12.04 is almost here, any takers?

Yes I understand what you are saying, but it appears you are using Ubuntu as a common user and not as a power-user, with professional tools. I use DraftSight and Autocad ( mostly in Win 7, Wine,when it works) to work on my projects. GNOME 2.x handled the many operations just fine, Unity is another story. It is like reading a book with the lights turned off. Inefficient. I use my computer for work...and a bit of play, and Unity is just not equipped for a professional environment, period.

If all i needed to do was run Banshee and Chrome it might work well. But designing using Draftsight and Wine (Autocad) are another ballgame altogether.

 

Ubuntu V12.04 is looking ok since upgrading from V11.10.
This runs in VMware player V4.0.2 with no issues. Interesting,
I wasn’t expecting Ubuntu to have drivers for an older HP multifunction
printer connecting to USB, but there it was, tested & works.
Dell XPS bluetooth mouse works great, no pairing bugs. Will review some firewall settings from the WIN 7 side so no issues occur on this WIN7>VM>UB setup.

The display settings did not have a 16:9 1920x1080 1080p selection for this 18” LCD.
Selected the next best fit 16:10 1680x1050….black vertical bars on each side.

Acer Aspire AS8951G-9630 Notebook PC - Intel Core i7-2670QM 2.2GHz, 8GB DDR3, 750GB HDD, Blu-Ray Player, 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M, 18.4" Display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, Black

 

been using it in a vm for a bit now, and i do like it a lot better then the last release. unity has vastly improved but is still no where near mature enough for me, still to many clicks. runs faster then before (at least in Virtualbox) which is nice.

funny enough the unity interface works better on my big screen compared to my netbook, strange because they want it wo work on a 10" display. i thinks it has to do with windows and switching between them, i do not like how it is done in unity and on a large screen i dont have to maximize my windows.

 

Could you elaborate on this nauticus?

I have never used Unity, only gnome, and I too use linux for professional work (usually with 4-8 gnome shells open). How will I be hampered if I move from gnome to unity?

 

I have not been paying attention to the updates (just blindly clicking install). The UI now seems much snappier.

 

So far so good on my HTPC. Haven't booted into it much on my thinkpad (been taking a break from work).

 

Made some audio adjustments in V12.04 for the Acer 8951G’s (6) speaker,
HT Dolby optimized 5.1 surround sound laptop. VMware Player V4.0.2
sees Realtek HD audio (latest driver V6.0.1.6602) ok.

By default, Ubuntu uses PulseAudio for its sound. Also by default, PulseAudio is set to 2 channels only. Enabling surround sound involves changing one line in the configuration file /etc/pulse/daemon.conf. In the CLI, typed the following: gksu gedit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

Once open, scroll down to find the line ; default-sample-channels = 2. Remove the semicolon at the start of the line and change the line according to your surround sound configuration: For 5.1 channel sound: default-sample-channels = 6.

Test, in the CLI type: speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6. Tested ok.

 

Still got unity UI?

No thanks.

 

I think you can revert back to Gnome 2.3.

 

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback. It's almost an exact clone of gnome 2 but as I already said in this thread, there are still a lot of things missing.

 

He may be referring to the previous LTS, Lucid Lynx (GNOME 2.3), which is supported till next April.

 

^ ^ No, I'm talking about 12.04.

 

I do know this however i wish during install time you could choose your shell. Unity being forced by default sucks.

 

No matter. It isn't the same as it used to be.
The thing that bugs me most is that I can't change the taskbar location in 12.04. Apparently Canonical made that on purpose, because they want users experience Unity the way they see. Also it bugs me that all window actions are on the left side. I've changed it in previous releases. Haven't tried it yet on 12.04 though.

 

Anyone considering using Linux Mint 13 which will be based off 12.04, but which will have gnome?

 

I will use Mint 13 on my desktop dual booting with Windows 7 (games). Clem, Founder and lead of the Mint team, recentley had a poll on the Mint forums as what its users "favorite desktop environments", and it was a landslide with Cinnamon well ahead of the nearest DE. http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=143&t=100787

If that poll is any indicator of default DE, then Cinnamon it will be. And that will be a great way for Mint to have a defining difference to Ubuntu. In the future I see the Mint team forking from Ubuntu and going either independent/Debian, further improving Cinnamon and separating itself from Canonical and Ubuntu.

