Bad Ubuntu, very bad
Decided to take the plunge yesterday and change from dual booting XP and Ubuntu 8.04 to dual booting XP and Ubuntu 8.10.
Bad idea.
Instead of an upgrade I just blew away the old installation and installed 8.10. I had no problems whatsoever during the installation or the first boot. I didn’t anticipate any problems as it was a clean install. It was when I tried to settle in with a few customisations here and there is when I noticed some bad things.
- No audio for a start. It worked in 8.04 perfectly well but nothing but static noises in 8.10. Someone on ILUG had a similar problem and using a suggestion mentioned there it solved it for me but then it just stopped working again.
- X is a bit screwy with nVidia’s own driver installed using Ubuntu’s restricted driver installer. when using an application such as Firefox things suddenly go blocky and I have to scroll the window for it to re-compose itself.
- It won’t shutdown or reboot! GDM quits, I get the Ubuntu splash screen and then get dumped at the console login prompt which I then am unable to use. Pressing the power button goes through most of the rigmarole of shutting down but again just drops me to a login prompt. I’ve tried various ways of trying to reboot or shutdown such as shutdown -h now and init 0 but no luck! Same story with the reboot command.
- Some applications just quit without warning. Most notably xtraceroute and Prismstumbler. They also don’t give a reason for quitting either.
So is there anything good about it? Well it was easier to install. With 8.04 the desktop edition installer wouldn’t recognise my USB keyboard so I had to go through the painstaking route of installing the server edition, then install ubuntu-desktop, then install linux-kernel-generic because the nVidia driver wouldn’t install with the server kernel which of course meant installing gcc and all associated bits and pieces. Strangely the USB keyboard used to work with 6.06 and 7.10.
So basically it is a piece of crap! It’s the only version of Ubuntu that I have had problems with and I’m at a loss as to why I’m having so many problems. I know that it is the cutting edge Ubuntu release but I would have at least expected some level of stability and functionality.
22 queries. 0.543 seconds.
I haven’t upgraded from 8.04 yet – mainly as I’ve been too lazy, but I’ll definitely avoid in future. Ever try to install Ubuntu on a Dell? Nothing but hassle, I eventually remembered to disable Diskette Drive 0 in the Bias as Dell’s often like to enable it all by themselves causing unknown problems down the line.
Mine runs 8.04 like a dream, if there was more software releases available for Ubuntu I’d migrate permanently, but for the time being I’ve to stay put with Vista…which really needs double the RAM power I have at the moment!
Aaron
compiling a new kernel should fix at least some of that stuff. 8.10 probably has that ‘pulse audio’ thing which rarely works getting rid of that solved a few problems for me in the past.
Aaron – I should have stayed with 8.04 as it is the stable release and has updates ’till 2011. But I figured that this time around I would try out the cutting edge. And woe is me! I’d suggest you stick with 8.04!
But it is a Dell machine that I have. A Precision 380 with 2GB RAM and a 512MB Quadro FX 4400 (nVidia). No problems with 8.04 on my two Dell Optiplex or my Poweredge 2800 server which is running 6.06.
Dan – Yep, Pulse Audio is the culprit. But 8.04 had Pulse Audio too
Recompiling a kernel is no longer an option because after 12 years I’m just shit sick of it!!