The next edition of Ubuntu, v9.04 (or Jaunty Jackalope) has landed. If you're over Windows or just want to try something new, it's worth a look:

Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition delivers a range of feature enhancements to improve the user experience. Shorter boot speeds, some as short as 25 seconds, ensure faster access to a full computing environment on most desktop, laptop and netbook models. Enhanced suspend-and-resume features also give users more time between charges along with immediate access after hibernation. Intelligent switching between Wi-Fi and 3G environments has been broadened to support more wireless devices and 3G cards, resulting in a smoother experience for most users.

We've got local mirrors of the two main ISOs - the Desktop i386 and Desktop AMD64 are both available locally for download.

wewt!

I tried the beta of this, might have just been because it was a live boot off a usb stick but it seemed a lot faster than 8.10 which I currently have installed. Awesome!

edit: Are you sure it's officially out Trog? The Ubuntu site still only lists 8.10 as the latest and Telstra's files only have 9.04 Beta.

If it is out of beta could we get a Telstra mirror for those of us stuck on little puddle? :)

edit edit: Looks like I must have opened the ubuntu site before they updated it, 5 minutes later 9.04 is listed. haha

last edited by whoop at 22:56:48 23/Apr/09

it seemed a lot faster than 8.10 which I currently have installed

also pimpin 8.10, sounds win win

I'm tempted to upgrade, but both the last two times I've upgraded my Ubuntu it has rendered my entire PC unbootable (due to f***ing up grub in the process) and it's been a total pain in the ass to fix, so I think I might try a different method this time.

Yeah, 9.04 boot times are awesome.

Yeah GRUB f***ed my boot loaders up something fierce, I just unplugged every hard drive except the ubuntu drive and installed it as a single drive. When I want to start up in ubuntu I just hit the boot menu on my motherboard and choose the ubuntu drive to boot from instead of the windows one. Co-incidentally my mobo boot menu is also the f8 key just like windows boot menu. :tinfoil hat:

I kinda skipped over 8.10, still running 8.04 on most of my machines. I'll give this one a whirl but I' m more interested to see how 9.10 turns out because there are going to be some major changes to the OS, cosmetically it'll be the first version of Ubuntu to leave the brown themes behind, they're moving to a eucalyptus themed OS.

One thing I am interesting in checking out in this release of Ubuntu is the Netbook Remix version.

I was thinking of installing ubuntu but just wasn't sure about the drivers some video/sound/mobo etc. Has it been streamlined like windows were drivers are abundant and a lot of things are plug and play? Am I going to have trouble getting everything working?

I liked 8.10 but after using it for a while I think I'll go back to FC .. back to my RedHat roots.

I was thinking of installing ubuntu but just wasn't sure about the drivers some video/sound/mobo etc. Has it been streamlined like windows were drivers are abundant and a lot of things are plug and play? Am I going to have trouble getting everything working?

9 times out of 10, you don't need to worry about motherboard and sound, they just tend to work. As for video drivers, they're really straight forward to enable through the menu system.

Yeah first boot everything pretty much works.

Video works straight off, but to enable 3d you need to install the proprietary drivers. I've had zero trouble with anything else driver wise.

I'd even go so far as to say Ubuntu is a better desktop system than XP. There's less post-install dicking about to get things the way I want, at least.

Default media players annoy me. Totem sucks balls. Mplayer + Exaile rule though. They're all available to install from the "Start" menu.

booted straight up on my laptop, all drivers seem to be installed and working including wireless. nice and crisp, fast response times. Will see how it goes tomorrow when I try connect it to AD at work.

Standard old run of the mill Desktop here and it won't detect my wired NIC.

I have ubuntu 8.10 here on disk. If I install it can it update itself to 9.04?

I'm truly impressed at Ubuntu 8.10 and now 9.04. The only thing I didn't like was the font rendering, but I've fixed that now.

Ok, if I want to give this a run and I'm currently running a multi boot for Vista 64bit and Windows 7, do I need to prep the boot 1st?

I'd like to be able to blow it away if I want later without frigging everything else up.

I'm truly impressed at Ubuntu 8.10 and now 9.04. The only thing I didn't like was the font rendering, but I've fixed that now.

the rendering, or the fonts? I find Ubuntu almost unusable without installing the MS core font pack thing. Not sure if it's something I'd get used to eventually or not.

