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flip-mode · Wed Jun 09, 2010 12:19 pm

I get a hard freeze about once a day. Seems to happen when I'm working with images. It's getting annoying. :-?

Not a dealbreaker, just annoying.

Wed Jun 09, 2010 12:36 pm

What's your video card, and are you using the default Open Source drivers for it, the Ubuntu-sanctioned version of the proprietary drivers, or proprietary drivers you downloaded directly from the GPU manufacturer's site?

Edit: Also, do you have desktop effects enabled or not? If disabling desktop effects makes the freezes go away, that points to an OpenGL driver issue.

End User · Wed Jun 09, 2010 1:10 pm

flip-mode wrote:
xfce's Thurnar file manager wastes far, far less screen space than Nautilus. Nautilus's overinflated icons started to annoy me, especially when I have to have multiple Nautilus windows open and I want to size them as small as I can.

I felt the same way that you did about Nautilus until I installed Nautilus Elementary. Nautilus Elementary is a mod that compacts and streamlines Nautilus: http://bit.ly/c28YIi

flip-mode · Wed Jun 09, 2010 3:15 pm

just brew it! wrote:
What's your video card, and are you using the default Open Source drivers for it, the Ubuntu-sanctioned version of the proprietary drivers, or proprietary drivers you downloaded directly from the GPU manufacturer's site? Also, do you have desktop effects enabled or not? If disabling desktop effects makes the freezes go away, that points to an OpenGL driver issue.

Dell Optiplex GX 620 SFF Pentium D 3.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM, ATI Radeon x1300 with open drivers, no desktop effects.

flip-mode · Wed Jun 09, 2010 3:15 pm

End User wrote:
flip-mode wrote:
xfce's Thurnar file manager wastes far, far less screen space than Nautilus. Nautilus's overinflated icons started to annoy me, especially when I have to have multiple Nautilus windows open and I want to size them as small as I can.

I felt the same way that you did about Nautilus until I installed Nautilus Elementary. Nautilus Elementary is a mod that compacts and streamlines Nautilus: http://bit.ly/c28YIi

I'll be apt'ing that right now!

Edit: darn:
gpg: keyserver receive failed: keyserver error

Jypster · Wed Jun 09, 2010 5:13 pm

After some of the good stuff I have read on 10.04 I thought I would try it out. Been a couple years since I last tried linux. Having 9 machines in my house ( 4 kids, wife, server, media, test and my machine ) a free legit OS would be nice if it could do the things I need.

Installed it on two machines. Mine and the test box with very mixed results. Can't seem to get Xscreen working across my 3 monitors correctly. Either two are mirrored or the third has scrolling issues. I am using a 260 and a 9600. No sound (GA-MA790GP-DS4H) and finally got network working. Could see my network but not the Internet after alot of stuffing around I got that one sorted. The help files are woeful if you can't connect to the net. I am glad I had another machine here. Still trying to get the sound to work though. I seams every man and his dog has a solution and they are all different and so far none have worked.. oh my mic works though so I am at a loss

And yes I did check mute :wink:

The test machine crashed on boot after install, second boot worked fine, Net straight up and sound working. Went to reboot back into Windows and Xp is fragged <sighs> Well it needed a reinstall anyway.

Will stuff around a tad today more but looks like MS still wins out on ease of setup and if time is important to you that counts for alot. Oh even without sound I setup Wine and the only game I really play now days DAoC and it works ! IF I can get the rest to work I could almost keep this over XP64. Back to reading forums and so called solutions for me

flip-mode · Wed Jun 09, 2010 7:28 pm

Jypster, that's pretty.... unexpected, I guess. I've installed on three totally different machines with no problems. And I was very, very surprised and pleased today at work when the time finally came that I had to print something. I thought I'd be turning on the Windows machine for sure... but no! Setting up the printer on Ubuntu was FAR FAR FAR easier than setting it up on any version of Windows - XP, Vista, or 7. No problems, Ubuntu looked up all the printers on the network, properly identified them (though, for some reason, still made me choose a driver from a list), and then presto! Printed a full color PDF flawlessly. Setting up these particular printers on Windows 7 for the first time took 15-20 minutes (finding the driver was a internet search and hopscotch game with a large dose of guesswork mixed in).

