Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala
Ubuntu 9.10 is causing outrage and frustration, with early adopters wishing they'd stuck with previous versions of the Linux distro. Blank and flickering screens, failure to recognize hard drives, defaulting to the old 2.6.28 Linux kernel, and failure to get encryption running are taking their toll, as early adopters turn to the …
Have not used Linux for years, and am a happy Apple Fanboi. A few months ago I decided to install 9.04 on an old PPC G4 Powerbook, which went pretty well, with all hardware installed and working great (graphics aren't perfect, but easily usable). Decided to update to 9.10 from the package manager and it went without a hitch. Very snappy, epecially using XFCE as a WM.
If I could sync my iPhone with it I would be sorely tempted away from the devil's dumplings of Apple on my main Macbook.
I have mega problems installing this version, it just craps out after login, something to do with graphics drivers, also dont get me started on the wireless drivers rubbish.
Upgraded to 9.10, rebooted to a kernel panic due to the fstab.
Quick use of Google-fu to find I'm not the only person suffering from the same thing (I'm a relative noob), boot from a livecd, then :
mount -o remount,rw /
sudo dpkg --configure -a
let it do it's thing, and Bob's your cross-dressing Auntie.
Was still a lot less hassle than my Win7 install on my laptop that tries to install an update at every boot, fails, reboots, removes said update, reboots at every single startup now, until I CBA to sort it out (or install Ubuntu).
I updated both my Ubuntu Linux systems. Acer Aspire 5630 Laptop with Release Candidate, and PC with final release on day 2.
I had no display problems with the update from 9.04, neither with the Intel Graphics on my laptop, nor the ATI graphics on my desk PC (using open source drivers) and the desk PC went very smoothly overall. Everything appears to work.
However my laptop was a different story: Bluetooth has stopped working, Ubuntuone stopped working until I did a complete uninstall, autoclean and reinstall, and I have had several complete lock ups where the laptop wouldn't even reboot, and one Kernel oops (can't remember the last time I saw one of those). I have also had to fsck the ext3 filesystem on reboot after these lock-ups. I occassionally have PulseAudio crash, and even the reporting applet.
Several updates later, it now seems to have stabilised (though Bluetooth still isn't working).
I will persevere, but I think this has been the worst Ubuntu upgrade I have ever installed (since 6.10) I thought it was just me after seeing all the positive reviews.
It's just a shame there isn't a LiveCD version of 9.10 which you could run from a CD or usb stick to see whether your hardware will work or not before choosing to upgrade the o/s permanently.
Oh hang on. Yes there is.
How's the Windows 7 live CD coming along? No, didn't think so.
suspend/hibernate -> resume fails utterly if you encrypt your home drive. This is proving something of a pain and I'm considering taking a backup of my data and doing a complete re-install. Other than that I've found it to be an ok release. Probably should have waited a month or two before upgrading.
If you install any bleeding edge distro the minute it comes out on a machine you rely upon you're asking for trouble.
And I'm sure it's worked perfectly for most people. I get more hardware incompatibilities installing Windows these days. I do understand the need to seek the most newsworthy angle though.
You make it sound like this is the end of the line. They'll identify and fix the bugs very quickly as they listen to their users. That's how open source works...
I stick with the LTS releases personally.
Did an upgrade on my 1000HE and it went fine. I guess the main problems of upgrades is bloat. As an example I got a bunch of kb input systems on netbook, whilst on my freshly installed desktop I just have ibus, which works very nicely. Still trying to get used to Empathy over Pidgin, I'll give that a bit more time but I might move back. Only problem I have so far with KK is that my encrypted partition (luks dmcrypt) shows up in Places, and before anyone says anything about how it is meant to show, it contains my LVM volumes so there is no need to display the device twice!
First ever, in many years of using ubuntu (and being command line averse).
1) Upgrading using software manager seemed to die. PC rebooted into 9.10, but froze with some white / black gobbledegook. Clean install from 9.10 worked fine. It's possible that the machine got turned off halfway through, kids looked a bit guilty. I'm going to give it a month before upgrading my production machine and laptops.