 

I am using the Gnome 3.4 shell on Ubuntu 12.04. Everything is working well now. I see no reason to move to Mint. I think the LTS release is the last stop for my five year old HP 6510b.

 

Interesting...thanks. Didnt know about Cinnamon. Mint is going places!!

 

Linux Mint 13 RC released.
New features in Linux Mint 13 - Linux Mint

 

Wow, I think I just found my new operating system. I've been trying out Xubuntu 12.04, and everything not only works great, but wow, the DE is so clean and sleek, and there's no unity.
Time to go make a custom iso. There's a few essential programs that I need, I hope they are available for Xubuntu. If so, I'll be ditching Ubuntu 10.04 (and all flavors!!) all together (finally).

 

Check out Live Voyager which is a French spin on Xubuntu.

Voyager

 

Unfortunately I've reverted back to ubuntu 10.04 because of various problems with xubuntu. I really like it, but I can't deal with its plethora of problems. I need a system that "just works", and 10.04 does that for me. :\ Like I said when I tried ubuntu 12.04, I think I'm just going to wait until 12.04.1 to try it again, and hope its issues have been ironed out.
I'm going to say though that I really like xubuntu, and I think it's almost there. I haven't given up on it completely.

 

What problems were these?

 

^ ^ Items cannot be deleted with a right click. It says it cannot find the trash can. I must go to the terminal and type: sudo rm xxxxx to delete it.
Despite not having the bad mouse stutter I had with my core 2 duo notebook, my llano notebook had bad screen tearing on both the desktop, and in flash videos. Using the suggestion found at ubuntuforums, to use

Code:

xfconf-query --channel=xfwm4 --property=/general/use_compositing --set=false

had no effect.
I couldn't get my wireless card working. Despite the fact that it works in ubuntu 10.04 (ralink rt3090 via hacks), rfkill reports the card as "hard locked" though it most definitely is not. Having the hardware switch set to locked, boot up, rfkill reports phy0 as unlocked, but wifi as hard locked. I move the switch over, wifi is now unlocked, but phy0 is hard locked. Others have reported this problem. No solution found.
I was getting high cpu utilization in the service xfdesktop, from just opening windows and firefox. CPU fan runs much more than usual.
I couldn't get my Brother printer to work correctly. Even though xubuntu strangely enough listed drivers for older and newer models than the one I have, mine is oddly missing. So I followed the procedure from Brother that I used to get it working in 10.04, using their drivers, and pages would print about 1/3 of the way, and the rest would be blank, then it would spit out blank pages. I actually needed to print something out the night before, and had to reinstall 10.04 to my flash drive, and boot up from that, just so I could get that stuff printed out.
Contrary to popular belief, I don't have all the time in the world to be hacking and tweaking xubuntu to get things to work correctly. I just need something that will work when I boot up.

 

I think you will have better luck with 12.10

 

It seems like they always kick the can down to the next version. "The next version will be better", but I'm finding that not to be the case. I see bugs that have been in *buntu since 10.04, that are still not fixed. For instance read-only ntfs partitions can still not be auto-mounted, you have to do it via the terminal, despite users having posted a fix to the codebase, and the developers just ignore it and mark it as "fixed". Having to use a workaround is not a fix.
To be honest I still use linux exclusively, but I can see why it's still not mainstream. If the developers would get their act together and start working on fixing problems and bugs, and stop trying to cram new features down our throats, we might actually have a viable alternative to get people to want to switch to linux.
I'm much more experienced and advanced than the average joe, yet I still find it a hassle to have to tweak and hack stuff to get things working, and the average joe doesn't want to have to do that to their computer. The just want a system that works when they turn it on.
The linux developers are not interested in community feedback, I see that time and again on different forums. They are only interested in you beta testing for them, but when it comes to honest feedback and suggestions, they don't give a crap and ignore you. Shuttleworth is a wonderful example of being a control freak that thinks he knows better than us what we want, and time and again he and his monkey developers underneath him ignore the rest of us.
Sorry for the rant, just am tired of this crap. I'm tired of having to use a 2 year old operating system, I'd like to move up, but I can't find a decent replacement yet for 10.04.

