12.04 installation went very wrong

[nk09]

Hello all.

After a long time of openSuSE usage, I decided to try Ubuntu 12.04 (64-bit), mainly because of the hype it got. It was a mistake...

The installer started fine, the partitioning gone fine, but then, the installer started to "retrieve packages". It took 3 hours (!). Just for comparison, downloading the Ubuntu CD image itself took 25 minutes. After I thought it was over, it started to download language packs. The estimated download time changed in every second (seemingly randomly from about 12 seconds to 18 minutes). The progress bar didn't move at all. After about 40 minutes, I had enough, and pulled the ethernet cable. Then the installer locked up completely.

Just out of curiosity: why is the user forced to download all the language packs, even if there is an option at the very begining of the installation to select language? Why don't just use/download the pack for the selected language?

Also, why we need to download anything from the repository, besides security updates (they took only about half a minute)?

Okay. So, I started to installer again, configured everything, then left the installer run for the night. Next day, the installation was ready, and the system booted as it supposed to. The interface itself looked very good, and appeared to be fast - until I opened the "home screen", or whatever it called (the button with the Ubuntu logo). After this, Unity started to lag, almost causing the system to freeze. After a struggle to close the home screen, I thought I'll install the ATI drivers, which will hopefully solve the lag.

So, I opened the restricted drivers window, and noticed that there are two ATI drivers: the regular one, and a "post release update". I've tried to download the later. It was impossible, the download started, then after a second, the installer didn't respond. I let it run for about half an hour, but nothing changed. I forced the system to reboot, then installed the other ATI driver. The installation went smooth this time, I restarted the system to start the new driver. And now, everything became laggy. Even dragging windows and icons around.

This was the point where I gave up, and reinstalled openSuSE. I don't know what's going on with Ubuntu, but the so called Ubuntu Experience looks and feels very similiar to the Windows Vista experience back then...

Last time I tried Ubuntu (about 4 years ago), it was a neat, fast, easily configurable and user friendly system. Now it became a nightmare.

Before you accuse me for having a crappy machine: first, openSuSE works flawlessly, second, the system is powered by a triple-core AMD Phenom II CPU, a Mobility Radeon HD 4200 GPU, and has 4 GB of RAM.

Sorry for being a bit harsh, but I got really fed up. Anyway, I would still like to get familiar with Ubuntu, so any advices about the problems above would be very much welcome.

[techsupport]

Updates are running slow because the release just came out yesturday, and there is a problem with the video drivers in 12.04. Switch to Ubuntu 2D session for now.

And try using a post install guide next time:

http://debianhelp.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/to-do-list-after-installing-ubuntu-12-04-lts-aka-precise-pangolin/

[nk09]

Thanks for your reply. Is there a chance that the video drivers will be fixed in the near future? Or is it a problem with the driver itself? (I doubt so, because it works with other distributions.)

But I'm still curious why is the user forced to download anything apart from security updates during installation. Especially the language packs.

[Frogs Hair]

My entire installation took 50 minutes without installing my extra packages and proposed updates . I Know the site was under extreme stress and was reported as 404 at times yesterday.

The software repositories can be be very slow at release time and I would expect this to continue for a while. My Nvidia driver installation was painfully slow yesterday. Many of the 10.04 LTS users are upgrading or installing to 12.04 LTS so there is increased activity because of this .

I have experienced no lag on similar hardware , but I use a Nvidia graphics card. Ubuntu and Gnome have changed , so I suggest anyone curious about Ubuntu 12.04 or any Gnome 3 platform do some research before installing . If you install based on expectations of a Gnome 2 version of Ubuntu you are in for a surprise.

[jdeca57]

In my experience once you get to know a distribution well it's very hard to switch because you get to know the ins and are able to solve problems quickly. Any new distribution presents solutions to problems in a different way, and that asks for an effort one often doesn't want to make.

That said, I'm a suse user since version 5.1 of that distribution and that's the time even an internet connection wasn't evident. I still use it next to Scientific Linux and... Ubuntu. I left Ubuntu when they introduced that new interface. Gradually, I've kind of accepted it and since 11.10 I'm slowly coming back.

The point is: do you know that all the distributions use more or less the same components (kernel, various utilities and applications and drivers) and that a plain vanilla system with an AMD and an ATI must work with Ubuntu if it works with the open version of suse?

It's perfectly your right to feel the change is an hassle and to stay with suse but Ubuntu is simply better than what you describe.

O, and another idea if you want to try out other distributions: suse has Virtualbox as a package. And Ubuntu works in a virtual environment.