I hope things go better for you.

The machines I've installed on:
Dell optiplex Pentium 4
Athlon X2 3600 on 690G mobo (sucky arse chipset!)
Phenom II x4 955 on 785G mobo

Besides the crashing on the Optiplex, things have been butter.

Wed Jun 09, 2010 8:06 pm

The Optiplex crashes may even be a hardware issue...

flip-mode · Wed Jun 09, 2010 8:11 pm

just brew it! wrote:
The Optiplex crashes may even be a hardware issue...

They may be, but that is not what I suspect. Could be RAM, I suppose. I've got some spare, so I'll give it a shot. I want to try to snatch one of the C2D machines.... mua ha ha ha....

Kurotetsu · Wed Jun 09, 2010 8:18 pm

Would there happen to be a list of printers Ubuntu 10.04 supports out of the box? I'm considering installing it on my parent's comp as an upgrade from XP (after trying it myself first of course).

Wed Jun 09, 2010 8:22 pm

flip-mode wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
The Optiplex crashes may even be a hardware issue...

They may be, but that is not what I suspect. Could be RAM, I suppose. I've got some spare, so I'll give it a shot. I want to try to snatch one of the C2D machines.... mua ha ha ha....

About a year ago I had similar issues with a somewhat older system which would hard-lock at random while running Ubuntu. I eventually figured out that the mobo had a flaky PCIe slot. The problem got better or worse depending on what video card I installed, and some video cards would result in the mobo not even being able to POST (so it was definitely not a software issue).

bthylafh · Wed Jun 09, 2010 8:55 pm

flip-mode wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
The Optiplex crashes may even be a hardware issue...

They may be, but that is not what I suspect. Could be RAM, I suppose. I've got some spare, so I'll give it a shot. I want to try to snatch one of the C2D machines.... mua ha ha ha....

I had one of those Opti GX620 SFF machines die a couple months ago. Had bad caps, but likely this was caused by all the heat from the Pentium-D - the hard drive's controller board was turning brown in places, and all the bad caps (like the drive) were downwind of the processor.

kc77 · Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:15 pm

Kurotetsu wrote:
Would there happen to be a list of printers Ubuntu 10.04 supports out of the box? I'm considering installing it on my parent's comp as an upgrade from XP (after trying it myself first of course).

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsPrinters

flip-mode · Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:23 pm

Kurotetsu wrote:
Would there happen to be a list of printers Ubuntu 10.04 supports out of the box? I'm considering installing it on my parent's comp as an upgrade from XP (after trying it myself first of course).

Not sure.... from a quick google it looks like HP is pretty well supported, Canon seems mostly supported, Lexmark is epic fail. The printers at work are Konica Minolta Bizhub's.

bthylafh wrote:
I had one of those Opti GX620 SFF machines die a couple months ago. Had bad caps, but likely this was caused by all the heat from the Pentium-D - the hard drive's controller board was turning brown in places, and all the bad caps (like the drive) were downwind of the processor.

Indeed, they get inexcusably hot. Intel did the world a great disservice with the Pentium 4. How much coal could have been saved?

just brew it! wrote:
About a year ago I had similar issues with a somewhat older system which would hard-lock at random while running Ubuntu. I eventually figured out that the mobo had a flaky PCIe slot. The problem got better or worse depending on what video card I installed, and some video cards would result in the mobo not even being able to POST (so it was definitely not a software issue).

OK, that's good to know. I'll be trying real hard to snag one the the C2D boxes. Not many of those babies to go around. Plenty of the Pentium D boxes gathering dust. Some day maybe some jobs will roll in the door and we can buy a new machine or two. We've put off computer purchases for two years now.

bthylafh · Thu Jun 10, 2010 9:32 am

flip-mode wrote:
Indeed, they get inexcusably hot. Intel did the world a great disservice with the Pentium 4. How much coal could have been saved?

In this model's case, Dell did a poor job with the case layout. Have you checked your motherboard's caps to make sure they're OK?

cubical10 · Thu Jun 10, 2010 9:38 am

just brew it! wrote:
bthylafh wrote:
I've been using Chrome myself, but that's on all three operating systems these days.

