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My experience with Ubuntu 7.10...

Alessandro17

By Alessandro17,
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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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...has been nothing but a nightmare.

I downloaded the 32 bit Desktop edition.

Installing it was impossible. It hung for hours (seriously) at configuring apt. The reason being that my internet connection is ADSL (pppoe). I had never been offered the option to configure it, so the task couldn't be completed. You would expect a time out, wouldn't you? Nothing like that.

So I fired up pppoeconf. It reported that it was connected, but a ping wouldn't work. That is typical of distros with a poor pppoe implementation.

Even if I had a router instead, there is another (major for me) issue: it would install GRUB to the MBR and I don't want that.

So I downloaded the alternate edition.

Installing this one was another pain in the a...

I needed to start with the "expert" option. It wasn't obvious at all how to do it, at least it wasn't like Debian (and yet they use the Debian installer)

Anyway, this was easily solved: hit "Esc" at the very beginning and you can type "expert"

Expert in Ubuntu has many exotic options, many more than in Debian.

I had to try several times, because by the time tasksel was fired up, I got an unrecoverable error (something like it wasn't possible to determine the release)

After many attempts with several different parameters, I finally succeeded.

And now begins my unpleasant experience with using Ubuntu. Some of the issues I came across:

1)No sound.

2)"alsaconf" is an unknown command.

3)logging out and back in brought me in a totally messed up environment.

4)I copied my Firefox settings from openSUSE. This is something I do all the time between all my operating systems: Linux, Windows, OS X. It doesn't cause serious problems. But in Ubuntu Firefox was trying to start but failed. It did start eventually, after about 10 attempts.

I realize I should have tried from a terminal and read, copy and paste the outcome. (Edit: I went back to Ubuntu and tried to fire up Firefox from terminal: it simply hangs for about 10 minutes, no CLI output)

Now it was time to add some more software, kubuntu-desktop and a few more packages, about 250MB stuff.

The time it took to download the software was reasonable. But the time it was taking to configure it and install (using synaptic) was several hours!!! (as you all know, I have a very fast computer)

When I was at about 60% of this procedure I really had enough, that was the final straw. (Edit: I completed installing the packages from terminal with "dpkg --configure -a". It took another hour.)

I am going to overwrite it with another distro, possibly Debian Lenny.

It is beyond me how a a contemporary Linux distro can be so buggy and lacking and yet so successful. Windows Vista feels great by comparison.

I did approach it with a totally open mind, even if I am an openSUSE (and Debian) fan.

Addendum: in order to log into KDE I had to reboot (not normal in Linux).

The splash screen was replaced by the Kubuntu one, I wonder why.

I have always found the Kubuntu implementation of KDE very disappointing. Examples: no Control Center in the menu by default? You have to edit the menu. Home only in System Menu? Very unintuitive.

And finally there is no Linux-bigmem, so my 4GB RAM are not fully supported.

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erbic
erbic
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I abandoned Ubuntu a while back... it was nice and all, but I like openSUSE a lot better. I need to chop ten gigs off my MBP's HDD to try 10.3; I've heard it's pretty good.

 

A trick with big packages in Ubuntu (like kubuntu-desktop and the like) is to use apt-get from the command line... stuff seems to install a lot faster when I do that than when using Synaptic.

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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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I abandoned Ubuntu a while back... it was nice and all, but I like openSUSE a lot better. I need to chop ten gigs off my MBP's HDD to try 10.3; I've heard it's pretty good.

 

A trick with big packages in Ubuntu (like kubuntu-desktop and the like) is to use apt-get from the command line... stuff seems to install a lot faster when I do that than when using Synaptic.

 

I have gone back to Ubuntu to complete installing packages from terminal with "dpkg --configure -a"

It has been busy for 50 minutes and counting!

OK, it has taken an hour. It needed also an "apt-get -f install"

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Shagbag
Shagbag
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I tried 7.10 on three different machines:

 

ATi Radeon Mobility 7500

ATi Radeon X800XL

VIA CN400 (Unichrome Pro IGP)

 

While the LiveCD worked on all 3 and BulletproofX did its job, I had problems with getting direct rendering to work on all 3.

 

Somewhat bizzarely, I got CompizFusion working with the LiveCD on the X800XL machine but when I installed it (btw, you have to click an 'Advanced' button located on the bottom right of one of the install screens right at the end of the install process to take you through to a menu letting you specify the drive and partition to install GRUB) on the harddrive and rebooted it was a big old mess. It left me with the impression I was better off super-gluing the CDROM drive shut.

 

Needless to say, after fidding around with it for an hour, I canned the whole install and switched to Arch. An hour later I had Arch linux installed and fully configured.

