOME desktop an awe inspiring look.

After the installation of Ubuntu Hardy Heron, one of the things that most of us want to do, is start the Compiz Fusion. Who hasn’t seen those videos in YouTube where the desktop turns into a cube and goes round and round?? That effect is somehow old now, I remeber about a year and a half ago, when I saw for the first time the XGL server. In a year of develpment, it has turned into an awesome server which takes the maximum performance of the graphics card, and turns it into incredible eye-catching effects. In this post, I’ll describe the configuration to install it.

Ubuntu Installation

I’m probably the last person on Earth that does this… But I want to publish my installation of Ubuntu Herdy Heron.

In my last post I wrote about how I got the CD, and a bit of what happened with the installation. It was way faster and easier than lots of other installations I’ve done, the real problem came after it, when I had to configure my graphics and Wi-Fi cards.

Overlook

The installation was extremely neat. I was totally surprised.The first distro I installed in my life was Debian. The installation was in text mode, all done with the keyboard (obviously…) It took around two hours in an i486. I also installed Sylver in my Kurobox, it took around half an hour to transfer via FTP and around twenty minutes to uncompress. Apart from some details I had with the Kernel, it was easy because I had a wiki with every single comand I had to type. Lastly, around a year and a half ago I installed Ubuntu Dapper Drake (6.06) in my old laptop. It was a little bit tough as I had to partition my disk for the first time. The installation took a lot, it took around an hour and a half. When it was finished, it booted without any problem, with the graphics card at max resolution and with everything else working. It was a pretty limited laptop, it didn’t had a Wi-Fi module, the graphics card was integrated as well as the sound card.

This time, the story was different. The installation was pretty fast, it didn’t even took half an hour. It finished fast, without a problem, even though I had read about people who had problems trying to get past the installer. When it booted, I had 800×600, no graphics acceleration, wireless signal, webcam or microphone.

So… here’s how I got them working

Ubuntu. Linux For The Human Beings

About a week ago, I was walking as always towards my Physics class. I was quite bored, as I was starting to get tired, it was friday, and the only “friggin’” thing I actually wanted to do, was to go to my girlfriends house, because we were going out with some friends. I had to go to swim after that class, so it was quite a long run. I kept walking towards the building, when something caught my eyes. I saw an Ubuntu logo.

I thought it was just my imagination, but I turned back only to see if I had actually seen that. To my surprise, there was a huge Ubuntu logo in the Asociations Stand. Now, in a university where everywhere you go, you find Windows, more Windows, Windows plans, Windows computers and Windows labs, this is amazing.

I was already late, but I couldn’t help stopping. “I’m just stopping by” I thought. I actually wasn’t planning anything, I was only going to have a look, and I would go to my class. The were around 4 people in, with lots of laptops. I guessed they were installing Ubuntu in them. I already knew how to do it myself, I installed it plenty of times before. But not in my new computer. They told that they were actually doing everything. I thought about it for a moment, and I decided to leave my computer so they did the dirty work.

But just when I was about to do it, this guy tells me “Uhhm I’m sorry but I have class at one o’clock, you can leave it but I won’t be here”. It didn’t sound good enough, so I decided I wouldn’t leave my poor little laptop there. Instead of that, they gave me a disc and a sticker which I pasted in my car. Inside the case, there was a brand new, shiny Ubuntu 8.04 disc. I was simply flattered. I couldn’t wait to install it. I even forgot I had a class… When I realized I was late, I rushed to my classroom. I was lucky, as the teacher wasn’t there.

I got to my house early that day. I went to pick my girlfriend, we ate, and the we went with our friends. As soon as I got to my house, I started the System Rescue CD with GParted, and opened up a block for Ubuntu with ext3 and a Swap space. It was painfully slow, I remembered the first time I did this to install a Ubuntu with a dual-boot. GParted move every single bit to the back of my disc, resized the NTFS partition with Windows, and created an Ext3 partition with my swap right at the front of my disc. It took about 4 hours to finish… It was that damn slow that I even forgot what hour it was. I left my computer doing its job while I was with my girlfriend. When I got home (Again…) I inserted the Ubuntu CD in my computer. It ran pretty fast, and the installation went on without problems. Actually it didn’t even took 20 minutes.

It booted with GRUB just like the last time. I didn’t realize that hell was about to emerge when I logged into the new system. Practically, no drivers where working. The nVidia chipset wasn’t working properly, my Wi-Fi module couldn’t connect, my webcam and microphone didn’t work, it was pretty ugly. So I decided I had to do something. All of what I had to do, will be published in my next post, which I hope will be here by tomorrow.