Review: Ubuntu 10.04

I installed Ubuntu 9.10 (aka Karmic) a few months ago, so when the new version 10.04 (aka Lucid) came out recently I eagerly upgraded. How is it?

A little more background will be helpful to understand my review. Ubuntu comes in 32 bit and 64 bit versions. I have a newer computer so 64 bit is the natural choice, but I inadvertently installed Karmic 32 bit. After realizing that, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle of reinstalling just to get 64. When Lucid came out, I simply upgraded from Karmic. It turns out this didn't go very well because of the proprietary graphics driver I had installed to get all the nice graphical effects on the desktop. I ended up with broken packages that couldn't be fully uninstalled, nor fixed. Rather than live with the default and rudimentary default graphics driver, I did a clean install of Lucid. And while I was at it, I went up to 64 bit.

So the first thing I have to say is, use the 32 bit version. The 64 bit works well, but I have come across multiple little glitches in things that worked just fine on 32 bit.

• the java plug-in for the browser is only available for 32 bit architectures
• the Amazon MP3 downloader program is only available for 32 bit architectures
• firefox doesn't deal well with installing add-ons. Every time I add an add-on and restart firefox, the browser hangs. After killing the process and re-restarting, it runs fine.
• well, almost fine. I have not been able to get the Yahoo toolbar to work. I lasted on Lucid 32 bit long enough to run the browser and know that the toolbar worked just fine there, so it has to be with the 64 bit build of the program.
• most importantly for me, I have not been able to get Oblivion to play under wine on the new OS. I had it running just fine on Karmic 32 bit. On Lucid 64 the opening credits actually run more smoothly, but always hangs at the start menu. I've tried multiple versions of wine, and still no go.

Despite these issues, I'm sticking with 64 for now. I'm optimistic these things will be solved. They don't seem all that major that they won't be.

That pretty much sums up my negative comments about the OS, and they're not really comments about Lucid so much as 64 bit. Overall I'm still happy with it.

The big talk in the Ubuntu world about Lucid is that the window control buttons--minimize, maximize, close--have moved from their traditional position on the right side of the title bar to the left. This change triggered some let's just say passionate reactions, almost all against the change.

Some felt it emulates the Mac OS X desktop too much and that would be hard for Windows converts to adjust to. That's silly. First of all, the GNOME desktop is already strongly influenced by the Mac desktop, so it seems natural that this would eventually happen. As a Windows convert myself, the new user already has to adjust him- or her-self to so many differences with GNOME, that this is just one more. If you really don't like the Mac-influenced desktop, use KUbuntu, the Ubuntu variant with the KDE desktop (yes, that's redundant) that is much more Windows influenced.

Having used it, is it really all that big a deal? No. You get used to it. It's amazing how resistant people are to change. They will fight vigorously against it, and then find ways to adapt when it happens anyway. It turns out it's a simple configuration change to put the buttons back, but it's not really a big deal where they are. I had a harder time getting used to the system clock being at the top of the screen instead of the task bar at the bottom.

One of the more significant changes with Lucid is the whole "social from the start" theme, which essentially means a greater degree of integration between the desktop and social networking systems like facebook and twitter. This is primarily through the "MeMenu":



which allows you to post updates to those services right from the desktop. The design isn't very clean. You have a text box out in the middle of nowhere with no label or action button to give a hint as to what it's for. That's not very user-friendly. But it works. I can see this being the foundation of future enhancements that would even more integrate the system with social sites. It'll be interesting to see what that does.

It sounds weird, but I want to put in a plug for the scanning program that comes with the system. I have never had an easier or faster experience scanning pictures than with Lucid. In what would it take on Vista to scan one picture, I was able to do maybe three. The focus with Lucid was on user friendliness. That's really one of the main motivations behind Ubuntu period. But this is a simple yet perfect example of that at work.

In a previous post, I mentioned issues in Karmic with the CD/DVD drive. Those appear to have been fixed with Lucid. I have inserted several CDs and DVDs since installing and haven't had any problems. I always thought it was strange that in Karmic you could either eject the disk or unmount the drive. If you ejected, the drive would stay mounted and you wouldn't be able to use another disk. With Lucid only the eject option remains; apparently the OS now realizes that when you eject the disk, the drive is no longer part of the file system.

There aren't a lot of dramatic changes in Lucid relative to Karmic. That's not unexpected, given that Lucid is a long term support release. It looks like Maverick (the 10.10 release coming this October) will be a bit more ambitious. It's a great system that will meet most people's needs just fine, without anti-virus and all the other "joys" of Windows. Oh, and things seem to run a lot faster compared to Windows.

Now, if I could just get Oblivion to play.....

Update 5/15: I finally got Oblivion to play. I had to try numerous versions from the distribution site. With 1.1.25, I was able to finally play the game again. And honestly it plays better than I had it running on Karmic. The game looks much better than it did. The lighting actually works right, though that means I have to deal with dark caves again. But it's a go!