 

The whole 7.10 experience has made me think the honeymoon period with Ubuntu may be coming to an end. I'm already looking forward to 8.04.

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mac-mini
mac-mini
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my system actually works perfectly fine. its probaly because i have older hardware: Celeron D 3.06ghz, 1GB ram, GeForce 7600GT 865G chipset

 

the only reason i chose ubuntu is because all the compiz stuff is for it ususally first

 

now ubuntu 6.06 (when it was new) that was terrible

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johnniecarcinogen
johnniecarcinogen
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I too am a suse fan and I'm greatly impressed with 10.3. I usually install apt/smart immediately in suse but with 10.3 I don't feel the need to and I like the one click-install-install feature, example: restricted formats and codecs. I don't really understand why ubuntu is so much more popular either, I guess it's just trendy and sexier. It's too bad because I think people would have a better first-time linux experience with 10.3 rather than ubuntu, but so it goes.

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Alessandro17
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I don't really understand why ubuntu is so much more popular either, I guess it's just trendy and sexier. It's too bad because I think people would have a better first-time linux experience with 10.3 rather than ubuntu, but so it goes.

 

Maybe it has something to do with the free CDs? That was a clever move and I have never believed it was done because Mark Shuttleworth is a philanthropist.

I couldn't agree more about (open)SUSE giving new users a better experience out of the box. With the only exception of 10.1 which had a broken package manager (but I used apt), SUSE has always been rock-solid and with one of the best desktop experience you can get, from any OS.

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cmdshft
cmdshft
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I had no issues with Ubunto 7.10 with the exception that I needed to setup ndiswrapper with my rt2500usb Windows driver and then edit /etc/network to get it setup properly.

 

The only thing I need to do now is figure out how to get that network file to stay persistant, it likes to revert back to what it was pre-edit, and so everytime I run it, I have to edit, reboot, and then not have to reboot, because if I do, I have to edit it agaiun and then reboot to get it to work again.

 

If anyone knows how, please tell me. I tried setting the permissions to read-only by browsing with "gksu nautilus" but it still doesn't persist.

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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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If anyone knows how, please tell me. I tried setting the permissions to read-only by browsing with "gksu nautilus" but it still doesn't persist.

 

Try the following: become root (sudo passwd root) and try to change permissions again.

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cmdshft
cmdshft
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Try the following: become root (sudo passwd root) and try to change permissions again.

 

I am going to assume that all I type in terminal is sudo passwd root and that's it? (I am still somewhat of a *nix noob)

 

Quick Edit: I wanted to say that I was able to prevent GRUB from being installed to the MBR on my Master HDD by simply unplugging my Master HDD and running my system with only the Slave HDD. Dirty, but probably the most effective way.

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Alessandro17
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I am going to assume that all I type in terminal is sudo passwd root and that's it?

No, that just creates a root account (you'll be asked to enter a new Unix password). Next type "su" and your root password. Or log out and log in as root (I know most people here will disagree). As root you have full power over your OS.

 

Quick Edit: I wanted to say that I was able to prevent GRUB from being installed to the MBR on my Master HDD by simply unplugging my Master HDD and running my system with only the Slave HDD. Dirty, but probably the most effective way.

There are better ways. I am told that the Desktop edition let's you go "expert" towards the end and install GRUB to your root (/) partition. Then you'll need a boot manager like Acronis OS Selector.

Or download the the alternate edition.

Or, even better, try openSUSE ;)

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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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I don't need a boot manager, my mobo's bios supplies a selector with F8. :) Which is why I just simply disconnected my Master HDD and installed right to "/".

 

That is great, but I still believe you don't need to disconnect your Master hard drive.

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cmdshft
cmdshft
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Sorry for the double post.

 

Ok, so I was able to keep the file from being reverted, and that's all sorted. But now there is a new issue. As I stated, I use ndiswrapper to use a Windows driver. To get it to run, however, I have to perform the following:

 

harataiki@MAGI-Melchior:~$ sudo modprobe ndiswrapper
[sudo] password for harataiki:
harataiki@MAGI-Melchior:~$ ndiswrapper -l
rt2500usb : driver installed
	device (13B1:000D) present (alternate driver: rt2500usb)
harataiki@MAGI-Melchior:~$ iwconfig
lo		no wireless extensions.

eth0	  no wireless extensions.

rausb0	IEEE 802.11g  ESSID:"1BLQ8"  
	  Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: 00:18:01:E2:BA:5E   
	  Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power:20 dBm   Sensitivity=-121 dBm  
	  RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr=2346 B   
	  Power Management:off
	  Link Quality:96/100  Signal level:-34 dBm  Noise level:-96 dBm
	  Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
	  Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

 

Anyway to automate this?

