Anyone using Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2007-04-22 11:03pm

I've been playing with it in VMWare Workstation RC1 and it seems quite snappy and fast. It is certainly a polished distribution; anyone else playing with it?

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-04-23 02:42am

Yes. I've upgraded from 6.10 (Xubuntu) and I'm not sure I should have...yet.

Don't get me wrong, the upgrade itself went smoothly (30 minutes to download, 30 to install) and everything works - VMware broke because it can't figure out the new kernel and my wireless died because Feisty seems to use a slightly different configuration (my ndiswrapper'd connection used to be under "wired", now it's under "wireless"), but those are pretty minor and easily fixed.

There aren't any mind-blowing innovations. In fact, so far the most useful features are the better printing control and that the Applications menu makes a bit more sense

However...

I get random reboots. They're sporadic but highly annoying. Feisty seems to have a problem correctly identifying the CPU temperature. For my P4, it's set to auto-shutdown at 73°C, which is fine (recommended max temp is 74, usually runs at ~51 under load), but ever so often I get a message informing me that the internal temperature is 250+°C and boom, shutdown.

Some people say it's because of ACPI issues, some say I just need to update my BIOS (I'm a bit apprehensive about doing that, my BIOS is ancient but I'm not sure the newest version will play nice and the HP site isn't helping).

It does feel pretty snappy. An evolution, not a revolution. If you're doing a fresh install, the new features - even easier codec and driver installation, better partitioning - are supposed to be more noticeable.

Old Plympto · Post by **Old Plympto** » 2007-04-23 02:51am

I just finished burning the Feisty iso at 4X not 5 minutes before reading this thread.

My 5 year old home desktop died recently and I'll be buying a new one soon. I'll probably clean install the Feisty into it.

Right now I only have this work laptop Ubuntu to play with so I don't think I'll upgrade it just yet, just in case any unforseen glitches screws up my ability to work with it.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-04-23 10:17am

Been using it since the middle of the beta period (both Xubuntu and vanilla). Networkmanager is nice, though it was available in edgy. Better hardware support for my p5b deluxe (no more custom kernel). NTFS write support is nice. KVM on my C2D has been rather unstable- doesn't run Solaris quite right, but I'm using VMware.

Don't know about any installer improvements, since I only use the alternative installer, as I'm using LVM.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-04-23 10:19am

NTFS write support is nice.

I hadn't even noticed. Is it reliable?

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-04-23 10:21am

I think, I haven't used it very often, only to download the occasional patch to a windows game while I'm using Linux. It's supposed to be stable...

Hrm, in addtion, appears they fixed the ugly openoffice menu fonts since Beta.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2007-04-23 10:48am

I plan on dual booting in the coming week (exam time is not the point where you want to be frigging around with your computer).

Bounty wrote:
NTFS write support is nice.
I hadn't even noticed. Is it reliable?

What? I don't have to change my media drive over to FAT32? Sweet!

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2007-04-23 11:10am

I'm considering loading it up on my old Socket A machine, I haven't had a computer running linux since RedHat 7 in highschool. I've been having a lot of trouble with ssh'ing into the school's BSD lab this semester, having a local machine that can compile C will be nice to have around.

Manus Celer Dei · Post by **Manus Celer Dei** » 2007-04-23 11:15am

The window manager crapped itself as soon as I rebooted, but that was easily fixed.

Seems pretty nice, so far. I like how it automatically finds the need codecs to play video now.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2007-04-23 11:21am

I've already burned the installation CD for my desktop (currently running Gentoo, as Ubuntu 6.10's kernel didn't support half the components of my motherboard) but I won't have time to install it before going to work. I might do it after I get home, or tomorrow.

I'm doing a network upgrade from 6.10 on my laptop as I type this, though.

Anyone know if GStreamer has ceased sucking, or will I have to stick with Xine for a while longer?

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-04-23 11:48am

Firefox now dies trying to close a tab with Flash content running, aMSN 0.97b's prefs menu is broken, but at least it hasn't done an auto-shutdown...yet.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2007-04-23 12:32pm

I'm not upgrading until more issues are sorted. I had a few minor issues during my last upgrade, but nothing from clean installs.

I can wait until it's more well worn in and smoother running for the majority.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-04-23 12:40pm

Drooling Iguana wrote:I've already burned the installation CD for my desktop (currently running Gentoo, as Ubuntu 6.10's kernel didn't support half the components of my motherboard) but I won't have time to install it before going to work. I might do it after I get home, or tomorrow.

I'm doing a network upgrade from 6.10 on my laptop as I type this, though.

Anyone know if GStreamer has ceased sucking, or will I have to stick with Xine for a while longer?

Gstreamer still blows I believe. I switched to Xine when I installed the fresh beta, so it could have improved since then

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-04-23 12:42pm

Bounty wrote:Firefox now dies trying to close a tab with Flash content running, aMSN 0.97b's prefs menu is broken, but at least it hasn't done an auto-shutdown...yet.

Nothing wrong w/ my flash, except for the fact that it's well... flash (and Firefox's unfixed bug w/ javascript menus appearing behind flash). Are you using repos or the one installed from adobe? (I'm using the latter)

Anybody else play w/ the builtin compiz yet? It appears having beryl on breaks it (then again, w/ beryl, who really needs compiz?). It's in system->preferences->desktop effects

Swing java apps also break w/ beryl/compiz- Java 6 update 1 is supposed to fix this, but it's not in repos. Workaround is run metacity while starting up the swing app, then switch back to beryl/compiz.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-04-23 12:59pm

Nothing wrong w/ my flash, except for the fact that it's well... flash (and Firefox's unfixed bug w/ javascript menus appearing behind flash). Are you using repos or the one installed from adobe? (I'm using the latter)

Adobe installer. I'm going to try a reinstall, see what happens.

