Ubuntu Karmic Review & Advice On Upgrade Time
by CollinFor the last few weeks, I have been testing Ubuntu Karmic Koala Beta.
I have never seen a better beta release.
I have encountered no moderate or above level bugs, I have not had a single application crash, and it has overall been the best and most complete beta release that I have seen. The only complaint that I have is the fact that – and this might be a local problem – but apt-get is much slower with installing packages, specifically the template extraction part; Not really sure what is causing this, it might be the overall system load is affecting it.
Ubuntu Karmic has introduced the “Ubuntu Software Center” in place of “Add/Remove Programs” or something similarly titled. It is a improvement upon the older interface for newbies – although I do prefer apt-get myself 
.
Ubuntu Software Center Home (Click for full size)
Karmic has also began including Empathy in place of Pidgin as “default”. I can’t speak well for this change, as I prefer Pidgin’s interface and maturity over Empathy. I don’t feel it is developed enough to be included as “default”, although it is easily changeable (the beauty of Linux). Empathy vs Pidgin: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EmpathyVsPidginUsability
Another change is that Ubuntu One is included as default. For those of you that don’t know, Ubuntu One is a project by Canonical to create a program like Dropbox for Linux only, at this point. Ubuntu One provides 2GB of storage right off, and you can get 50GB of storage for $10 a month. It is a great solution for syncing files between computers and sharing files between other Ubuntu One users. You can log in with your Launchpad OpenID, if you have one. Project homepage: https://one.ubuntu.com/.
Ubuntu One Web Interface (Click for full size)
Another detail about Karmic that dosen’t really fit in anywhere else is that it will be shipping with the 2.6.31 Linux kernel, a big improvement upon the older kernel shipped in Jaunty.
Now, before I close this, I would like to send out a little piece of advice for those thinking of upgrading when Karmic is released: Upgrade before the “official” release. There is little risk of a severe bug being discovered less than 10 days before the official release, so you should be safe with upgrading a few days before. The Ubuntu servers are slammed on release day, so this might sound a little like common sense, but meh.
Alright, time to stop rambling.
~ Collin Pruitt (Hellow)
Now, what are your experiences with Karmic Koala? Post them in a comment below:
Tags: advice, center, interface, karmic, one, review, software, Ubuntu, upgrade, web
I recently installed Karmic Koala hoping to play around, since I had skipped a whole year’s worth of releases. I’ve been running OS X and Win 7 RC on my primary machines, but as soon as I had played around, I quickly wiped my Win 7 install for Karmic. Its that good. A few downsides, though, such as no DVD playback (I installed all the required extras, but it just won’t play), Moonlight (Silverlight) doesn’t work, Adobe Air / Tweet Deck isn’t working, and of course, the lack of support for iTunes / iPhone syncing.
All in all . . . this is a great release!
On the topic of Adobe Air, I’m not sure what is causing that one, as Adobe Air is working fine for me.
What you have done to your Firefox can only be considered as a crime
Really? Empathy crashes frequently, or various of its protocol handlers do. Flash is incredibly unstable, even more so than normal. Epiphany-webkit is so astonishingly bad that I can only assume it’s not the latest GNOME release or I’m sure they wouldn’t have let it into 2.28. But of course, everyone on Ubuntu uses Firefox despite it still looking like a visitor from another planet.
Something seems to be wrong with drive mounting, too.
Basically, my Karmic system is incredibly unstable and awful, and I’m not quite sure how it’s going to improve in time for release. I think I may be moving away from Ubuntu again.
I swore off doing running Beta ware years ago. But I needed Firefox 3.5 so I decided to upgrade the whole box. From 9.04 to 9.10 .. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the process went.
I too haven’t found any major bugs. What I have is a remarkably fast and powerful machine built using some inexpensive software and hardware. My system is built on a Intel Dual core atom and there is no money invested in software. setting up my internet connections, networked all in one printer. direct connect printer has been a piece of cake. Compiz Manager helps turn it into a system with pizzaz. I must admit my demands are pretty simple, I watch downloaded movies, listen to some music, Create documents and spreadsheets, surf and email. for these functions I see nee reason to ever buy software again. It works.
I just love it. It is time to say Good Bye to MS Windows.
