oldefoxx
November 8th, 2009, 05:23 AM
First, on the basis of appearance and speed of installing or updating from 9.04, I found problems both ways, and decided to keep a separate install of each version for now.
In trying to upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10, I ran into issues where it seemed to just hang at different points, or complained that the whole lanuage package was not there, and then wanted to know if I insisted on keeping old folder names or would let it give them new names. Too much aggrevation, so I decided on a separate install of 9.10. I had the disk space for it.
For its own install, 9.10 was a lot slower, maybe 5 or 6 times slower at the beginning. Later, after the desktop came up and you got to the stage of actually installing, you are treated to a long slide show, sort of like what Windows has done with its installs since XP came out. Informative, but loading up the slide show probably is what made it so slow at the beginning and prevented many ot the free applications from being included on the CD. My thought on this is that the slide show should be left somewhere on the web to be downloaded and played, and the install process would go along much faster without it. We'd be back to having more included applications as well.
Some PCs now have a mix of SATA, EIDE (or PATA), and USB-attached hard drives. Depending on the installed BIOS and which operating system is being installed, the determination of which disk is 0 and what order the other drives are recognized as being disk 1, disk 2, etc, can vary at different points. So in any given system, the order of drives can vary at different times. This can even have an inverse effect between a Windows install effort and the way the system appears when Windows actually boots up. This creates a real problem, because Windows treats the first disk with a copy of FAT or NTFS is found as the C: drive, where it wants to boot from and wants its Boot.ini file and NTFSLDR to be located, yet Ubuntu may see a different drive as disk 0, and the Grub Installer expects to put the Grub boot method on the first partition of disk 0 by default.
So if Grub Installer uses what it thinks is disk 0, but the BIOS actually sees a different disk as drive 0 (the same one where Windows will boot from), then you have to reinstruct the Grub Installer to use the disk that Windows recognize as disk 0, or you can't get into Ubuntu after the install is over. On my system, because one drive is EIDE and apparently is placed before the SATA drives (make way for the legacy stuff I guess), the result is that disk 0 and disk 1 appear in reverse order to each OS installer. When Ubuntu pauses to show you what the install process is going to do, note the Advanced button at the lower right side just outside the box. Click on this, and you can leave final instructions for the Grub Installer. In my case, I had to change the (hd0) [meaning disk 0] to be (hd1) [meaning disk 1], which was really disk 0. This worked, and the grub process replaced the Windows boot process, but included choice so that I can choose to boot from Windows instead if I want.
It's interesting to note that prior versions of Ubuntu used versions of Grub up to 1.5, and these will continue to be used at present if they are already in place. This can be good, as many have learned that you can just edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to handle what boot options are allowed. But Ubuntu 9.10 has moved to Grub 1.97, and this is quite a bit different than the earlier Grub versions. Maybe better, but different, as this version falls into a new Grub group called Grub2. You would have to read about Grub2 to find out how it works, and now instead of menu.lst, you now have grub.cfg, and rather than modify grub.cfg directly, you have to go back to the script files that generate grub.cfg and make changes to them.
I am not impressed with the startup graphics shown by 9.10. Basically, just black and white as though in a large closed-in area with a single bulb lit overhead. What is this, a return to the era of black and white portrayals of secret interrogation places? And not impressed with how much got stripped out of the included applications that use to be on the CD. Now what good is the LiveCD for anyone that wants a full taste of what comes with Ubuntu? And after you do the install, you have very little to work with, because you have to download and install a lot of what had been there for you in earlier releases.
Oh yes, they did rename the final item under Applications to "Ubuntu Software Center" and prettied it up a bit, but instead of lists of simple check and uncheck boxes that you can scroll through and make quick choices, then change all at once, now you see separate icons for each application, have to click on it, and can only install then one at a time instead of making the change all at once. This is not a step forward in my opinion, but chasing towards the lousy yet visually appealing way that Microsoft has handled Windows with each new release.
My personal feeling right now is I will give 9.10 a chance, but I am likely to just stick with 9.04 for the most part. It is much more appealing in the way it behaves and what it has with it. But the thing I hate most about then new and restrictive way of getting more applications for Ubuntu is that each time you have three clicks to even start (click icon, move to the right and click the arrow pointing right, then move down to the Install button and click on that), But then you have to switch to the keyboard and type in your user password repeatedly for each one, or you can't get it! Now that might strike someone as the best of security measures. but all that mouse moving, clicking, and typing just to get a free program to load? That is surely one of the worse ideas I've yet encountered.
And for a home user with exclusive access to the PC of choice, way overkill! At the very least, there needs to be a way to turn this elaborate overkill measure off! And you thought that Vista wanting you to confirm an install or remove with one mouse click was bad with it UAC?
Maybe you have read that 9.10 came off in a dead tie with Windows 7! But if they had actually tried to do anything with 9.10, then it would have been in the bottomless pit, well below the worse that Vista threw at us! And that is not just my opinion, of which I am sure. You will find out yourself as you go along.
In other words, maybe sticking with 9.04 would be the better idea all around. Frankly, I liked 8.04 better than 8.10, so what is it or who is it within the Ubuntu community is crudding up the x.10 releases before they get out the door? Apparently they are not only in control, but finding new ways to make it all worse. You suppose they could be secret Microsoft staffers wanting to see Ubuntu fail? This seems to be one way to make that happen.
