Edgy First Thoughts

I've been using Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) for the last 6 or so hours, and I have a few thoughts to share.

I initially had trouble with getting the wireless to work. I installed network-manager and network-manager-gnome, as I did with Dapper, to try and get the 3945 working properly, but this didn't work. After some fruitless google and wiki dearching, I ended up discovering a fix for my own problem. Removing the auto setup scripts in /etc/network/interfaces fixed the problems, and my wireless works fine!

The boot up (after some heavy tweaking) is indeed a lot faster than Dapper's. However, running stock, it didn't seem much different. ATi drivers install as usual, and I'm now running a slightly newer version to what I was.

With the help of the wiki, getting Xgl and Beryl installed was as easy as Dapper. I haven't used the new version of Beryl previously, and I am pleasantly surprised by the increase in speed it provides. I have modified my settings, and find it not to be too annoying. (Although if anyone knows how to disable the wobbly menus, please tell!)

I have just tested Firefox's crash recovery. I accidentally bogged down my system by opening 31 too many videos LOL. Beryl was still functioning, but the rest of the system crapped out and I had to Shift + Backspace out of there.

And I have a screenshot coming up of one very special feature that I love about Beryl: Program Opacity.



The image might be large, but it does convey something very funky. I can make Firefox appear at 25% opacity and have a DVD playing in the background. The ultimate browsing experience! Of course the screenshot does no justice to the real life experience, as the take screenshot applet unfocuses both windows.

I only hope Edgy proves to be as stable as Dapper, because I am having fun with it!

 

I have Dapper with Edgy's kernel and that's right, it boots fast
~$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.17-10-386 #2 Fri Oct 13 18:41:40 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux

 

$ uname -a
Linux Persephone 2.6.17-10-generic #2 SMP Fri Oct 13 18:45:35 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux

They've also changed the naming scheme of their kernels too.

 

Thanks for the review. Should prove helpful. I upgraded from Dapper and my wireless configuration (which had taken me HOURS to install) made the migration (though the pretty little blue light doesn't stay on in Edgy!).

 

Doesnt Xgl do that ? I have SLED 10, and I have that feature (for my system, with an external mouse, I hold down ALT and use the scroll wheel - voila! windows opacity goes up & down

Soooooooo Sylvain ..... a fan of Mr Whedon ?

 

It's a module that you can modify the settings of, or deselect to not load at all, using Beryl Settings Manager. (Wobbly Windows)

 

Actualy they didn't change the naming scheme, I did choose this one (2.6.17-10-386), and you can do so for your specefic hardware, there are kernels compiled for other targets.

 

They changed the default naming scheme, and SMP is auto detected an enabled on dual core machines it seems. I didn't have to update my kernel for dual core support.

Yeah, the opacity is a compiz feature. Just one I had never discovered before.

And no, I'm not a Joss Whedon fan, I absolutely hated Buffy and Angel. Just happen to love Firefly. Helps that I can speak the same way they can too.

 

I downloaded it yesterday (in <3 minutes... I <3 university LAN), and I'll probably install it this weekend. I think I'm gonna load it up on M90. I'll upgrade the C640 if I ever get a working CD-ROM.

 

I misunderstood things, could you please explain how it did change?

 

Any chance you could post links to the wiki entries you used Sylvain? I have never had luck with XGL/Compiz/Beryl, or any of that. I'm downloading the kubuntu DVD as we speak, and would like some info on that Thinking I might even go with 64 bit

 

Can't you do a network install?

 

Actually, I didn't think of that. That's a good point. I might do that sometime. I'd rather try to get X working again before I do anything like that. Haven't had time this week though.

 

Sylvain, have you found that DVD video looks kinda washed and way too bright? I had to crank the brightness and contrast waaaaaaay down on xine-based players and Mplayer... even then the colours were washed and grainy. the same thing doesn't happen in windows, so I'm wondering what the hell is going wrong.

 

No, I can't say that I have lost any DVD quality in the switch. Of course, I never tested it until I installed the fglrx drivers. If you are using mesa drivers or some other set, that may be the cause.

Had I a 64 bit processor, I still wouldn't try 64 bit Linux, there are still too many problems for me to justify the effort. Anyways, here are what wiki articles I used:

ATi Drivers: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/B...head-c966b2cb7c82944d6883f27a2896725db3b90a3a

WiFi: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/NetworkManager?highlight=(manager)|(network)

Xgl: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CompositeManager/Xgl?highlight=(xgl)

Beryl:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BerylOnEdgy?highlight=(beryl)

Restricted Formats:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats?highlight=(restricted)

Hope that helps!

 

Well, I can tell you my initial impressions are bad. It looks like they didn't include the linux-restricted-modules or something in Edgy. Networking is hopeless out of the box, especially wireless. The Intel 3945 does not work immediately as it does in Dapper (which I'm typing from the Dapper LiveCD right now). This is very disappointing. I have the network-manager .deb file to install, which is supposed to make things work, but I don't have the dependencies, and I don't know what all of them are. I can't install it via Synaptic cause I can't access the Internet. I'm upset.

