My experience so far with the latest (64 bit) version of Ubuntu, Karmic Koala (or 9.10 for those of you with a purely numerical bent) has been largely positive, but there are a few niggling annoyances. Having done a clean install on an AMD quad core machine with 4 GB RAM and NVidia graphics, I was gratified that the whole process took less than 30 minutes and booted with little fuss. The NVidia driver was easy to install and soon I had my desktop back with Compiz enabled and nice eye candy.
Then the crash reports started. I was told that my system had suffered from a major kernel problem and would probably need to be restarted to avoid instability. However, every time I did restart, the same crash report cropped up. Some Googling put my mind at rest - this is a known bug, and the system continues without crashing. However those new to Ubuntu or Linux may be very disturbed by these messages and Ubuntu should have done more to allay fears. I note that recent updates seem to have improved this problem, and maybe even fixed it.
I like the new Ubuntu Software Centre, though my experience of using it to install the Drivel Journal Editor was less than positive and I could not get it working at all (see post below). Gwibber 2 is an excellent Twitter client - though I am using TweetDeck on my MacBook and would like to use it under Ubuntu. Adobe Air does not work on my machine - though to be fair this would seem to be an Adobe problem rather than specifically Ubuntu. Evolution still has a nasty bug that vanishes all deleted items when expunging trash, while leaving the trash.
On the whole I like Karmic. It is fast, responsive, stable and clean. I have no hesitation in recommending it to people for business and home use. Technorati Tags: Karmic, Ubuntu 9.10, crash reports, bugs, 64 bit
Then the crash reports started. I was told that my system had suffered from a major kernel problem and would probably need to be restarted to avoid instability. However, every time I did restart, the same crash report cropped up. Some Googling put my mind at rest - this is a known bug, and the system continues without crashing. However those new to Ubuntu or Linux may be very disturbed by these messages and Ubuntu should have done more to allay fears. I note that recent updates seem to have improved this problem, and maybe even fixed it.
I like the new Ubuntu Software Centre, though my experience of using it to install the Drivel Journal Editor was less than positive and I could not get it working at all (see post below). Gwibber 2 is an excellent Twitter client - though I am using TweetDeck on my MacBook and would like to use it under Ubuntu. Adobe Air does not work on my machine - though to be fair this would seem to be an Adobe problem rather than specifically Ubuntu. Evolution still has a nasty bug that vanishes all deleted items when expunging trash, while leaving the trash.
On the whole I like Karmic. It is fast, responsive, stable and clean. I have no hesitation in recommending it to people for business and home use. Technorati Tags: Karmic, Ubuntu 9.10, crash reports, bugs, 64 bit
Update: Air 2 beta is now working on Ubuntu 64 bit AMD processors - though I can't get BBC iPlayer Desktop working. TweetDeck now works fine from my Karmic machine.
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