Anyone using Ubuntu 8.04 Beta

[Chrisoldinho]

Just wondering how it differs from Gutsy 7.10 really

Chris.

[Old_Biker_John]

Hi Chris,

There are a couple of reviews linked from the 'reviews' section on this page

John.

[TOMMOHAWK_UK]

I have been using 8.04 (Hardy) since it was in Alpha.

There are many minor upgrades and improvements, notably PulseAudio which is a soundserver running alongside ALSA to prevent apps taking control of your audio hardware and not letting anything else use it.

To be honest, most of the improvements are under the surface and you won't really notice any difference.

The main thing to note is that Hardy is the second LTS (Long Term Support) release which means that it's main focus is on stability.

Unless you are an experienced Linux user and can fix your system when it breaks then don't install it. The final release is due out in April.

Ken

[Chrisoldinho]

Originally Posted by TOMMOHAWK_UK

Unless you are an experienced Linux user and can fix your system when it breaks then don't install it. The final release is due out in April.

Ken

I'm learning Linux as I type, i've uninstalled all my Windows based OS's and am running solely on Gutsy.

If I need any Windows based app I am just using Virtualisation software.

The main difference I have noticed is that a lot of applications need to be installed via the Terminal, I know the Synaptic Package Manager etc are a great repository of software but I often get confused at just how many applications are available, but don't have a GUI interface.

Chris.

[TOMMOHAWK_UK]

Originally Posted by Chrisoldinho

I'm learning Linux as I type, i've uninstalled all my Windows based OS's and am running solely on Gutsy.

Chris.

Hi Chris,

Thats great that you made the switch to Linux and very brave of you to ditch windows completely. I still keep a windows partition but it rarely gets booted, only really when something just refuses to work under VMWare or VirtualBox.

Anyway, the point I was making was that you should not install 8.04 (Hardy) until it is out of Beta unless you know what you are doing. The version you are using 7.10 (Gutsy) is stable and should be used for production machines and also by newcomers to the Linux world.

Something I forgot to mention though, Hardy also uses a new file system called GnomeVFS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNOME_VFS. This makes many improvements to the way files are managed under the OS. For example, in Windows when you copy a file from one place to another, and maybe then start another copy job at the same time, windows will carry out the operations simultaneously thus slowing down overall performance. In Hardy, GVFS will stack the operations and carry them out sequentially - much better IMHO.

I also noticed that you said you were having to install many applications via the terminal. Why is that? Synaptic should do everything for you and if you know the package name you are looking for then you should be able to just type that into the search box. Maybe you don't have all the repositories enabled? Also, because hardy is still in Beta, there may be packages that are still being held back from the repos because they are being updated or they simply have not been added yet. This can lead to all manner of dependency problems.

Shout back if I can help any further.

Good luck.

Ken

[Desmo]

I've totally dumped Vista after using Ubuntu for a few weeks now. Anything that NEEDS windows, I either use Wine or VirtualBox, where you can do this...



I like to call it Winbuntu

[TOMMOHAWK_UK]

Originally Posted by Desmo

I've totally dumped Vista after using Ubuntu for a few weeks now. Anything that NEEDS windows, I either use Wine or VirtualBox, where you can do this...

I like to call it Winbuntu

Yep there is alot to say about virtualbox or VMware or whichever virtualisation platform you use.

There is also much to be said about ditching Vista and Micro$oft. I can't believe they have brought the release date of Window$ 7 forward to next year. Are they trying to drive people towards Linux??

[JohnG]

If I decide to install this, can I do it as a duel boot on a PC that already has XP installed ? I've done this before but installed Linux on another physical hard drive, I would like to split my 80GB hard drive into 2 partitions and have Linux install on the 2nd partition of this drive. I assume 40GB is enough ?

[Desmo]

Originally Posted by JohnG

can I do it as a duel boot on a PC

Is that one where the OS's fight each other? (Sorry, bad joke for the day).

If you want to dual boot, you can install from the live disk and you can use the partition manager there to set up another partition. It will also install the grub boot menu so on starting up, you can choose what OS you want to run.

[JohnG]

So that would mean that I can nick half of the existing ntfs partition ?

[Desmo]

You can take as much or as little as you want to
However I'm not sure how well the partition manager will handle splitting down the XP partition. I already had a spare 10gig partition on my drive so just used that. I'm no pro with the partitioner that comes on the Ubuntu install so I wouldn't like to say for sure what it will do for you. Maybe one of the more experienced guys will know.

I think a clean Ubuntu install is about 3gig so 40 covers you for loads of software installs and files

[JohnG]

I've remembered the problem I had with OpenSuse. I already had XP installed on the main drive so I installed a secondary IDE drive to install Linux on, but couldn't get it to boot from the Linux drive unless I set my PC BIOS to boot from that drive instead of the normal one.
Ideally, what I'd like to do is have a 2nd physical drive with Linux installed on it and then have some kind of bootloader that will let me boor from either drive without having to mess in the BIOS.

[scotty38]

You need to make sure that GRUB is installed on the disk where XP is currently booting from, you should be able to select this when you install. GRUB will then take care of your dual boot options. If you install GRUB on the new Linux disk then I think that's when you end up with the sort of problems you've previously experienced.

[JohnG]

Cheers for that, I'll make sure I do it properly this time

[Curly99]

upgraded to the released version the other night via the update manager, was nice and easy and things still work as they should only been runnning folding on it so far as I'm still using onboard intel gfx and I can't get the native res for my monitor.


Curly