Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Ubuntu 9.04: Thoughts and experiences

(1/5) > >>

wreckedcarzz:
I am going cold turkey on my laptop from Vista to Ubuntu 9.04 and was hoping some fellow members could give me some insight as to what is new, broken, problematic and helpful in Ubuntu's latest RC.

My one negative experience so far (install is at 66% as I type this):
During my 1st install attempt (boot from disk, then run installer manually) the installer encountered an error and went "nuts" for lack of better words. The 2nd time (thus far successful), I chose to install directly from the disk menu, but this time I did NOT check the option to import my Vista account's Firefox data - so might wanna watch for that.

Anyone have any insight, experiences or suggestions? I need this laptop just for work (my sister will hate me, no more Sims 2), so I need it to be fully functional and ready to work at any given moment (Sleep did not work in 8.10). Anything that can be done to ensure this, I will gladly attempt :)


Last second edit: It took 2 DVDs (first was bad) and 3 (THREE) install attempts to get Ubuntu installed. :tellme: Also, at the reboot screen for the Live CD, it only showed "and press ENTER to continue." :-\

EDIT: Another problem: To install proprietary drivers for my Linksys WPC300N (yes, Broadcom, ugh) Ubuntu "downloaded" them. Uhh... HELLO? (Wired connection worked great for this after I laughed about the lack of a connection)

zridling:
I wouldn't know. You might be better off pushing this onto the Ubuntu forums. Oddly, of my several computers, only one has liked Ubuntu/kubuntu. The hardware is just not compatible. If I flip over to sidux, Fedora, or even openSUSE, everything works, including printers, a camera, and a pretty new HP scanner. Given that most all drivers are proprietary, this will always be a problem until the industry stops reinventing the [driver] wheel with every new component.

40hz:
Dumb as it may sound, I tend to skip the odd-numbered releases. I never seem to have very much luck with them. Not that they don't work. It's just that they always seem to have more odd-ball problems. I'm at that stage of my life where the 'thrill' of wrestling with some FOSS technical issues is long gone.

I sometimes wonder if the odd releases are the ones where Canonical pushes the features envelope, and the even releases are where they regroup and get things tidied up.

Three install attempts is pretty spooky.  :tellme: Even allowing for one miss due to a faulty CD, it's still one too many for a distro that's going to be put on a 'work' laptop.

I follow a simple rule for new distributions. If the initial installation doesn't go smoothly*, I just drop it and wait for the next release. Or move on to something else...

I'd be more inclined to go with Zaine's suggestion and think seriously about using openSUSE instead of  Ubuntu 9.04 at this point. He's absolutely right about openSUSE when he said: everything works. I've had very good luck running SUSE on laptops.


* Ok...ok..make that "mostly smoothly." This is Linux we're talking about.  ;D

housetier:
Except for a misconfigured wireless lan driver my experience has been excellent.

You should, however, wait for the stable release, because there are still bugs to be weeded out.

Did you make a backup?

wreckedcarzz:
@housetier
I did not do what would be considered a "backup"; just the files in my/sister's profile directories. The laptop was running Vista Home Premium and choking to death on it (512MB and no money to upgrade = sure fire way to kill my HD via swap), and there was nothing really worth backing up on it anyways.

So far the only other problem I have encountered is that Suspend (aka Sleep, Stand By, etc) fails still. HOWEVER, that is offset by the blazing fast bootup time compared to 8.10:

Bootup takes about 20 seconds from power-to-cursor; I timed it once getting 23 power-to-login screen
Shutdown takes about 15 seconds from clicking "Shut Down" at the 60 second time prompt, to being completely off (power light off)

@zaine/40hz
I have put Ubuntu 7.04-8.10 on all but two computers in the house (5 total), and have had little problems except Sleep and WiFi - I've only used Ubuntu/Xubuntu, Knoppix, Debian and a couple other distros, having the best "experience" (not reformatting within a week) with Ubuntu. This install was just a bad run of luck, but it is working great now. If I hit some more problems (post-final release) I'll look at some other options and see how they work :)

EDIT: For grammar

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page