I tried 8.10 but I couldn't get the video card drivers to install without knowing how to use terminal commands. In the end I just gave up.
Back to Windows.

I tried 8.10 but I couldn't get the video card drivers to install without knowing how to use terminal commands. In the end I just gave up.
Back to Windows.

When you boot the first time an icon appears in the tray (top right) that says "Hardware drivers available". You click that. It really couldn't be easier, and it should be exactly the same for both Nvidia and ATI cards.

Or go into System -> Administration -> Hardware Drivers and it pops up that same window that nF is talking about.

I just installed kubuntu 9.04 and Jockey keeps crashing. I can't do anything except browse the web or else it dies. Looks like I'm heading back to 8.10 or whatever I was using before.

Yes I tried that, but as far as I can remember, there weren't any drivers available for my GFX card (4870), at least at the time.
That's why I had to use the Linux drivers available on ATi's website. But you have to execute the file through terminal with special permissions.

I tried A LOT of guides on various websites, but none explained in a step by step process of what commands to use. Most just said do this, do that. I barely know DOS let alone terminal.

Ahh I remember having to do that crap with my nvidia card back when gf2 GTS's were the best card you could get. What a pain in the ass that was along with manually editing the xf86 config file or whatever it was called.

Dual monitors + ATI card = massive headaches. I spent forever editing xorg.conf files to get it working. Not sure if that's fixed in this latest version - I haven't booted into linux for months so I guess I'm just not nerd enough to hate on Microsoft that much. :P

There was talk for a long time of the ATI drives going open source, I have a feeling that did happen last year to some degree so ATI on linux should be getting a bit better now.

Did an online upgrad of my home machine from 8.10 to 9.04 and it failed big time. After about 3-4hrs of it finally getting all the packages it started upgrading and then crashed. Rebooted and X wouldn't start so had to do a reconfigure of everything (dpkg --configure -a) and then an upgrade using apt (apt-get dist-upgrade). Got it going again and had to reinstall nVidia drivers.

Ticman, boo, that does not fill me with joy and the prospect of upgrading :(

Yeah, my upgrade didn't go too well either. I couldn't be assed sitting there for 2 - 3 hours waiting for it to download so I got the alternate cd and tried a CD upgrade, well it turned out that even though it was meant to use the CD as the source it still downloaded everything off the net. I'm now capped and can't do s***. f*** you kubuntu, f*** you and the horse you rode in on.

When that didn't quite work out the way I'd planned (problem posted earlier, jockey crashed) I just nuked the entire drive & started over. So far I'm not liking the new package installer, it doesn't seem to want to find any packages that aren't already installed unless I go edit the sources every time I want to install something and make it refresh the list.

IMHO 9.04 is a step backwards, the live boot of it functioned well and was snappy but the actual install sux balls.

Mine went fine, but it just didn't upgrade (or reinstall) a lot of packages. Things like sun-java and flash just vanished.

Other than that no dramas at all.

I haven't upgraded yet due to being close to download cap.

(This could be a good thing from what I'm hearing)

I set my sources to iiNet's mirror (my ISP) and did the download. I ran a tcpdump and most of the traffic came from the mirror with about 700mb worth showing up as 'freezone' on my usage.

So far I'm enjoying it, I just install gnome-do and have a semi forming.. this app is awesome and for once I'm using a dock outside of OSX and don't feel like a wannabe Mac user.

Is anyone able to get Flash to play automatically in FF? I keep having to click a play button.

apt-get install adobe-flashplugin

but you might have to change some settings (in System->Administration->Software Sources) to enable the use of non-free software.

once thats done you can select the plugin from within firefox (under Edit->Preferences->Applications, then find Shockwave Flash file), or alternatively you can just remove the free flash plugins in synaptic.

Sorry to dig up and old thread, but I thought this might be a good watch for a few peoples.

i disagree with half the people out there, i've had no problems with ubuntu. if it wasn't for the fact that i'm still mortal and require gaming time, i'd not even bother installing windows7... but as it is, i use ubuntu 9.x 90% of 'non-gaming' PC time.

haha having said that i've only been using linux solidy for a matter of weeks, but still *fingers crossed* no regrets... thus far.


