Ubuntu 7.10 Impressions on a Dell D420

Preamble

This little article I was putting together is far overdue and I had actually considered not posting it, but after having taken ill and having to deal with moving to NZ for personal reasons, I really did not have the time to finish it or compile it in a matter that I felt proud of. Nevertheless, I feel the article is worth posting for anyone considering a foray into the Linux world with only basic experience, so please give it a read if it interests you.

Introduction

Ubuntu. The popularity of that word has grown exponentially on the notebook market ever since Dell issued a press release in May 2007 announcing the availability of consumer systems furnished with the operating system direct from the factory. And why not? As Ubuntu’s press release states, “Dell’s decision is a strong endorsement of Ubuntu and to the work of many in coding, translating and promoting open source software. It is also testament to the demand that exists for Ubuntu” (ubuntu.com). Consumers are always looking for more choices and options, particularly when such choices can save them money. Ubuntu Linux provides a real alternative to the choices offered by Microsoft and Apple in the OS arena.

Still, the question remains about how viable an alternative Ubuntu is to the firmly established consumer operating systems that dominate the market. For instance, while Dell offers a few machines that can be pre-configured with Ubuntu, what about the rest of us how are using unsupported hardware? Is it possible for an end-user with little hands-on experience to install and maintain a productive system using the generic install of Ubuntu 7.10? That is the question we are here to answer.

Before we get started, I should admit that I have actually had some experience using Linux in the past, although I make no claim to being an expert. Back in 2002 I installed Gentoo Linux on my home system from scratch via the command line and forty-five pages of printed manuals, and came away relatively happy with the final, working product.

I really need to stress the words ‘final’ and ‘working’ however, because getting my system to this stage was no simple task. The install itself took three attempts due to various command line typos, half of my hardware was not immediately recognized and took days to fix (getting the back and forward buttons working on my mouse was a real challenge), and finally a hardware change required me to reinstall the entire OS because I had compiled the kernel from scratch, making it incompatible with the new motherboard’s chipset. At this point I felt I had enough experience with Linux to last a lifetime and went Windows XP intending never to look back.

Well times have changed. Several years and computers later, I was still running Windows XP on my Dell Latitude D420, which I reviewed here at notebookreview just over a year ago. During this time, I went through dozens of Windows Updates, patches, and even hardware upgrades, and I could not shake the feeling that with each passing month the system was becoming slower and less responsive, especially since I had not reformatted since I received the machine.

Given that the Core Solo 1.06 that shipped with the system is no performance champ, I figured I might be able to solve all my troubles by trying a different OS, perhaps something less bloated (or shall we say streamlined as not to offend). That obviously ruled out Vista, but having heard so many people singing praises for Ubuntu over the past several months, I figured I would give it a try and document my experience in comparison to XP.

So with high hopes in mind I began my journey into the land of open source. How did it turn out you ask? Well read on to find out…

Ubuntu: Installation


The best word to describe the installation of Ubuntu would have to be ‘easy.’ While some aspects of the actual process such as partitioning the drives may leave a few novice users scratching their heads, Ubuntu provides excellent documentation on all aspects of the installation process.

What is particularly convenient about the install process however is the LiveCD functionality. Rather than using an ugly and outdated looking installer like Windows XP, Ubuntu gives you the option of actually testing out a fully functional system from a CD or removal drive. This functionality is particularly helpful since it allows you to get an idea of how well Ubuntu will support your hardware configuration while also letting you dabble in the operating system prior to committing to formatting your primary hard drive.

In my case, the LiveCD really raised my hopes substantially. The Intel 3945G wireless card in my D420 was detected and configured out of the box immediately upon bootup (via a restricted driver courtesy of Intel), my LCD panel was detected and running at its native resolution of 1280x800, and connecting to my WEP-enabled router was a snap. With the entire system running from CD, the whole experience felt complete and responsive, so I enthusiastically decided to wipe out my XP system by initiating the installation process from the desktop.

The installation itself was completed in roughly forty-five minutes via a GUI installer, with most of that time spent copying files off of the external CD drive attached to my laptop. The only point at which I was mildly confused was during the hard drive partitioning stage, since Linux offers far more partition varieties than XP. I had to consult with the installation guides to determine the best format to use (ext3 in my case), but thankfully the LiveCD allowed me to access the internet using Firefox to research the options further. If you would like a little more (visual) detail about the install process, check out this video from PCMechanic.

All in all, I would say the installation process itself is on par or better than that of Windows XP, with particular commendations for the LiveCD approach.

Ubuntu: Day-to-Day Use and Problems (aka What Worked and What Didn’t)


With my fully functional system up and running, I decided to settle into my new Ubuntu desktop. The first step, however, would be to import all my documents, bookmarks, and other files using an external USB drive that I had used to backup my data. Unfortunately, this is where I hit my first snafu. When I connected the external drive, it was recognized immediately and powered up, but I could not access the files and the drive refused to mount. The reason given was that the drive (partitioned to NTFS) had not been safely removed the XP install, and thus could not be accessed to avoid data loss. I received a message box that instructed me to either reconnect the drive to a Windows system and safely remove it (which was difficult considering I had just wiped my Windows partition) or to go into the terminal and use a command line to forcibly mount the drive.

Now, given that back in 2002 even performing a read operation on an NTFS partition from Linux was a big deal, I couldn’t help but be slightly miffed that I would have to resort to the command line just to mount a drive. While loading the terminal and mounting the drive worked and was a relatively simple affair, I can imagine how confused a less seasoned Linux user would be with the whole terminal approach. While some might not agree, I personally feel that graphical user interfaces have prospered for a good reason (accessibility) and that the terminal should be an option but not a mandatory facet of an operating system. This kind of thinking will get you in trouble with Linux on the whole quickly, and Ubuntu is no exception…

After loading some files over to my primary drive, I decided to play around with the OS a bit. Suffice it to say I experienced more troubles and annoyances quickly. For one thing, when I tried to open a flash-enabled site in Firefox, nothing came up, nor did Flash install itself as I was used to when running Windows. A quick search on the Ubuntu forums informed me that I had to use apt-get to install Flash via terminal or opt to use Gnash, an open-source flash-player, by using the Ubuntu Synaptic Package Manager. I ended up using apt-get and succeeded in getting Flash installed in a couple of minutes, which wasn’t too bad.

Next I browsed to another website to play a movie trailer, but I soon discovered that no media playback codecs were installed on the system by default for anything including mp3 files, since these codecs have licensing issues under Linux. A quick jump to Synaptic helped me to find the suitable codecs by searching via file extensions, and I resolved this issue rather quickly as well—still, I lost a sizeable chunk of time finding and installing the right packages, although a lot of this can be chalked up to inexperience with the OS itself. The existence of the Ubuntu support forums and the documentation and tips provided there helped allay these problems to a significant degree however.

After getting what I considered basic functionality working, I was relatively pleased with the OS itself. Unlike Windows XP, I did not have to go through the laborious process of finding and installing drivers for each and every piece of hardware for my computer, which was a significant relief. However, this ease of hardware setup turned out to be a mixed blessing, since a little more time spent with the OS uncovered several more problems that required fixing: the (admittedly pathetic) 3D acceleration on my Intel GMA950 card was not working properly, as tested using glxgears (I never actually fixed this one); sound was playing from both my internal speaker and my external speakers, despite the fact that this was not the case with XP (turned out that I had to switch from Alsa Mixer to OSS); plugins refused to install for Firefox since updates.mozilla.org could not be accessed (apparently the default DNS servers configured by the Network Manager were not working properly, so I had to force the use of OpenDNS IPs instead), and several more.

Now while all these problems sound troubling (and they were), I would say that overall they were not ‘too’ bad, although I wonder how someone unfamiliar with Linux would do with getting the OS setup in a fashion that could be considered ‘fully-working.’ While driver installation was definitely a far simpler process than XP, one has to wonder if some of these niggling problems would make someone toss up their hands in disgust at the whole Linux experience (at times of lessened perseverance, they certainly did for me).

Nevertheless, the day-to-day use of Ubuntu certainly had some huge positives going for it. Using Synaptic, I was able to install many open-source programs that provided excellent functionality compared to commercial Windows products, including GIMP, OpenOffice, Nautilus, FileZilla, Pidgin, and many more. While many of these applications are also available as Windows ports, their integration into Ubuntu seemed far more seamless, and the ease of acquiring and updating them through Synaptic is unquestionable in comparison to XP. While Windows Update is basically only useful for grabbing core OS updates and patches, Ubuntu’s system allows you to keep your entire system up to date through an automated manager. Once things are working properly in Ubuntu and all the problems are sorted out, keeping the system functional is far less painful. With no registry to worry about, less trouble with fragmentation and the like, and an Add/Remove like software like Synaptic that actually does its job, Ubuntu is a far more convenient and functional OS than Windows XP is when left to its own devices.

Ubuntu: Performance and Battery Life

While so far everything with Ubuntu sounds relatively positive (ignoring the irritating problems that cropped up here and there), there is one huge issue I have with the OS that makes it almost unusable for me: battery life. Unlike Windows XP, where the 9-cell battery in my D420 allows me to get roughly five hours of battery life with my screen brightness maxed out and WIFI on, under Ubuntu that time is cut to roughly 3 hours, which is what I got with the 6-cell under Windows. From looking at some other sites covering Ubuntu, my losses of battery life may be a bit beyond normal, but no amount of tweaking based around various wiki's could alleviate my problems.

Conclusion

All in all, Ubuntu provides an excellent alternative to Windows as a desktop OS. This is not to say Ubuntu is necessarily better than Windows (although in several ways it is), but rather that it is an excellent free, open-source alternative. Since I began using Linux several years ago, great strides have been made in providing applications that fill in the blanks of functionality that were missing from commercial operating systems. While some people will still miss the Office suite, the Adobe applications, and several others, certain end users will be more than happy with what Linux does provide at essentially no cost.

Now, while this all sounds extremely positive, I am not so sure about Ubuntu 7.10 providing an excellent alternative as a portable OS. The battery life issues I experienced--along with some aggravating bugs and incompatibilites--eventually made me return to XP after a few weeks of use. If and when these issues are sorted out, I would certainly consider using Ubuntu on my notebook, especially since as an ultraportable I do not have the capacity to run games, which is one of the main reasons to stick to XP or use Vista for DX10. In the meantime, the included XP license more than serves my needs.

 

Nice guide. Gutsy worked great out of the box for me too. I only had to install the Mp3 codes.

 

Nice write up. I find though that the exact reasons you mention are why I stick to Linux. If a codec is not found, a single click away and and I'm downloading. Also, my Inspiron 6400 sees an increase in battery life of about 30 minutes, so it really just depends on your hardware. And experiences vary based on what you are expecting from your OS.

 

Appreciated very much is your write-up, sir

 

Thank you Adaptive