Gutsy or Hardy (7.10 or 8.04)

[roffemuffe]

I had the impression that the latest version of Ubuntu always was the 'best' version.
However, after reading 100s of threads, I came across some that suggested staying on Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) until Hardy Heron (8.04) had had a patch or two to become all stable.

So my thing is, I am on a laptop with touchscreen and wireless and all the stuff. I have no linux experience, but some windows experience (. Should I try to stay on 7.10 for starters or jump right into the 8.10, since it's officially released anyway?

My main things are ease of use, stability and battery power-efficiency (in that order).

[Het Irv]

Go for Hardy, it has been out for a while and I believe there have been about 200 updates or so. I haven't had any problems with Hardy and I have been using it since it was in Beta.


Hardy has the latest versions of software in its repositories, so it is easier to install software.

[bumanie]

8.10 does not come out until October - the first alpha of it is late and has not been released yet. To be honest wireless in ubuntu is not great - 8.10 is meant to improve things, but that comes in October. I have found 8.04, much better than 7.10 - that's just my personal experience and I know others' have had different experiences. Can anyone guarantee your wireless will work in 8.04 - no-one can. But the chances are that if it works in 7.10 it will work in 8.04, but there are no guarantees. Unfortunately, open source programmers get little or no access to proprietry firmware, software code etc. so occassionally some things don't work perfectly, one of the few downsides to using open source.

[Duck2006]

I had the impression that the latest version of Ubuntu always was the 'best' version.
However, after reading 100s of threads, I came across some that suggested staying on Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) until Hardy Heron (8.04) had had a patch or two to become all stable.

So my thing is, I am on a laptop with touchscreen and wireless and all the stuff. I have no linux experience, but some windows experience (. Should I try to stay on 7.10 for starters or jump right into the 8.10, since it's officially released anyway?

My main things are ease of use, stability and battery power-efficiency (in that order).

Make sure that your wireless and all the other stuff works in Handy if so go for it and install (by upgrade or clean install)

[nothingspecial]

There are wireless cards that worked in 7.10 that don`t in 8.04.
My advice -
Burn a live cd of both and test them. If wireless works - install.

If it dosen`t try and find a solution before you install.

[GepettoBR]

There are wireless cards that worked in 7.10 that don`t in 8.04.
My advice -
Burn a live cd of both and test them. If wireless works - install.

If it dosen`t try and find a solution before you install.

The opposite is also true. My own experience: I have a USB wireless adapter that needed a workaround to function in Gutsy. In Hardy, it was natively supported ("out of the box"). On the other hand, my laptop's TV-Out worked and now doesn't - hopefully it will work again after a few more updates. 8.04.1 is scheduled for next month, I think? I'm not sure but I believe that's a big bugfix update, like a Windows service pack.

I second nothingspecial's advice. You'll never know until you try.