A Zenwalk User Changelog

No, this is not a fairy tale story

Ubuntu  is  undeniably the most popular Linux distribution on the planet, and unmistakenly, the poster boy of the Linux desktop. Even though I have Zenwalk as my Linux desktop sanctuary, I can’t help to wonder that’s the excitement about the latest incarnation of Ubuntu, version 9.04 a.k.a, The Jaunty   Jackalope   (You   got   to   love   the  Ubuntu   folks   for   the   delightful   codenames,   hehe).  So, without futher ado, let’s get the show started, shall we?

Getting the CD Image

You might be wondering, how did I got an Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop CD when there is still the RC version? Well folks, I got the current daily­live CD image build, which I highly believe will be spun off to be the official Desktop CD version like those from ShipIt. It’s also a good idea to get this now before the mad download deluge will happened after the official images are released to the mirrors. After almost two and a half hours yesterday, I finally got my Jaunty Desktop CD image and burned it

Installation

Initially I was thinking of installing Jaunty on a VM (that is, a Virtualbox 2.2 virtual machine to be exact), but I changed my mind. The reason is I believe I have a low spec machine, so no can do. I can’t wipe out my Zenwalk install (no, no, NO!). So I did the next best thing: I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on a 5 GB laptop hard drive on a USB enclosure (I know, I know, too small by today’s standards, but hey, it’s all I got lying around ). I pre­partitioned that portable hard drive with a near 4 GB ext3 partition and a 1 GB swap using Gparted. I booted up via the Jaunty CD, plugged in and unmounted the portable HD, and choose to do an install using the Install Wizard within the live CD mode. It’s basically the same as any install for an Ubuntu Live CD session but I choose to manually select the partitions and do a manual install of grub on the portable HD’s mbr. After a clocked time of 11 minutes and 33.35 seconds, the install was completed.

First Boot Up

Ok, time to fire up the install for the first time! I restarted and booted from the portable HD. And man, this where the first notable feature of the latest Ubuntu, it’s fast startup. I read somewhere that the startup could be within 25 seconds. Well, according to my clocked time (from grub to gdm), it was 52.25 seconds. It’s almost a close to a minute, but please understand that I used a 4200 rpm HD here, so that could account for the result. You will be greeted with a very professional and elegant welcome screen (you can almost taste it, haha). After logging in, onto the desktop we go.

The Desktop

I read somewhere that Ubuntu 9.04 will feature some new professional­ looking theme(s). To my dismay, I was greeted with the same ­old Human theme (It’s not that I’m totally against it, I was just expecting something new to welcome my eyes). So immediately, I browsed Appearance on System > Preferences hoping to find some new themes. And yes, I did. There they were: Dust, Dust Sand, Dark Room and New Wave. Yup, there is still some hint of brown to them, but I must say, they are
very polished in my view. I ended up with Dust. I also noticed the new notification pop­up. It kind of reminds me of the new notification on XFCE 4.6 but way sleeker (it’s sexy black ).

NetworkManager

Time to configure my net connection. Of course, it has to be NetworkManager. Since my primary net connection is PPPOE, so head by the DSL tab and added my configurations for bayanDSL and bayanDSL Speed on Demand. It was easy and quick. (a big improvement since the olden days I tried Ubuntu ).  Killing the DSL connection however is kind of clumsy. You need to uncheck “Enable Networking” on the NM tray icon just to do it. You could install htop and kill the pppd process but the former is far more easier to do.

Configuring Display and Graphics

After configuring the repository stuff, I noticed I need to configure my display. So, to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers I go. Jockey (the hardware driver helper) showed be the necessary Nvidia driver I need to use my VC, so I choose Activate. Then a problem arise, Jockey got stuck at the downloading driver part, which took forever. I killed Jockey via htop but I decided to reboot just to make sure (yes, very Windows ­like…). After the second reboot, I decided to get the Nvidia 180 driver via apt. Surprisingly, apt reported that it was already installed, wha?! That really scratched my head, if the Nvidia 180 driver is already installed, then why did Jockey prompted for a download? Hmm, is it a Jockey bug? Weird. So since the Nvidia 180 driver is already installed, the most logical thing to do is execute sudo nvidia­-xconfig to configure my display, that did the trick. After a third reboot, I got desktop eye­ candy heaven So, the Nvidia driver is already installed but configuration is still DIY…

Sound

Ubuntu   is   known   to   be   one   of   those   Linux   distributions   that   enable   Pulseaudio   by   default. Pulseaudio may be the future of sound subsystems on Linux, but today, it’s not ready for primetime yet. Enabling Pulseaudio by default made my sound card’s other 2 channels not working. Please, at least have an option to disable Pulseaudio during the install or post­install.

Final Impressions

In the aesthetic department, Ubuntu made some great stride, as evident on the new themes included in Jaunty as well as the new notification system. One got to love the fast booting capability, I feel it’s even faster than my Zenwalk install Inclusion of the Nvidia drivers also is a welcome addition (except for the open source purist) but I hope the configuration will be taken care off as a automatic post   install   procedure   in   the   next   releases.   Plus,   stop   making   Pulseaudio   as   the   default   sound system!

Although not perfect in some aspects, Ubuntu 9.04 is a welcome release. It seems to get better and better

Ubuntu, Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, Linux, Review