 

Well, I've gotten all my wireless stuff worked out. I'm typing from 6.10 right now. But now I'm worried. My computer is starting to get pretty hot, and the fans aren't kicking on. I think I'm gonna have to shut it down soon here and go back to Windows until I can figure this out.

 

Yeah, its always useful to have a backup wired connection. And about the heat, I'm not sure whats going on there, mine was reaching a max of 40 degrees. If its a Dell machine, then there is a Linux equivalent of i8kfan for you somewhere.

 

I avoided the whole wireless nightmare by upgrading with apt-get - whew!

I too am concerned about fans not kicking in (I have a PowerBook G3). Isn't the ACPI module supposed to do this? Is it configurable? I just assumed that it was a hardware thing peculiar to old technology. Now, I'm not so sure ....

 

Well, I have everything up and running now, and not too worried about the heat; I was unplugged, so it gets hot in Windows even unplugged.

I got all my nVidia drivers and Beryl installed via a lot of help and reading over at ubuntuforums. It updated my kernel in the process, but updated to a wired non-SMP i386 kernel rather than the general SMP i686 kernel that it installed with originally. Right now I'm just selecting the original kernel at GRUB, but I might try messing around with that stuff later. I also installed Automatix and got a bunch of stuff working that way. Getting Easyubuntu working in Edgy isn't that great right now, and personally, I find Automatix2 to be better anyway.

Now, for the bad. DVD playback is terrible. I don't know what the problem is, but it's fuzzy and washed out like BigV said. On top of that, the video jitters a lot. I'm not sure why it's doing this. Is there something I can change to make it nicer? For right now, I'm gonna have to stick with Windows to watch DVDs on it; Windows Vista in particular (it looks way nicer in Media Center). That sucks. Cause on top of that I have to boot into XP to play games.

 

Have you installed the NVIDIA drivers? What application is playing the DVD's? What display method is it using?

 

Yes, I have the latest nvidia drivers installed. I have used several applications to play the DVD's including gxine, Totem, MPlayer, and VLC Player. I've used various settings for all of them and nothing seems to make it better. I'm not sure what's going on.

 

How's battery life?

I had dapper installed on my old notebook but for the most part had to abandon it due to poor battery life and the crappy ATI drivers. I hear the ATI drivers have moved along, I am just not sure what direction. I am in the market for a new notebook and unfortunately the NV option is a substantial cost upgrade, but i still think ATI will get its act together and release good linux drivers (someday.)

 

ATI drivers look like they work decently well (at least for my integrated X300)

 

Battery life seems good. Not as good as XP, but better than Vista. This could be due to the fact that I am using Beryl though, which is a little heavier on the CPU and GPU.

 

Are you using the open sourced drivers, or the fglrx? I have to use the fglrx, as the X1400 is not yet supported by the open source.

I am hoping, though not too bad, that with ATi being taken over by AMD, that they'll release their driver code for Linux.

 

Older cards may have better support through open source drivers, but the x1000 series is (or was when I tried them) still not great. Phoronix.com has a pretty good review of the driver releases over the last few months if anyone is interested.

How does the battery life compare to dapper?

 

I just installed edgy last night, first venture into linux. I tried booting it in class just now but i couldnt get wireless so i need to go back after this and get that network manager.

just a question, do i need to get the ati drivers? i havn't had any problems so far so i'm wondering what the benefits would be.

also, i got vlc player (took me forever to figure out how to install anything) but are there any better media players? perhaps something that compiles a library?

linux is pretty cool so far though, i like the look, i just need to figure out how the files and everything go

 

Yeah, Edgy isn't quite right when it comes to wireless. As for your drivers, you don't really need them. But if you plan on doing anything graphics intensive such as using Beryl or playing games, you may want to get the drivers running. And there are several other media players out there such as Totem and MPlayer. I would suggest you download Automatix2 (google it). It will allow you to install several media players and your latest ATi drivers.

 

rythmbox, banshee, and Amarok are all decent iTunes replacements. if you're running GNOME, banshee is probably your best bet, as rythmbox doesn't have CD burning capability built-in

there's nothing really to build a video library with, though, except MythTV I guess, but that probably wouldn't be so great on a desktop.

 

i used automatix2 and the driver install went very badly. so badly that i didnt know what to do and just reinstalled. i have an inspiron 6000 with a 128mb ati x300 so i tihnk i'll check out that phoronix review.

on a different note, what should i use to get my wireless going? is there something that's more like the intel prowireless that will set up profiles and allow me to scan for networks in the area?

also, i've looked up instructions for getting the trashcan on my desktop but i can't do it because i do not have anything except automatix2 and easyubuntu under system tools. am i doing something wrong? what should actually be there?

