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Last night and today, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
esrblog upgraded my computer to the latest version of Ubuntu, "Jaunty Jackalope" or, as he mischievously nicknamed it, "Jaunty Jalopy".
The newer version of KMail that came with it does not have the breakage that caused my old version of KMail to stop printing the text of the e-mail I was responding to in the reply box. There's a slight format change that is mildly annoying, but so far all works as I expect/prefer it to.
esrblog thinks my machine boots much faster than it did under Intrepid Ibex. I don't know, since I haven't watched it boot under the new system yet. But it seems to run a lot slower, at least to me.
esrblog also had to hunt a bit on the Internet to find a driver for my I-didn't-think-it-was-that-old printer, but other than that things are pretty good. So far. Wish me luck.
esrblog upgraded my computer to the latest version of Ubuntu, "Jaunty Jackalope" or, as he mischievously nicknamed it, "Jaunty Jalopy".The newer version of KMail that came with it does not have the breakage that caused my old version of KMail to stop printing the text of the e-mail I was responding to in the reply box. There's a slight format change that is mildly annoying, but so far all works as I expect/prefer it to.
esrblog thinks my machine boots much faster than it did under Intrepid Ibex. I don't know, since I haven't watched it boot under the new system yet. But it seems to run a lot slower, at least to me. esrblog also had to hunt a bit on the Internet to find a driver for my I-didn't-think-it-was-that-old printer, but other than that things are pretty good. So far. Wish me luck.
hopeful
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Xubuntu or Ubuntu, haven't decided yet. But Kubuntu is still using KDE 4.
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I had forgotten is that the rest of my desktop is now Gnome--
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I've tried the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (on the Asus) and Xubuntu, in addition to regular Ubuntu. I keep coming back to Ubuntu.
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I've never liked gnome (even though I've used it as my primary desktop, on and off, for about 3 years scattered over the past decade). Using gnome as a desktop is like shopping at a soviet grocery store. It can sort of be made to work with enough effort behind it, but the people who put it together _just_don't_get_it_, and never will without changing their entire mindset in several rather fundamental ways.
I was a loyal Kubuntu user until they went to KDE 4, which was completely unusable. Xubuntu is pretty much what's _left_.
Rob
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There are things that annoy me about Gnome, but not enough to matter. I'm used to it, and Carrie's used to it. Admittedly, I disable all of the flashy parts of Compiz, but frankly, I do the same thing with Windows. I've discovered how to make every version of Windows look like Windows 95 (even Vista) and that's what I do. I don't need fancy "translucent glass" interfaces, since 90% of what I'm doing is (1) running Firefox, (2) running Thunderbird, or (3) editing something with vi in a terminal window.
The big problem with Xubuntu for me is the same problem that KDE has -- it's similar to something else that I use constantly (Gnome), but not identical. That, and the default app selection for Xubuntu doesn't include OpenOffice. (I miss being able to select which set of apps to install during installation).
As for "much better than 8.10" -- I'm generally happy with 8.04, particularly with regard to how well it's supported as a VMware host and guest. I'm really testing new versions of Ubuntu for (1) compatibility with VMs, (2) notebook/laptop/netbook hardware support, and (3) Atmel AVR development tools support. Since 9.04 has fixed the hardware support and reliability issues that 8.10, and it supports newer/better versions of the tools I need, I'm willing to use it for my Asus and the Latitude. I'll probably upgrade the other second-tier machines in May, and if it plays nice, I'll think about upgrading the primary workstations after that. Otherwise I wait for 9.10 (or 10.4, which should be the next LTS release).
u
> doesn't succeed.
I haven't used Windows seriously in 10 years, as as my primary system _ever_. KDE 3 was fine. I was used to it. KDE for is this weird alien thing that's going out of its way to be evil. (If they were trying to copy Apple I probably wouldn't mind so much. At least it wouldn't cause quite as complete a loss of faith in their judgment...)
> I don't need fancy "translucent glass" interfaces, since 90% of what I'm
> doing is (1) running Firefox, (2) running Thunderbird, or (3) editing
> something with vi in a terminal window.
You've neatly summed up the main reason for my interest in xfce. I want an interface that doesn't try "help out in the kitchen". I want something functional but unobtrusive.