Google Chrome browser works like a charm (even it is in Alpha!)
[...] using some inexpensive software and hardware,” wrote a poster going by the name of Liberty in response to a blog entry. Using a test release of Karmic Koala, the poster said setting up an Internet connection on an [...]
Compiz window manager is the most evil killer of getting anything done ever devised, even moreso then Nethack – I have to just turn it off.
“Yeah, I’ll just work on . . . . oooooo, look I can flip my gui around like a supervillain in a bond movie, and write ***IN FIRE*** on my screen . . . what was I doing again?”
Hello Collin. Thank you for the review.
Collin, I think it will be a good idea to add “use bittorrent client for downloading Ubuntu” into one of your tips or advice.
I can really tell a difference in hardware support in Karmic vs. Jaunty and older. Like magic, both my wireless card and printer were detected automatically in Karmic. That’s never happened before! I used to have to download a japanese version of my printer’s driver just to be able to use it, but now I don’t have to since it is already installed.
Woo
I’m still contented with the 8.04LTS I will wait for the next Ubuntu 10.04LTS that will raise the hair in you Steve Ballmer.
I liked 9.04, I do like 9.10 but it is a beta. Like most Linux distros you still have to make utilities for yourself. I redirect /dev/video0 to mplayer for good tv watching.
Under 9.10 I had problems adjusting video using the nvidia-settings utility started with sudo. Never had that problem under previous versions. I had to go to runlevel 3 and use nvidia-xconfig to get my dual monitor setup. My printer acts like a Winmodem, passing some of the processing off to software, so my printer (Dell AIO 946) is still a brick in Ubuntu.
9.10 is fast, smooth and still not quite my OS X machine, but it gives my Vista machine a vital boost, except for the printer thing. The cool thing about all Linux machines is the ability to get past the interface and really do what I have to. I do like the new Ubuntu features, by release 10 it will totally be a desktop contender.
YEa, I’m kind of bummed about the iTunes thing, but it was nothing a little clever Wine tweeking couldn’t handle. Still, the ultimate OS is one which you can both customize and be ready to rock OTS.
I am not impressed with Ubuntu 9.10. PulseAudio STILL doesn’t work (I have no sound in Flash or Skype as long as it’s enabled, and it crackles and skips), and the kicker is that now I can’t even remove it anymore because there is no volume control applet if I remove it! (The applet now depends on Pulse.) Fedora and Mandriva managed to get Pulse working just fine. Yes, I realize the PulseAudio dev works for Red Hat, but Mandriva still got it right. It’s been an ongoing struggle for me and my girlfriend to get sound working in Ubuntu ever since they introduced their broken PulseAudio implementation.
It also seems with every new Ubuntu release they managed to break something that worked before. Jaunty broke the Intel video driver (YouTube fullscreen is really slow in Jaunty). I had a bunch of wireless driver problems in Intrepid.
Use alsamixer in bash instead. *Much* better than not having any control at all even if it sucks to have to run it in a cli window. I have to do that because the stupid kmixer won’t start on my laptop. Well, it’s nice to have a workaround anyway…
I have 9.10 running, everything works, DVD playback is superb, and the nvidia driver is really evolved. running nvidia-settings in sudo made configuration of dual displays as easy as Windoze. DOn’t forget to install the proprietary driver and run nvidia-xconfig first. I ran the xconfig utility at runlevel 3 then back up to run level 5.
I am still trying to figure out what doesn’t work better, as I sit here watching a DVD on one screen while typing this comment on another display ( one is DVI and one is svideo). I am still trying to figure out the hook, the one feature to complain about. I use ivtv and mplayer for great tv and vlc for the rest of the 2 TB of video I have stored. Rythmbox handles music well, my Crossover Office plugin, well, could be better, not a Ubuntu thing.
Actually I enjoy writing scripts, but not rewriting them, so I keep my scripts stored and cp them to /usr/bin, they work well in every version I use, I have been in since Hardy Heron.
My favorite OS is still probably OS X, but for my everyday, I use Ubuntu. The one drawback, I had to get a new HP printer, my old Dell AIO 946 works like a winmodem, sending a lot of processing back to the machine. The HP was a welcome change.