mindstalk
July 28th, 2008, 02:44 PM
I finally upgraded a few days ago, from Gibbon with the recent kernel upgrade, on a Compaq Presario C500. The upgrade itself mostly went well, apart from the locales problem many people ran into. Since then:
+ Ubuntu when installed, and when upgraded to Gibbon, needed intervention to recognize the wireless card. Hardy did as well... but the intervention was semi-automatic, asking permission to download a driver rather than me having to re-google the appropriate incantations.
That is the only positive. (compiz doesn't want to run on my laptop, so I can't evaluate that.)
- Firefox 3's UI choices pissses me off, though that's not Ubuntu's fault. Going back to Firefox 2 seemed slow, though, and my Serif font (URW Palladio) seems smaller relative to the sans-serif one, in either version.
- Pidgin doesn't let me resize the input box any more. Again this might be the application's problem.
- I used to be able to right click on music folders (not the files, the folders) and have "Open with Totem" right there as an option. Now I have to go into "Open with other" and search for the application out of a long list.
[edit: the problem itself is fixable: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5476248&postcount=4 Why the problem occurred is another matter.]
- sound was horrible, but got fixed by turning the volume down and up in mplayer. On the original install the headphones didn't mute the main speakers, but the fix for that was not reverted by the upgrade, so that part's good. But now the volume buttons on the laptop don't work. There are buttons above the keyboard for raising and lowering the sound, plus a mute button, and while they still display their activity on screen when pressed, they have no effect on the sound, which must be controlled in software. Sometimes you want a fast mute option, and anyway it is a loss of functionality I had.
- Hibernation last night went quickly enough, but on restore this morning, it seemed slower than I remember, it made a mysterious crackly sound partway through, and the restored session was in 1024x768 resolution, not 1200x800. This was reflected in System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution, but changing the resolution there did not change the actual resolution. Also, the lower resolution display still thought it was 1200x800 in a way, with the right and bottom panels not being visible.
Net experience so far: regretting the upgrade, as it has made trouble for no benefit.
+ Ubuntu when installed, and when upgraded to Gibbon, needed intervention to recognize the wireless card. Hardy did as well... but the intervention was semi-automatic, asking permission to download a driver rather than me having to re-google the appropriate incantations.
That is the only positive. (compiz doesn't want to run on my laptop, so I can't evaluate that.)
- Firefox 3's UI choices pissses me off, though that's not Ubuntu's fault. Going back to Firefox 2 seemed slow, though, and my Serif font (URW Palladio) seems smaller relative to the sans-serif one, in either version.
- Pidgin doesn't let me resize the input box any more. Again this might be the application's problem.
- I used to be able to right click on music folders (not the files, the folders) and have "Open with Totem" right there as an option. Now I have to go into "Open with other" and search for the application out of a long list.
[edit: the problem itself is fixable: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5476248&postcount=4 Why the problem occurred is another matter.]
- sound was horrible, but got fixed by turning the volume down and up in mplayer. On the original install the headphones didn't mute the main speakers, but the fix for that was not reverted by the upgrade, so that part's good. But now the volume buttons on the laptop don't work. There are buttons above the keyboard for raising and lowering the sound, plus a mute button, and while they still display their activity on screen when pressed, they have no effect on the sound, which must be controlled in software. Sometimes you want a fast mute option, and anyway it is a loss of functionality I had.
- Hibernation last night went quickly enough, but on restore this morning, it seemed slower than I remember, it made a mysterious crackly sound partway through, and the restored session was in 1024x768 resolution, not 1200x800. This was reflected in System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution, but changing the resolution there did not change the actual resolution. Also, the lower resolution display still thought it was 1200x800 in a way, with the right and bottom panels not being visible.
Net experience so far: regretting the upgrade, as it has made trouble for no benefit.