2) 9.10 machine only gives me 640 and 800 res monitor options when plugged into a monitor / keyboard switch. Is fine when not. This is a new, but weird problem.
Main complaint is that Ubuntu is fugly - fonts, colours especially - and means it's decidedly hard to swank about.
I did a sort of upgrade/fresh install in that /home is a separate partition on my laptop so I basically formatted the primary partition and did a clean install and told it where to find /home. So it found my customised desktop/wireless settings and so on. OK so I had to re-install a few things that I guess if I'd done an upgrade it would have done for me but it got rid of stuff I'd installed and then stopped using.
I'm on a Medion S5610 laptop and its rock solid, its running the 2.6.31-14-generic kernel without me doing anything, ATI graphics (with the restricted driver) are fine, Intel wireless card is fine and the Intel audio is fine, and it even sees the HDMI port (not that I use it but it can see it now).
Grub is fine, and from selecting the Unbutu option to working wireless connected desktop, including me selecting my user and entering my password is 56 seconds. Shut down is a gob smacking 6 seconds! I dont bother using Hibernate/suspend.
'Who upgrades any O/S? All O/S makers say you can and maybe 10 years ago, with Win95 and DOS you could upgrade, but O/S these days has so many components, so much meta data the upgrades are complete tosh. Simply replacing some components in the middle of a working O/S, do me a favour!' - Exactly.
Linux (Ubuntu) is free people, it does work, just need to put a bit of effort in. And be glad you aren't a windows user so don't have to worry about nasties like Conficker....
Only had 1 trashed system out of 3 upgraded, the other 2 work perfectly. The 3rd well it got W7 installed, needed it up and running fast and a 30 minute install appealed versus a 3 hour fight.
Paris cos... who knows why just cos.
My wifi used to take ages to connect, now it works instantly. I upgraded two dell laptops, and aside from the download time, they went off without a hitch. Its nice to have Firefox 3.5 by default, but other than that, i didn't notice much.
I have long since given up trying to do the "semi-automatic" upgrades from one Ubuntu to another, they always shaft something up.
Therefore I did a clean install of Ubuntu on a spare partition on my secondary PC, an old (2007) Acer Travelmate and it went fine. No major issue and one minor one (drivers for playing videos), which the default movie player managed to automatically fix for me by suggesting and downloading the missing drivers. It picked up my wireless network and autodetected the security-type in 3s flat, better than previous Ubuntus and MUCH better than Vista.
So far I am very pleased with it, and my wife (who is NOT a techie and normally uses this PC) is also happy.
Please note that I used the ALTERNATE installer which I agree is not SO user-friendly. However it is about the same as the Windows XP installer.
Cameron Smith, Maputo, Mozambique
... for a penguin with horns and a penguin with a halo in the icon options...
I've been running Karmic since the fifth beta and have not encountered any serious issues. I call bullshit on the sensationalist crap.
On a Dell XPS 1530 laptop, and a dell precision Desktop - both upgrades, both went 100% without a problem (other than spotify no working!)
It is highly uncommon for El Reg to post such a scathing review of a Linux distro, but now that it's happened this story is topping the Google news Science/Tech category and overriding the (numerous) better reviews that 9.10 has gotten.
Ironic, isn't it? It's only perpetuating the myth that "Linux sucks, don't use it; use Windows''. Talk about digging a deeper hole for yourself.
FAIL, because this article is doing some real and possibly unnecessary damage to desktop Linux's reputation.
To be awkward, I'm going to report no problems and for the first time in years I can actually make the ATI drivers install fine - clean installs on a few different machines.