My move from KDE to gnome corresponded with my move from 8.04 to 8.10. It was so horrible that I went back to 8.04 last month. Dunno how much of that was 8.10 and how much of it was Gnome, but the combination didn't help.
> The big problem with Xubuntu for me is the same problem that KDE has --
> it's similar to something else that I use constantly (Gnome), but not
> identical.
My first GUI was the amiga 1000 (workbench). I used Sun workstations in college (1992-1995), and the OS/2 workplace shell at home (1993-1998). Then I went to Red Hat 5.2 which didn't really _have_ a desktop, just X. Along the way borrowing other people's machines (often what they gave me to use at work) I've used macs (classic and X), and windows boxes (although nothing newer than XP; Vista is Windows Millenium Second Edition and I refuse to get any of it on me), and even spent a fairly confusing 6 months switching back and forth between IBM's PowerPC port of JavaOS and AIX (which was the development environment the Java stuff got built on and launched from).
The environment I'm most comfortable with at the moment is KDE 3, but it's dying and I'm ready to move on. (Anybody who started out on 8 bit machines learned to spot the "smell of death" and when it was time to move on. Commodore 64, a present for the whole family christmas 1982. It lived in my room by new year's.)
> That, and the default app selection for Xubuntu doesn't include
> OpenOffice. (I miss being able to select which set of apps to install
> during installation).
The default install of Ubuntu 8.04 doesn't even include the "patch" command. It hasn't got libncurses5, libc6-dev, manpages-dev, mercurial, subversion, gcc, the flash plugin...
You have to install useful packages after installing the system. That's just a given. I blog a checklist every time I have to reinstall:
http://landley.net/notes-2009.html#23-03-2009
I start by looking at my _previous_ install checklist.
> I'm generally happy with 8.04, particularly with regard to how well it's
> supported as a VMware host and guest.
It's what I'm using right now.
Off the top of my head: kernel has a bug that freezes the keyboard and mouse every second suspend to ram (good luck re-suspending to fix it without a keyboard and mouse; made the power button do it without a pop-up dialog by renaming one of the /etc/acpi scripts), Firefox shares a single instance of the flash plugin between all tabs and restart it after it inevitably crashes unless you restart fireflox, that flash plugin is too old to watch anything under the youtube "shows" tab, javascript support in Konqueror sucks compared to 8.10, the bluetooth stack is darn flaky, 3D goes a bit weird at times, Kmail eats folders that pass 32767 messages going into an endless loop "regenerating corrupted index" until you go in and edit the mbox file by hand to bring the message count back down...
But yeah, a noticeable step up from 8.10. I'd probably wait for the next LTS except that if I skip too many releases I won't have figured out the workarounds for the fresh breakage in each new release (networkmanager disables loopback when it can't find a wireless network so you have to exit networkmanager to work offline, the way /etc/vimrc.tiny exists to cripple vim so zap it and symlink the name to the other file in that directory, /bin/sh->dash, etc).
Having 2-3 release full of breakage land on me at once leaves my system unusable for weeks while I figure out how to fix it.
Rob
Re: u
When I'm working, the tools I use depend upon the software I'm developing and the needs of the organization that's paying me. Over the course of 25 years, that's included CP/M, Multics, VMS, Primos, Pick, just about every major version of Unix (with and without X), MS-DOS, and every version of Windows (except ME).
For the current job, its Windows applications, using as many MS tools as we can afford, and making up the difference with Open Source tools. The previous job was mostly Java, developed on Windows and deployed on Unix and Windows. The next job will be Java, C, and C++, targeting FPGAs and embedded processors. I don't know whether I'll be working on Windows, Linux, or some combination.
At home, we've been Microsoft-free for close to a decade, with one exception: Windows running in a VM so that I can run TurboTax once a year (and now the administrative client for the VMware ESX server -- I *could* use the commandline tools, but the GUI is still a much better tool). Recent home development has been targeting open embedded hardware (mostly Arduino). Stop by the Chaos Machine at Penguicon to see an example, or come to my talks.
You think Flash is bad in 8.04, try using Flash on 64-bit 8.04. On the other hand, I don't use Konqueror, KMail, or any other KDE app. I don't use bluetooth for anything beyond my phone/headset, and I don't use 'suspend' on anything other than the Asus.
Current install list: