Aug 20

Ubuntu 6.06.1 (Dapper Drake)   Posted by sharps, tagged with ubuntu

I've been meaning to give Ubuntu another spin for a while now. I tried 5.10 about a year ago and was reasonaobly impressed. Just to recap - I only occasionally use a laptop (I prefer to travel light) and all I need is Thunderbird, Firefox, AIM, Star Office or Open Office, reliable APM, Wireless, Java, USB storage and maybe play the occasional Movie (DVD or Tivo). Also, just a reminder - I have a Sony Viao laptop which has proved to be a difficult host for Linux - I've tried numerous distros and haven't been able to get basic features working reliably. Ubuntu 5.10 was better than most but still not good enough to replace the encumbent OS.
 
So, on to the Dapper Drake (the code name for Ubuntu 6.06). I used the Desktop CD so I didn't have to commit hard drive space until I'd at least taken Ubuntu for a spin. Video, Mouse, sound and even wireless we're all detected automatically, a USB drive was detected and mounted and I was able to configure a networked printer. But the acid-test was whether machine would hibernate when I closed the lid - so I configured the power settings and tried it ... and to my delight (and surprise) it worked without a problem - I tried a couple of times and it seems pretty reliable.

The Desktop CD concept and Ubuntu's execution is pretty impressive - I didn't notice with 5.10 but there's an install option that will take your from the Desktop CD to a full install; it has a pretty impressive disk partitioner and allows you to mount existing OS partitions (in my case JDS and Windows XP) - I remember just a few years ago r/w access to Windows partitions was a luxury. Post install - I needed a few extras - Thunderbird and zsh - Ubuntu uses the Synaptic Package manager which is pretty slick - and worked as expected. Next I need jdk1.5, GlassFish and NetBeans and I'll be done.

Overall I think Ubuntu has really improved in the last year - as well as the things I mentioned above - the default desktop theme seems pretty slick (if a little Autumnal) - certainly approaching the experience you'd expect with Windows or OS X - maybe not quite there butcertainly closing the gap. I was pretty impressed - Laptop Linux has come a long way since Yggdrasil (remember that?) so I think I'll be continuing my laptop linux journey with Ubuntu.

There are a couple of things I need to play with :

• Firefox seems slow;
• CPU Stepping seems broken - using the monitor I can see it steps down from 1.7MHz to 600Mhz yet the fan continues whinning like an F19 on afterburn - or maybe I just need a new fan. Actually I have a feeling the stepping and Firefox performance might be related - there's a lag between hitting peak CPU and stepping up the CPU frequency.
• I need to install a different media player - as the pre-installed Totem is DRM crippled (Sigh).