Other than the shite habbit of mounting my encrypted drives, which I'll hack out later and is not exactly a bug as such, I've had no problems SO FAR. Even the default theme isn't half as vile as usual. That cloud storage thing isn't exactly smoothly done though, but again, I'll live
A pint icon for those suffering. Go back to 9.04 and wait a few weeks, you'll know it'll turn good in the end :)
So far, I've installed to a USB stick (as a permanent install), a desktop and a laptop. Oddly, the USB is the most successful of the three, running on about 6 different makes of computer almost flawlessly (and enticing the odd newbie to give Ubuntu a try). The Desktop had a couple of glitches installing, but that was my fault: I was downloading variants of the ISOs while upgrading and it kinda ran out of space... apt-get update and apt-get upgrade fixed any problems, though! The laptop -- well, it's a Toshiba A70 and everything has been hit and miss ever since I took possession of it (including it's early day when it ran Windows XP Pro). Suspend/resume and hibernation are the only real issues I've found. As with previous Linux installs, I've just disabled the whole works and everything works fine now.
In order to get real acceptance and market share the important thing is to have a product that works out of the box (for home users) and as part of an imaging process (corporate users).
Home users will just buy a computer with an OS and expect it to work. They are unlikely to change the OS until they buy a new computer, which they will again expect to work out of the box.
Corporate users will have a small number of different models of computers (especially as it is likely any OS change would be done as part of a desktop refresh) so as long as they work then everyone is happy. And the desktop techies are paid to make sure it does work.
I don't have any facts and figures on the number of people who ever actually upgrade their OS but I am willing to hazard a guess that it is a very low percentage of computer users - and usually the more technical amongst us who have already made up our minds as to what the future should be.
It is, however, amusing to see the freetard vs. paytard handbag fights mirror each other in the "upgrading to Windows 7 is crap" and the "upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10 is crap" comments.
"I work for MS and this article made me chuckle. You get what you pay for and all that........."
Yes, and that's the point. I didn't pay for it. People are having a slight moan about something which has traditionally been one fantastic release after another fantastic release. People would have been more than a little peeved if they'd shelled out £100+ for a copy of Win7.
I've installed it (clean) on a Toshiba NB100. Wireless doesn't work properly but other than that its perfect. In fact, I installed both full and netbook remix versions (which is beautiful BTW). Installed via a USB stick (can windows do that...er..no) in less than 20 mins (can windows do that ... er no).
The other thing is that I would imagine that its all going to be fixed quick smart. No waiting 6 months for a service pack!
So take all that and stick it in your MS pipe and smoke it. (or do you need a paperclip and a 'wizard' pop up to help you).
Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now......
No, it isn't the ease of install that makes Windows popular, it is because it is the default install on new machines. Doing a re-install of Windows on a machine is a PITA with all the updates, driver downloads etc, etc. required.
SMDB now crashes randomly, and they *still* haven't fixed the known performance issue that makes maximizing or make a window bigger take 1-2 seconds when using compositing window manager.. :-(
Been using it since Thursday - fresh install on my Thinkpad X60s. I like it as much as beer. But for joe public, I'd recommend always waiting for the LTS version. That's what my wife, mum, dad,sister and parents in law are using now - only issue is wireless support is flaky for my sister's laptop, and that should be fixed by the new LTS version in April.
Jez Caudle: I've found a couple of annoyances with the Aspire One A110 so far:
1) The "home" key is no longer functional - apparently its mapping caused problems on some other hardware so they've remapped it, breaking it on the Aspire One (and rendering it unavailable in the shortcuts app).
2) You can't turn the touch pad off any more - only "while typing"! Which idiot decided to take that ability away? For non-savvy computer users who use a mouse, enabling the touchpad is a menace.
And no, it hasn't got rid of all the lag - wait until you've played with Firefox or OpenOffice for a bit! It may be better than 9.04 but I don't have experience of that on an A110.
I've also been using a Dell Mini 10v with an external monitor and that confuses it too - you can end up with the "task bar" on the internal screen and everything else on the external one!
Debating whether or not to replace the OEM LTR on a Toshiba NB100.
Anyway, I don't think anyone's yet mentioned that if you upgrade you don't get the full benefits of reformatting with the ext4 file system; that's why I replaced and it looks like I've avoided some pain by doing so.
"Only around 10 per cent of those upgrading or installing reported a completely flawless experience" is totally wrong (at least now). It is over 24%. I think most people without problems do not bother to go to the forums.
Kubuntu-9.10 installed flawlessly on ACER4520
Ages to do a clean install and to be greated with an error message saying cannot find rootfs !