Anybody else play w/ the builtin compiz yet?

Last time I tried my session lasted less than ten seconds.

EnsGabe · Post by **EnsGabe** » 2007-04-23 01:03pm

Pu-239 wrote:
Swing java apps also break w/ beryl/compiz- Java 6 update 1 is supposed to fix this, but it's not in repos. Workaround is run metacity while starting up the swing app, then switch back to beryl/compiz.

And if you need your desktop eye-candy, you can use Xnest to start a new X session within your currently running one and run your java apps in that.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-04-23 01:08pm

After a manual un/reinstall, flash content seems to be fixed. Cross one problem off the list...

ETA: No compiz on my Xubuntu, not by default anyway.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-04-23 01:13pm

EnsGabe wrote:
Pu-239 wrote:
Swing java apps also break w/ beryl/compiz- Java 6 update 1 is supposed to fix this, but it's not in repos. Workaround is run metacity while starting up the swing app, then switch back to beryl/compiz.

And if you need your desktop eye-candy, you can use Xnest to start a new X session within your currently running one and run your java apps in that.

Yeah, but one needs to copy/paste between apps and whatnot. Plus Xnest isn't really resizable. In any case, workaround works fine (Er, I meant switching back after app has loaded- it continues to work after switching to beryl, just has issues w/ resizing some swing apps (my custom ones, not netbeans)).

Bounty, are you using ATi or nVidia? ATI drivers require running a nested Xgl session to run the eye candy (kinda annoying to set up for the lazy). Integrated Intel drivers work fine.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2007-04-23 01:29pm

Bounty, are you using ATi or nVidia? ATI drivers require running a nested Xgl session to run the eye candy (kinda annoying to set up for the lazy). Integrated Intel drivers work fine.

ATI integrated. And not a very good one. I think I'm going to stick with the defaults.

SoX · Post by **SoX** » 2007-04-23 01:31pm

Currently using Ubuntu Feisty. Decided to go for the leap to Linux because of the incoming support withdrawal of XP and I don't really want to go to Vista yet. Plus we're building a LAMP dialler platform, thought i'd best get my brains into a linux install.

Feisty seems to be stable for me. Took me a while to get the video working, so far only Mplayer works but is currently reading the movie files off of my NTFS media drive. Mounted absolutely fine.

No problems with aMSN and Firefox also seems well.

I am really liking Ubuntu Feisty. (I did have some problems with the isntall though i was doing it in a VERY roundabout way, didn't like my RAID drive at all at first.)

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-04-23 02:25pm

I'm hoping to put Feisty on my Mac later today. The huge breakthrough with Feisty is that it uses the 2.6.20 kernel, with built-in virtualization, and my Mac Mini has VT-capable hardware. Ubuntu is also, to my knowledge, the only distro that runs really well on MacTel out of the box (with proper hardware detection et cetera). One of the core Kubuntu developers in fact is also an Apple hardware fanboy and uses it almost exclusively on iMacs.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-04-23 11:15pm

RThurmont wrote:I'm hoping to put Feisty on my Mac later today. The huge breakthrough with Feisty is that it uses the 2.6.20 kernel, with built-in virtualization, and my Mac Mini has VT-capable hardware. Ubuntu is also, to my knowledge, the only distro that runs really well on MacTel out of the box (with proper hardware detection et cetera). One of the core Kubuntu developers in fact is also an Apple hardware fanboy and uses it almost exclusively on iMacs.

My experience w/ KVM blows, solaris installer would just hang (similar w/ kqemu). I just gave up and went back to VMware.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-04-24 06:05pm

I would assume that the PC you attempted to run it on had VT enabled, Pu? However, assuming it did (which I suspect it did, because from what I've heard about you I'm fairly confident you wouldn't post the above if it didn't), that would be indicative of an annoying bug.

I haven't used KVM yet, however, if it does suck, there are two alternatives that also can use VT: VirtualBox and Xen. Also, I do love VMWare, and at the very least, with Feisty on my Mac, I'll be able to use VMWare Server, as opposed to the beta version of what will undoubtably be their payware OS X app.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2007-04-24 07:23pm

RThurmont wrote:I would assume that the PC you attempted to run it on had VT enabled, Pu? However, assuming it did (which I suspect it did, because from what I've heard about you I'm fairly confident you wouldn't post the above if it didn't), that would be indicative of an annoying bug.

I haven't used KVM yet, however, if it does suck, there are two alternatives that also can use VT: VirtualBox and Xen. Also, I do love VMWare, and at the very least, with Feisty on my Mac, I'll be able to use VMWare Server, as opposed to the beta version of what will undoubtably be their payware OS X app.

Well, to be fair, most people using KVM would probably be running Windows or Linux in it, plus the solaris installer might have issues if one didn't set up virtual networking hardware w/ KVM beforehand- didn't investigate it in detail. My experiences w/ variants of QEMU which KVM uses haven't been too robust though.
VMware server is still better due to VMWare tools allowing copy/paste, video performance increases, etc. I might investigate KVM further when I have the time.

Xen adds some overhead even when it's not running anything other than dom0, so it's nto really suited for desktop usage, also not quite sure how well nVidia drivers work on it.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-04-25 01:24am

Also, I myself have had big problems with Solaris in VMWare, in terms of instability (that occasionally neccessitates reversion to a snapshot, or reinstallation where a snapshot does not exist). I would assume that for whatever reason, Solaris is an unusually difficult OS to virtualize.