In trying to upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10, I ran into issues where it seemed to just hang at different points, or complained that the whole lanuage package was not there, and then wanted to know if I insisted on keeping old folder names or would let it give them new names. Too much aggrevation, so I decided on a separate install of 9.10. I had the disk space for it.
For its own install, 9.10 was a lot slower, maybe 5 or 6 times slower at the beginning. Later, after the desktop came up and you got to the stage of actually installing, you are treated to a long slide show, sort of like what Windows has done with its installs since XP came out. Informative, but loading up the slide show probably is what made it so slow at the beginning and prevented many ot the free applications from being included on the CD. My thought on this is that the slide show should be left somewhere on the web to be downloaded and played, and the install process would go along much faster without it. We'd be back to having more included applications as well.
Some PCs now have a mix of SATA, EIDE (or PATA), and USB-attached hard drives. Depending on the installed BIOS and which operating system is being installed, the determination of which disk is 0 and what order the other drives are recognized as being disk 1, disk 2, etc, can vary at different points. So in any given system, the order of drives can vary at different times. This can even have an inverse effect between a Windows install effort and the way the system appears when Windows actually boots up. This creates a real problem, because Windows treats the first disk with a copy of FAT or NTFS is found as the C: drive, where it wants to boot from and wants its Boot.ini file and NTFSLDR to be located, yet Ubuntu may see a different drive as disk 0, and the Grub Installer expects to put the Grub boot method on the first partition of disk 0 by default.
So if Grub Installer uses what it thinks is disk 0, but the BIOS actually sees a different disk as drive 0 (the same one where Windows will boot from), then you have to reinstruct the Grub Installer to use the disk that Windows recognize as disk 0, or you can't get into Ubuntu after the install is over. On my system, because one drive is EIDE and apparently is placed before the SATA drives (make way for the legacy stuff I guess), the result is that disk 0 and disk 1 appear in reverse order to each OS installer. When Ubuntu pauses to show you what the install process is going to do, note the Advanced button at the lower right side just outside the box. Click on this, and you can leave final instructions for the Grub Installer. In my case, I had to change the (hd0) [meaning disk 0] to be (hd1) [meaning disk 1], which was really disk 0. This worked, and the grub process replaced the Windows boot process, but included choice so that I can choose to boot from Windows instead if I want.
It's interesting to note that prior versions of Ubuntu used versions of Grub up to 1.5, and these will continue to be used at present if they are already in place. This can be good, as many have learned that you can just edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to handle what boot options are allowed. But Ubuntu 9.10 has moved to Grub 1.97, and this is quite a bit different than the earlier Grub versions. Maybe better, but different, as this version falls into a new Grub group called Grub2. You would have to read about Grub2 to find out how it works, and now instead of menu.lst, you now have grub.cfg, and rather than modify grub.cfg directly, you have to go back to the script files that generate grub.cfg and make changes to them.
I am not impressed with the startup graphics shown by 9.10. Basically, just black and white as though in a large closed-in area with a single bulb lit overhead. What is this, a return to the era of black and white portrayals of secret interrogation places? And not impressed with how much got stripped out of the included applications that use to be on the CD. Now what good is the LiveCD for anyone that wants a full taste of what comes with Ubuntu? And after you do the install, you have very little to work with, because you have to download and install a lot of what had been there for you in earlier releases.
Oh yes, they did rename the final item under Applications to "Ubuntu Software Center" and prettied it up a bit, but instead of lists of simple check and uncheck boxes that you can scroll through and make quick choices, then change all at once, now you see separate icons for each application, have to click on it, and can only install then one at a time instead of making the change all at once. This is not a step forward in my opinion, but chasing towards the lousy yet visually appealing way that Microsoft has handled Windows with each new release.
My personal feeling right now is I will give 9.10 a chance, but I am likely to just stick with 9.04 for the most part. It is much more appealing in the way it behaves and what it has with it. But the thing I hate most about then new and restrictive way of getting more applications for Ubuntu is that each time you have three clicks to even start (click icon, move to the right and click the arrow pointing right, then move down to the Install button and click on that), But then you have to switch to the keyboard and type in your user password repeatedly for each one, or you can't get it! Now that might strike someone as the best of security measures. but all that mouse moving, clicking, and typing just to get a free program to load? That is surely one of the worse ideas I've yet encountered.
And for a home user with exclusive access to the PC of choice, way overkill! At the very least, there needs to be a way to turn this elaborate overkill measure off! And you thought that Vista wanting you to confirm an install or remove with one mouse click was bad with it UAC?
Maybe you have read that 9.10 came off in a dead tie with Windows 7! But if they had actually tried to do anything with 9.10, then it would have been in the bottomless pit, well below the worse that Vista threw at us! And that is not just my opinion, of which I am sure. You will find out yourself as you go along.
In other words, maybe sticking with 9.04 would be the better idea all around. Frankly, I liked 8.04 better than 8.10, so what is it or who is it within the Ubuntu community is crudding up the x.10 releases before they get out the door? Apparently they are not only in control, but finding new ways to make it all worse. You suppose they could be secret Microsoft staffers wanting to see Ubuntu fail? This seems to be one way to make that happen.