*sigh* i know that its night to impossible, but i wish linux would have a 'mode' where it directly supports/runs smoothly directX. that would be uber and defeat the purpose of windows all-together.

s*** dam, linux has come a loooooooooooooong way in 3 years (last time i was dabbling in it).

oh uh, so to re-iterate...

+1 to Ubuntu 9.x

ive been running ubuntu on my laptop for a year now, i plan on making the big desktop switch as soon as uni finishes.

i have a question tho - can anyone tell me the difference between the DVD and CD versions of Kubuntu up on bigpond files that somone linked to in another thread? (aside from the obvious 3.5gb) i cant find anything about dvd versions on the kubuntu site. thanks

Presumably it just has more of the downloadable alternatives, etc as part of its disc repository.

Other than that no dramas at all.

When people stop finishing their linux install / usage stories with this phrase, I might start looking Linux again.

When people stop finishing their linux install / usage stories with this phrase, I might start looking Linux again.

Installing Windows is typically harder than Ubuntu in my experience.

I dont find that particularly surprising though, since most people get Windows installed via their hardware manufacturer

When people stop finishing their linux install / usage stories with this phrase, I might start looking Linux again.

It was an upgrade to be fair. I can't remember the last time I did a windows install that wasn't fresh, but I'd imagine it'd involve reinstalling software.

Sorry to dig up and old thread, but I thought this might be a good watch for a few peoples.

that was extermely interesting

good post

i disagree with half the people out there, i've had no problems with ubuntu. if it wasn't for the fact that i'm still mortal and require gaming time, i'd not even bother installing windows7... but as it is, i use ubuntu 9.x 90% of 'non-gaming' PC time.

I had absolutely no problems what so ever with ubuntu 8.10 (I think, might have been 8.04) but 9.04 has given me no end of troubles. Just like windows xp -> windows vista gave a lot of people trouble and most went back to XP or just never upgraded in the first place.

i have a question tho - can anyone tell me the difference between the DVD and CD versions of Kubuntu up on bigpond files that somone linked to in another thread? (aside from the obvious 3.5gb) i cant find anything about dvd versions on the kubuntu site. thanks

From the Ubuntu forums I was able to glean that it just contains more apps than the CD version but when I go to install all my apps it just downloads them anyway even if I set the only source to be the DVD, if I do that it simply doesn't find any packages available. I'd just get the CD version. Also get the "desktop" iso, the alternative version apparently uses a text based installer and lacks the live boot mode or something.

edit:

Installing Windows is typically harder than Ubuntu in my experience.

I find them both about the same really.

Windows: Shove the CD in and follow the prompts. Once it's installed I need to install network/audio (not so much but built in support sux) and video drivers. Then get onto my network file share and install all the common apps. I should probably note I've created an automated install disc that automatically inserts my CD key and chooses all the options for me.

Kubuntu: Shove the CD in and follow the prompts. Once it's installed the network & sound card work just fine and I just clck on the activate proprietary drivers button thing in the sys tray. Then I get into the package manager & just download/install all the apps I like to use.

last edited by whoop at 17:44:54 04/May/09

last edited by whoop at 17:47:47 04/May/09

Actually you can do that straight from the applications menu Whoop.

Applications -> Add Remove

^^ I know, that's what I do. When I said I download them I meant they're not stored on the DVD/CD and I use that package thinger to download & install them, not that I download them all separately and install manually.

anyone unlucky enough to have an intel graphics card, especially say a laptop with a GMA950 card. There's a newer kernel and drivers you can install. I was unable to watch fullscreen flash videos (hulu etc) without video stuttering. After doing this, they play back great!

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/intel-graphics-performance-guide-for-ubuntu-904-jaunty-users.html

note a few of the files in the wget command shown need to be changed ( the libdrm files ) as they 404, but just go to the directory and copy/paste the correct names.

but i wish linux would have a 'mode' where it directly supports/runs smoothly directX. that would be uber and defeat the purpose of windows all-together.

DirectX is pretty much all that keeps windows alive in so many ways. I wish that OpenGL was used as the base for every game..

Although at least some people do care, obviously ID has graced us with opengl since quake 3 (maybe 2 as well?), and I think every blizzard game since diablo 2 has a -opengl mode.

I mean world of warcraft and warcraft 3 both run fine after you've installed wine, but they aren't exactly cutting edge. Who knows, maybe there will be opengl for starcraft 2 and diablo 3 and I'll be happy :)