Did an upgrade prior and the age old issue of WPA2 wireless problems was still there.
Off to do a Yellow Dog install.
Ubuntu 9.10 on Acer A150, clean install -> flawless
KUbuntu 9.10 on homemade desktop (that was running 9.04 fine), upgrade -> aborted in the middle of the upgrade with a message saying that kdesudo crashed.
The upgrade window went blank and I forced the window close. Now, being an old time upgrader, I knew that the worst thing I could do was reboot. I first killed all running processes related to the upgrade and ran sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. I got a message saying that I had to run dpkg --configure -a as there were things not consistent.
Did that, after a while it finished, rebooted and now I'm posting this from my happily running upgraded 9.10. And finally Amarok has regained its iPod abilities lost in the 2.0 upgrade.
Upgrading to Koala is not something for grandma, certainly. One of Ubuntu's strongest points was its ability to upgraded without disruption. This heritage has been lost, unless Debian upgrades are also so traumatic these days.
Actually, Windows users have plenty of time to smoke whatever takes their fancy while watching the Linux users struggle to install their funny little animals. Some may even use the paperclip to hold a roach.
I'm sure the idea behind Upstart is a good one. But not such a good idea is the fact that it doesn't bother waiting until I've had chance to type in the passphrase for my LUKS encrypted /home filesystem before starting everything and ensuring I can't type it in.
That's at least the third release of Ubuntu I've had to revert to my backups from because it's unusable. Time for a new distro, I think...
But: I filed a number of bug reports. Fortunately, here we had only minor inconveniences, but a lot. Wait until everyone has their kernels fixed, and graphics coming up. Suddenly then, things will start to look strange. There are problems with mount, brasero (CD-burner), screensaver, synaptic.
Have fun!
No, the year of the desktop, this is not. Not on Ubuntu.
But then I just let the upgrade manager take strain, hit the default option a couple of times for something or other and there we go!
I admit to being a total Ubuntu fanboy since '06. Every new release brings a few problems, but there's never been anything show-stopping. Until now.
I've tried this mess (GOD, I've tried!) on 5 PCs, 3 netbooks, and 3 laptops - machines ranging from not-so-old to not-so-new. It works OK on 2 of the PCs. That's all.
And even there, it must win the prize for the ugliest, UGLIEST login screen of any distribution of all time. And thanks to the massive amount of dumbing down in this release, there's no longer an option to replace it with something prettier.
Horrible, Horrible. I've loved Ubuntu PASSIONATELY for years, but now it's time to get a divorce and start looking elsewhere.
Had problems with HD recognition, took all of 2 minutes to work-out how to disable dmraid and install.
Had problems with a popping sound card, took all of 1 minute to research and fix (disabled timeout setting).
Had problems with Wireless network encryption (WPA didn't work) took all of 3 minutes to research and fix.
Why are so many bitching rather than getting off their backsides and doing some basic research?
On my 4 machines it went well ... poor bloke behind me must have taken it hard ...
Easy! Mr. Koala has two penises, and Mrs. Koala has 2 vaginas.
You're all - ahem - barking up the wrong tree!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koala, and search "bifurcated" on the page. Oh, and if you're having problems with the speed of the thing, see piccie on the right of that resulting search statement. "Koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep for most of the day". Royal Mail postie, eat-yer-heart-out.
OK, I'm going now. Sodding Koalas. Making me jealous.
Clean 9.10 UNR on AAO worked well. Some nice UI improvements over 9.04.
Clean 9.10 Kubuntu on desktop failed to setup display resolution properly. Solved with backed-up xorg.conf from 9.04. kblutooth is crap as per https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=192238. New KDE doesn't seem to have crashed as often as the last KDE PoS.
It means Ubuntu had lots of installations.
Mine was pretty smooth except my virtual machine did not have a virtual monitor so X was stuck in 800x600 by default. Supplied an /etc/X11/xorg.conf and it is beautiful. No other problems. Writing a book with LyX at the moment. Very nice.