Yup, Chrome has become one of my "must have" third party apps on PCs I set up. I don't think I've used a browser that feels this responsive since the early Netscape days. I wonder how long it will take before it becomes as bloated as IE/Firefox?

It looks like they have selected Chrome as the default browser for Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10.
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/chromium-is-default-browser-for-ubuntu-10-10-netbook-remix.html
https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-maverick-chromium

Kurotetsu · Sat Jun 12, 2010 3:42 pm

Initial Impressions of Ubuntu 10.04:

I've been trying out Ubuntu 10.04 after installing it within Windows (very, very handy feature btw). Everything was going smoothly right after I installed it, but I ran into an annoying glitch after I installed the Nvidia closed drivers (version 173, which was recommended). This is on my parents' machine which has a Geforce FX5200 installed. When I rebooted, the resolution was stuck at 640x480 @ 60Hz, and there was no obvious way for me to add the monitor's default resolution of 1440x900 @ 75Hz. I Googled around a bit, and all the solutions involved editing the xorg.conf file. Since everything was fine BEFORE I installed the drivers, I instead decided to simply uninstall them and try version 96 instead. Version 96, after restart, worked perfectly. My monitor and its defaults were all properly detected. The moral of this story is: Just because its recommended doesn't mean it actually is....or something.

Installed Chromium using the Ubuntu Software Center. If theres one thing I really, really love about Ubuntu, and by extension Linux in general, is software repositories. Installing and updating all your software from one central source is a huge advantage Linux has over Windows. On Ubuntu, its as simple as one click (and typing the admin password). On Windows, I would've had to cruise over to the Google Chrome website, download the file, double-click, click through a bunch of prompts and then probably restart. Overall it feels a little faster than Firefox, but I haven't the time to really compare the two. Despite the speed edge, the lack of add-ons means I'll probably jump back to Firefox at some point.

Their Canon PIXMA MP250 printer + scanner wasn't supported out of the box, but Canon already has Linux drivers available for the printer and scanner and getting everything up and running should be pretty simple with the instructions I found on Google (mostly involves typing commands in the Terminal, which isn't a big deal).

Sun Jun 13, 2010 11:39 am

Kurotetsu wrote:
Installed Chromium using the Ubuntu Software Center. If theres one thing I really, really love about Ubuntu, and by extension Linux in general, is software repositories. Installing and updating all your software from one central source is a huge advantage Linux has over Windows. On Ubuntu, its as simple as one click (and typing the admin password). On Windows, I would've had to cruise over to the Google Chrome website, download the file, double-click, click through a bunch of prompts and then probably restart.

Yes, the repository concept does streamline things quite a bit. It also makes for a much cleaner software install/uninstall mechanism, where you've got some assurances that when you remove a package, it is really gone -- no need to play "search and destroy" through the Linux equivalent of the "Program Files" folder to make sure all the related bits and pieces have been nuked.

To be fair though, I think software installation/removal would be pretty close to unworkable on Linux without the repository concept. So it is really something which was done out of necessity, not as a "gee, how can we do this better than Windows" sort of thing.

Kurotetsu wrote:
Overall it feels a little faster than Firefox, but I haven't the time to really compare the two. Despite the speed edge, the lack of add-ons means I'll probably jump back to Firefox at some point.

I never used much in the way of add-ons in Firefox anyhow, so I don't miss them. Chrome/Chromium's minimalist interface, faster load times, and smooth performance are big wins in my book.

Richie_G · Thu Jul 01, 2010 12:13 pm

Does anyone happen to know if there's been any fix for the SPDIF problem I was harping on about in 9.04?

geekl33tgamer · Thu Jul 08, 2010 2:56 pm

Dammit, I've not been on Linux for ages, but took this for a spin (now quad booting) on my laptop. I wasn't quite brave enough to try it on the desktop right away, but it looks like I should not have been worried. Generally, I am very impressed. The UI is slick, and so fast. I particularly like the advanced appearance option. All the windows become kinda wibbily and bouncy when they are moved (if you've used it you'll know what I mean!). It may be a bit of a gimmick, bit it looks cool. Windows UI seams very boring now by comparison.