 

in Automatix2, install NetworkManager. makes wireless totally painless on my 2945ABG.

there's also a program called WiFiRadar (google it) that has similar functionality, but NetworkManager integrates really well with GNOME, and I think is the only one that handles WPA/WPA2 easily.

just so you don't come back and start whining like everyone else seems to, NetworkManager will setup what's called the "keyring" as an extra security measure, so you enter one password for any secure wireless networks you have when you login to your user account.

 

+1, NetworkManager floats my boat! Makes connecting to secure networks (alteast with Intel cards) easier than Windows.

 

Indeed, I installed it and it runs great. now to move onto graphics drivers... last time i tried it i failed miserably but without them not even google earth works well. any suggestions for the x300? i've heard mixed reviews about the ati drivers, is there anything else?

 

The flgrx drivers are very easy to install, just copying and pasting commands.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

 

First thought from a complete Newb...

Didn't like it, it didn't work, tried booting off the Live CD, got to what was obviously a screen, however the graphics were all screwed up, tried various options in the F4 menu to use different graphics, none worked (most didn't even seem to boot, just froze) ended up going to 6.06 and voila, perfect boot first time.

I'm sure it's fixable, but at this "newbie" point I'm not going to bother going to go back to 6.06 where at least the Live CD works.

 

I ordered a cd from shipit and had no problems with the livecd and got set up easily and quickly. My only problem, and it seems to be a problem for many, is getting the internet working. I'm currently posting in Ubuntu forums for help. We have cable and when I'm connected directly to the modem, I get no connection. Ethernet card is active, works fine, tried messing around in network manager but I've just turned to the forums. I don't feel like messing around for hours on it when I'm still just getting familiar with it.

 

if you're using a wired network connection that you don't change, you should probably use the networking GUI config tool to configure things instead of NetworkManager. I had a desktop with a wired connection that I had all kinds of problems with when using NM, but when I uninstalled NM, everything was working normally.

 

I don't have network manager installed. I actually am not able to do anything as far as add/remove programs goes. It gives me the error message "-- -- -- is not available in any software channel" and that it might not support my system architecture. I had assumed it was because I wasn't connected to the internet.

How do I get the networking config tool?

 

System > Administration > Networking

I assume that the connection is just a straight DHCP setup - ISP automatically assigns your IP address and such. Select the "Wired Connection" click the properties button on the right, make sure that "Enable this connection" is selected in the window that pops up, and then select "Automatic Configuration" from the Configuration drop-down list. If all that is correct, and you still don't have a connection, open a terminal and type:

Code:

sudo ifdown eth0

sudo ifup eth0

if you still don't have an internet connection, something's really wrong.

yeah, the error you are getting is because you don't have a connection

 

I got "no dhcp offers received" and a no leases message.

 

just to be clear, you're connecting your computer via wired ethernet directly to your cable modem?

have you used the connection with windows? if so, is there any special software that your ISP requires?

 

Yeah, I'm connected by ethernet directly to my cable modem.
I have it connected to my XP pc right now. I have my Linux box sitting next to me so I can swith the ethernet cable between the two. No, I don't believe there was any additional software required for it. It's just a Motorola SB5120 cable modem.

 

there's the possibility that your ISP has your MAC address recorded and only the MAC address of your windows computer is allowed to connect.

I know that's how my ISP works, although it gives a "cripple" IP address that allows you only to go to their configuration website to change the "registered" MAC.

Maybe check your ISP's website for any help pages on configuration and see if they need the MAC address. If this is the case, type "sudo ifconfig -a" to get it (under "HWaddr").

This is the only thing I can think of, since it looks like your NIC is working, and DHCP is trying to connect.

 

koryo:

When I used dapper a while back, I had a similar problem using wired router and I had to do the following to get internet connection.

System -> Administration -> Network settings
Click on DNS tab.
Delete everything under DNS Servers.
Add your DNS Servers which you get from your ISP.
Click OK.

Open terminal
$ sudo chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf
to lock it otherwise it will reset everytime you restart or every ## minutes.

If you need to unlock it (change DNS)
$ sudo chattr -i /etc/resolv.conf

Hope this help.

 

I'll have to try those tonight or later this week and see if it helps. I'll get back to you with the results. Thanks for the help!

 

Okay, I tried adding my ISP's DNS servers and at ifdown I get "eth0 not configured" and at ifup I get "no DHCP offers received."

What did you mean by "under HWaddr"?

I'm really confused now that I'm getting a "not configured" output.

I made sure it's active, double checked the properties...is there anything I need to do with Hosts?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

Another thing I tried was changing to static ip and I changed my subnet mask and gateway from the info on my current connection. But how do I know what ip address to asign it?

And if I get a ip address to asign it, is it possible this could be the solution?

 

but now the excitement is for Feisty Fawn, next year...

 

I have Kubuntu and I need help!!! How do I optimize this OS?