Downloaded and installed it about 30 mins after it was available on the website. Installed it to a clean partition on my hard drive. No problems whatsoever for me :) Dead chuffed, found all of my hardware and everything works as it should. If anyone is getting issues, I would strongly suggest bearing with it. Yes you may be having problems but remember this is completely FREE, no nasty licences, completely open source so I personally believe that a bit of teething trouble at the start is no reason to shy away from Ubuntu :) Microsoft sucks lol.
Huh??????
[And even there, it must win the prize for the ugliest, UGLIEST login screen of any distribution of all time. And thanks to the massive amount of dumbing down in this release, there's no longer an option to replace it with something prettier.]
I think (I'm on a winders box at the moment, so can't test - but..) somewhere in "preferences" you can get a nice picture of roses. Or download your own. Whatever. Penises. Paris, even. (Yuck!). Floats my boat.
Just play for a few minutes, FFS. but not in the sandpit (sand creates havoc with keyboards). Get a fuc*king grip, man. I'll lend you my mensa card for a fiver. If it'll help. Which it won't.
I did a clean install on two laptops, an Thinkpad X40 and a Thinkpad T43.
Of the two the only one that gave me any issue was the X40, the X40 LCD doesn´t lit again after coming back from standby, (I have not research the issue yet) but besides that, the X40 which is slow by modern standards literally flies compared to running WindowsXP.
The Thinkpad T43 has no issue at all, and it feels unnaturally fast. (Jaunty used to run like dog poo on the Thinkpad T43 compared to Karmic)
Long ago I got the suggestion of creating a separate partition for the /home dir, I did so, and doing a clean reinstall was considerably painless this time. After booting up all my settings were as I left them when I was using Jaunty, only the fonts looked a bit different because I was using the ones in the ttf-liberation package and obviously were missing on a clean reinstall.
My advice is: Do a clean reinstall if you can before throwing the towel.
So far this is the most polished Linux distro I have ever run on any computer.
Installed 9.10 on four very different machines (AMD/Nivida gaming rig, Atom-powered netbook, Atom-powered media PC, Intel-powered corporate PC). Problems encountered: zero.
(OK, one problem: on the netbook, Xorg got the physical screen size wrong, but that was the case in 9.04 too. Fixed by adding an xrandr command in the startup)
Also booted the live CD on a Lenovo laptop and it works fine (even running dual screen), but I haven't installed it on that yet.
I did a fresh installation of Ubuntu 9.10 and it works flawlessly, the only slight hiccup is a slower boot time of that than Jaunty.
I went for ubuntu 9.10 because win 7 failed epically. Neither are perfect.
Ubuntu won't let you set a static IP without manually editing the interfaces file and the stupid nvidia driver won't go to proper res automatically.
But Win 7 doesn't share files properly, the Marvell LAN driver didn't work at all until the 2nd update, then not anywhere near what XP did enough until the 3rd. The gfx drivers never worked properly after 7 attempts at various win update and direct NVidia driver dwnloads
neither are ready for mass consumer desktop IMHO.
but I stuck with Ubuntu and happy I did because sharing works and it's fast and spiffy.
Google currently has 21,200 references to the search "windows 7" "installation problems", but only 802 references to "ubuntu 9.10" "installation problems". [And altering the quotes or giving alternative strings also has Win7 outnumbering Ubuntu every time.]
Does this prove Windows 7 is harder to install than Ubuntu 9.10? Probably not, you really need to know the number of people trying to install either system.
But it does strongly suggest that the article is poorly researched and biased.
Been running 9.04 for some months without any serious problems, really just trying it all out. Let update manager upgrade to 9.10 yesterday, pretty smooth. Only problem is that it seems to have lost the scanner driver for my networked brother multi-function. I'll re-install when I have a moment.
And having spent most of a day over the weekend trying to initially repair an XP machine that had been trojaned, followed by a complete re-install when the repair didn't clear it up, total of probably a dozen or more re-boots....I think I know which one I prefer!
Current main development machine (XP) is coming to the end of its life, and I think when I get a new box it'll be Ubuntu with XP/Win 7 just for testing.
