3 loosely related questions

[luciantw]

1) I'm using 9.10, I've been having a good time playing with it but i managed to nuke my sound and haven't been able to get it back. My question: Would it be better to install 10.04 beta clean and upgrade to the public release later or simply wait until the 29th?

2) Do you know of a good location to learn about various window managers? A lot of blood seems to be spilled over GNOME v KDE v others, but I am ignorant to why one would choose one manager over another. The 10.04 default theme looks very sleek, is it possible to import that theme to another manager?

3) I have a Dell desktop with 2GB RAM and dual core processor (about 3 years old). Should I choose the 32 or 64 bit version of Ubuntu?

[immerohnegott]

Well, for the first, I'm tempted to ask exactly how you nuked your sound. Regardless, the Beta 2 release of Lucid is running fine on two of my machines, so this may be a good choice.

As far as WMs are concerned, your best bet would probably be to Google up some info on them. The choice depends entirely on your preferences and to an extent the performance of your hardware. For example, GNOME and KDE are going to take more resources than any of the *Box managers (openbox, flux, etc), but you lose a lot of the integrated functionality. Enlightenment is an interesting choice for a lightweight desktop, as is LXDE (which mashes up GTK+ and OpenBox, among other things). Personally, I'm a GNOME guy, if only because KDE 4 still seems a bit sluggish on my laptop with 3D effects on - though this is getting much better with the 4.4.x releases.

I'd just go with the 32-bit install on that machine. While the hardware would support it, I doubt you'd see much benefit without more ram (> 4 gig, which is the limit on 32 bit systems).

Good Luck.

[luciantw]

Thanks for the info!

Just to clarify, theres no benefit to waiting until the full release of lynx comes out before upgrading?

[Didius Falco]

1) I'm using 9.10, I've been having a good time playing with it but i managed to nuke my sound and haven't been able to get it back. My question: Would it be better to install 10.04 beta clean and upgrade to the public release later or simply wait until the 29th?

2) Do you know of a good location to learn about various window managers? A lot of blood seems to be spilled over GNOME v KDE v others, but I am ignorant to why one would choose one manager over another. The 10.04 default theme looks very sleek, is it possible to import that theme to another manager?

3) I have a Dell desktop with 2GB RAM and dual core processor (about 3 years old). Should I choose the 32 or 64 bit version of Ubuntu?

1. If you don't make massive changes to the system, you'd have the release version just by updating. Normally, at this stage, I"d say that unless you want to get involved with the final stage of testing, you'd be better off just waiting.

If you have the room on your HD, I would suggest installing the RC of 10.04 to it's own partition. This will give you a good taste of what it looks/feels/acts like on it's own, and gives you the option of repairing the sound on your 9.10 install if you decide not to stick with 10.04.

You can always get a copy of the release version
after it's out to use for a Live CD.

2. Here is a link that compares the 9. versions of both: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/kdegnome

With just 2Gigs of ram, you're not really going to be able to go the whole Eye-Candy route with KDE, so I'd suggest sticking with Gnome. Of course, you can put both on the same install, and choose which to load at login.

That'd be one way to fill the time between now and the final release version of 10.04. Install the RC, then install KDE to it (you'll find instructions at the link I posted above) check them out for a week and decide which you want.

Personally, I'd then do a fresh install of whichever version you decide to use. If you have the Ubuntu version, you can download and burn the KDE version and install that.

It's your choice, in the end - there isn't any "wrong" choices in this area, just personal preferences.

3. With your setup, I'd stick with the 32 Bit installation.

I hope this mini-essay helps. :P

Regards,

Didius

[luciantw]

Thank you both for the advice, people such as yourselves make this community accessible for beginners like myself.