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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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Hara Taiki

 

Sorry, I have no experience with wireless. I have never had one.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

macgirl

 

I can't help you there either, I have given both copies of Ubuntu Desktop 7.10 to friends, sorry.

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solaar
solaar
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hmm... I must be lucky then.

 

To my great surprise the install of Ubuntu Studio (the 'artist edition' based on 7.10) went smoother than Mandriva for instance. Apart from the clunky text based install it was quite painless, as it did everything it was supposed to.

 

First boot, everything was there. Proper wide resolution with proper nvidia driver (!), ethernet, sound, it set the correct time without messing up system time. First thing I do, I open Nautilus and yay! even my OSX partitions were mounted out of the box. Then I set up the sources for updates and all went hunky dory. I also tested an old USB D-link wifi dongle, no trouble here. Recognised out of the box.

Then I installed Compiz and messed all the settings about a bit. Nice, no bugs found so far. The GUI that comes standard in Ubuntu Studio is actually quite pleasant.

 

I just played around a bit with Ardour and the gimp. Nothing unusual here, good old stable stuff.

 

Anyway I can recommend it (see my hardware specs in the sig) but as I said I might have been very lucky.

post-37702-1193504747_thumb.jpg

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supernovafan
supernovafan
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Just wanted to chime in on this discussion if I may. I've recently tried Kubuntu 7.10. I normally choose Kubuntu because I prefer KDE although gnome is growing on me lately. Anyway I've never disliked the 'buntus. I think their support community is outstanding and I usually keep one version or another installed on a partition for my amusement. They are usually very simple if not boring, to install and I can usually get everything I need working very quickly. However, after my experience with Kubuntu 7.10, I must say that I'm very disappointed.

 

All in all, it has the feel of it being rushed out the door. For example Compiz-Fusion is broken, and it ran almost perfectly for me on 7.04. If you Google this, it seems like many people are experiencing issues with Compiz-Fusion specifically with Kubuntu. Oddly enough, I did an upgrade (not a clean install) from a 7.04 installation which had Compiz-Fusion running on it, and it's working there.

 

Also, at first I installed from the live CD and had some strange graphics problems where the desktop did not align properly with the monitor screen. I continued with the install thinking that it would resolve itself after it reboot, but this was not the case. I installed from the alternate install CD and the screen mis-alignment was not an issue, but I then found other problems.

 

IMO this is an inferior release, I must not be one of the lucky ones. On the other hand I'm very impressed with OpenSUSE 10.3 and PCLOS 2007.

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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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Funny, Alessandro17 - that sounds just like my experience with Suse....

 

You can't in all fairness say that it is just the same experience as with openSUSE.

For instance the one CD SUSE installers will try to connect to the internet, but you are in charge anyway.

The 32 bit DVD (and that is what I recommend) won't t try to connect to the internet at all, at least not until you have configured your internet connection and you'll be asked if you want to configure the updates (you can always say no).

I also strongly doubt that any openSUSE package manager (YaST, Smart, apt4rpm, Yum) will take 3 hours to install 250MB of software on a fast computer. Or that Firefox will hang for 10 minutes before it is launched.

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supernovafan
supernovafan
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Just a continuation of my 'Buntu 7.10 experience. Since it seems like all the Compiz-Fusion problems are specific to Kubuntu, I tried downloading and installing Ubuntu, after several failed attempts on different computers, I find out that the CD is bad. I know that's not Canonical's fault, but it just adds to the bad taste. I'll just download and burn a new CD and see what happens.

 

Anyway, I haven't given up. I reinstalled Kubuntu and managed this time to get Compiz-Fusion working -- well sort of. But whereas it was probably 70% working before on 7.04. Now it's probably 50% working (just a guesstimate). I know Compiz-Fusion is buggy and I don't expect perfection from it, but for my purposes it did 100% of what I needed it to do. Now I can't even get the cube to work, it keeps defaulting to the flat (i think its called wall) desktop changer.

 

Anyway, I've gone much longer than I wanted to and I just wanted to say that still don't dislike the 'Buntus, but to me this release just doesn't seem as polished as it should be or even as those before it. I also still don't understand why the KDE interface is still so "generic", apparently all the development goes to Gnome and KDE is just an afterthought.

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Alessandro17
Alessandro17
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I also still don't understand why the KDE interface is still so "generic", apparently all the development goes to Gnome and KDE is just an afterthought.

 

I wish they left KDE alone as it comes from kde.org.

That is what Slackware (and Debian, basically) do, and it seems like the best solution to me (unless of course they can improve it, like openSUSE does).

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