 

That's what happens when you set a strict "must get a new version out every 6 months". they are just feeding into the public's "new is better" model. If you look at the big picture though, ubuntu has brought linux into the public's eye more than any other distro so its hard to fault them. Maybe you should consider looking at some other distros

 

Thanks for the writing up the issues.
Have you tried other distros like linux mint, or scientific linux?

 

I have some ideas, and I think I'm going to give it a try again. I don't really use my network card, but it's one of those things that would be nice to have if I ever needed it.
The other issues I'm currently looking into. Hopefully in a few days I'll have some answers.

 

Right, finding an agreeable distribution is probably best unless you have the time to use Gentoo or something similiar to fully customize the OS to your hardware.

I noticed a lot of people praising Mint Linux, however that OS totally craps out on my older laptop.

I've had to manually install my wireless card on my old laptop starting from Ubuntu 11.10. Before that the OS would automatically install the correct drivers with nps.

 

Well, I think I got xubuntu working. For the screen tearing problem, going to Settings Manager -> Window Manager Tweaks -> Compositor and disabling desktop compositing largely fixed the issue.
I got my printer working. I had to download the package "apparmor", and following the directions had to use aa-complain. It works fine now.
Lastly, there is a bug with vlc (2.01). Audio is severely distorted/crackly. Switching to other audio sources (alsa, pulseaudio, etc) didn't help. Finally selecting alsa -> default works, but the audio would keep dying out every 30 to 60 seconds. I'd have to go back and select it again, over and over.
Finally found a setting that sticks. Just use Alsa -> HD-Audio Generic - Analog 5.1 Surround, fixes the problem.
I'm going to keep testing, but now things are much better.
Oh and I forgot to mention. The problem with deleting files, and it saying it cannot find trash can, is a problem only while running a live session, because it needs read/write access. Apparently running in read-only mode causes it to freak out. After installing it to my hdd, it works normally. It must be an xfce limitation. I can live with it.

 

10.04 is treating me good still. Did try 12.04 but got lost in the interface and rolled back. Nice fixes though, will have to try later. Still hesitant about taking that hurdle back to 12.04.
I also tried the server edition as I mainly use virtual machines but my linux kungfu is bad so have to go at it later.

 

Running Xubuntu 12.04 on the laptop in my signature, no complaints so far.

 

Installed in less than 30 minutes on my six-year old pasty warmer (HP in my sig), 12.04 runs remarkably well. I experienced one complete lock up (nothing responding, forced to hard shutdown), the wireless indicators on the notebook keep flashing and the delete button doesn't go back a page in Chrome but Ubuntu has given the old girl a new lease of life. Boots and shutdowns extremely fast given the antiquated hardware and leaves XP in the dust.

 

For those with limited hardware: why dont you try something lightweight like puppy linux?

 

Thanks for the info, I booted from Cd, and ran it from CD, it worked gr8; although my fan was audibly spinning -Dell D610 circa 2007-
When I looked at my wireless adapter,(Broadcom 802.11) it said firmware is missing, I assume this is a limitation because I am running from my pitiful 2 GIGs of RAM. IS that correct?

 

You need to install the wireless driver.

 

boukyaku thanks for the response, I tried running from CD on My ASUS and it worked perfectly.

 

Just wanted to second your comments, was read to give my Dell D610 away- 1 GIG ram was not working well with Vista. I found this thread with a few intereseting tweaks, I got hibernate working Things To Tweak After Installing Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin ~ Web Upd8: Ubuntu / Linux blog
~~~ IF you still have lock ups and want to try to fix this thread may be of help
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/993187

 

I thought the overheating issues is going to be fixed with 12.04, but it seems that I have more issues with 12.04 than 11.10 with my HP DV6T.

 

sanjie Do you notice the Overheating especially playing flash content in Firefox 13 using the Adobe plugin? My Dell goes from a reasonable ~45 C to near 70 C so I am looking for a work around; now I just use my ASUS with win 7 to play "mission critical flash content"