Amazingly, everything just works too. It loaded up all drivers, re-jigged all partitions automatically and self configured the handy little GRUB boot loader to recognise W7, XP, Hackintosh OSX Snow Leopard and now this. A quick familiarisation exercise to find the Synaptic Package Manager to install WINE & GStreamer and were all good to go. There's very little I can say that's bad abut it. I'm not entirely sold on the Firefox browser they throw in, but it was easily removed. My ExressCard 54 SoundBlaster XF-I also has poor sound quality compared to Windows, but that will be a crappy Creative (or lack of) driver issue. I'll re-search that tho to see if there's a solution.

Defo gets my vote overall. And, Microsoft, if your paying attention - I want the wibbily UI effects on W7 please

Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:01 pm

Yes, the funky UI effects are fun... but they don't play nice with certain applications (e.g. remote desktop access), so I generally turn them off.

geekl33tgamer · Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:55 pm

See what you mean about the remote desktop program. I'll rarely use it though, so the effects stay on! Amazingly (Unlike the W7 Aero Style), the CPU stays flat at 1% usage while all that wibbling and stuff is going on. They are hardware accelerated I take it?

Anyone also got any tips on making iTunes play nicely with Ubuntu and Wine?

The lappy's battery life takes a nosedive on this latest Ubuntu build too, but it's no where near as bad as it used to be. Still can't catch W7's power saving profiles though, but they are very close. Finally, an advance warning to anyone else with Creative Audio Hardware - Dont install their beta drivers for Linux. What a mess

. Stick to the built in support.

Keep improving in this direction though, and it could be replacing W7 for all my general computing needs - It's that good.

Thu Jul 08, 2010 4:16 pm

rcs2k4 wrote:
See what you mean about the remote desktop program. I'll rarely use it though, so the effects stay on! Amazingly (Unlike the W7 Aero Style), the CPU stays flat at 1% usage while all that wibbling and stuff is going on. They are hardware accelerated I take it?

Yup, the desktop effects use hardware accelerated OpenGL. If your card (or its drivers) does not have accelerated OpenGL support, it won't let you enable the effects. This also means that the entire desktop is rendered through the OpenGL pipeline when effects are enabled (which is probably why the effects break certain applications).

If you want to see some more crazy-sick effects stuff, enable the 3D desktop cube effect, and rotate the cube using the mouse while you've got an animation of some sort (e.g. web browser window with a flash ad) running. The animation will continue to run as the desktop with the window on it rotates in/out of view. Some developers have way too much time on their hands... :lol:

geekl33tgamer · Thu Jul 08, 2010 4:59 pm

Now that's total desktop eye candy!!! The 3D Rotate Cube has me sold, lol. And it don't stop at 3D Cubes neither. In the CompizConfig Manager, we can also have Blurry Window effects, Water Drops and the W7 Windows Preview Option.

Ubuntu moves to #1 on my favourite operating system list. Any other bits of graphical goodness I can find out about?

Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:18 pm

rcs2k4 wrote:
In the CompizConfig Manager, we can also have Blurry Window effects,

I don't need Compiz to have blurry windows. All I need to do is take off my glasses! :lol:

Skrying · Thu Jul 08, 2010 7:07 pm

The worst issue with the OpenGL rendered desktop is the constant screen tearing. Can't even move a window around without it looking like it's being sliced in half constantly.

etilena · Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:45 pm

Ubuntu is great. Try installing Windows on a SD card and getting it to boot! I've always tested it out on a SD Card, but couldn't get 10.04 to boot properly after I upgraded my SSD and was too lazy editing the grub2 menu. My Eee PC has 2 SSDs, and the primary OS (Windows) is installed on the slave SSD (replaced the original with a faster/bigger drive) but the boot manager is located on the primary drive (I'm not sure how Windows 7 managed this). Ubuntu sits on the SD card so you can imagine how complicated getting a boot menu to boot everything correctly can be. It becomes worse when you remove the SD card and forget to replace it and all the configurations become wrong.

Agree that Chrome is so much better than Firefox and since Xmarks became browser independent (used to be Foxmarks for Firefox), I just stopped using Firefox altogether. On regular desktops, Firefox is speedy enough, but when you install Ubuntu on an SD Card with no swap and only 1GB of RAM (my Eee PC), Chrome just runs circles around Firefox. Chromes starts faster, and there ss no choppiness when scrolling through pages.

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