No surprises here - just good news! The final release of Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), was made available for download yesterday, on schedule. I have downloaded both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and installed them without problem on three very different laptop/netbook systems:
- Fujitsu Lifebook S6510 (64 bit): Intel Core2 Duo CPU, Intel 965 graphics, Intel 5300 WiFi
- HP Pavillion dv2-1010ez (64 bit): AMD Athlon Neo CPU, ATI Radeon graphics, Atheros 9285 WiFi
- HP 2133 Mini-Note (32 bit): VIA C7-M CPU, Chrome9 graphics, Broadcom 4312 WiFi
I installed all three from USB thumb drives, created from the ISO images using the Ubuntu "Startup Disk Creator". I have seen no sign of the kinds of instability or graphic problems that plagued the initial release of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala). Here are a couple of tips for users of systems similar to mine:
- If you have an ATI graphic controller, and you are accustomed to automatically installing the proprietary "fglrx" drivers to get better performance, don't rush into it this time, even if the "Hardware Drivers" utility reminds you that they are available. The FOSS drivers for ATI adapters have been vastly improved, and you may very well find that they are adequate for your use. You can always go back to System/Administration/Hardware Drivers to get them installed later, if you decide you really need them.
- On systems with the Broadcom 4312 WiFi adapter (or other 43xx series), the driver is not loaded with the Ubuntu distribution. After completing the installation, you have to use a wired ethernet connection and run the Hardware Drivers utility, then choose either the b43 or STA driver for it.
One last small note. The final release still contains my least-favorite Ubuntu feature, the built-in 30 second delay when you select Logout/Reboot/Shutdown. To disable this, use Alt-F2 to run gconf-editor, then choose indicator-session, and enable suppress_logout_restart_shutdown.
jw 30/4/2010
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@jamie, wrote a blog reply regardng the plymouth splash screen issue.
Another useful tip for 64Bit Ubuntu regarding getting Adobe Flash 10 to work to work in Firefox 3.6.3
You need release candidate 2 of Adobe Flash 10.1 Player.
Google: 'flashplayer10_1_rc2_linux_041910.tar.gz'
or google 'flash player 10.1'
download this file from adobe - it actually hosted on macromedia.com,
Download flash player 10.1 'tar.gz file for linux'
For anyone confused by the extension - tar.gz file, this is a compressed file.
So from Firefox, select downloads and double click the file
The compressed folder contains a file 'libflashplayer.so', this file needs to be copied to
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/, as it is a Mozilla Firefox plugin.
Didnt you have problems with the HP 2133? like when you tuen it of you cant see the ubuntu logo at all ?
Any fix for that?
I don't know if jjrp78 is talking about the problem after install the broadcom driver in the mininote 2133 that, after a reboot, makes change the dimensions of screen displaying. But I couldn't fix it with Ubuntu 9.10 and you didn't talk about any problem like this... Is everything ok with your display in mininote 2133??
@jjrp78 - Well, sort of. The openchrome driver is not the greatest graphic driver in the world, by a long stretch. It definitely does do some strange things to the display both during startup and shutdown, showing random patterns and sometimes things that look like previous contents of the graphic buffer. But as long as those are "transient" effects, and it works properly and is stable after it boots, I just ignore it and don't get worried about it. In any case, this is coming from the openchrome driver, and has nothing to do with Ubuntu in particular - I have seen the same thing with every on of the other Linux distributions I have loaded on the 2133.
@Akashiro - I have not seen that problem on my 2133 with Lucid either, but I have only tried it on the WXGA display (1280x768), and I don't think this model ever had that problem. However, see my following comments...
Both - One of the things I have noticed about the 2133 and the various comments that have been made about it, is that there are several different models of it, perhaps even more than I know about. I have a WXGA (1280x768) and an SVGA (1024x600) model, and I certainly had more problems with the SVGA when I tried previous distributions. However, that unit is on loan to a friend right now, so I haven't tried Lucid on it yet. I'm hoping to be able to do that soon.
I do recall the screen size change after installing b43 drivers, and I think I described how to get around it on the linlap web site - at least a way that worked for me. If you are still having this problem, please look there and try to follow those instructions carefully. If that still doesn't fix it, then I would have to say there is some other model that I don't know about.
jw
Thank you for your prompt reply JW!
After write my post I said (and before read yours): "Hey, if with Lynx everything looks working... Let's try it myself!". I made an installation of Ubuntu 10.04 net-book version with persistence on a SD card using "Universal USB Installer v1.4" and ran it on the HP 2133 that by the way is the SVGA model. After boot, Ubuntu asked for the Broadcom drivers and I installed the STA one. Just before finish the driver installation there was an error (SystemError: installArchives() failed) and two crash reports appeared saying:
- Sorry, the package "bcmwl-kernel-source 5.60.48.36 +bdcom-0ubuntu3" failed to install or upgrade
- Sorry, the package "initramfs-tools 0.92bubuntu78" failed to install or upgrade.
But anyway after a restart the wireless connection, and the hole system were working normally and without any display error. This made me think in a complete installation on the hard disk. After this new installation, ubuntu started normally and of course the Broadcom wireless was disable, but there was no form to make ubuntu know about the wireless card drivers, task that was easy in the "live" installation... Even connecting the Ethernet cable the system still ignoring the wireless card... and of course the wired connection doesn't work.
Now I'm trying to fix this problem, but if I tell the truth I don't know how...
I forgot... Thank you for your attention!!
The new version is really looking great. I have listed some of the great features of the new version on my blog.
Check it out.
I decided to try this on my eeePC901, but used my own route to get what I wanted.
First I hunted out the CD network version, which I could then install via a fairly bog-standard USB CD rom drive, thus avoiding all the faffing about with memory sticks. It was fairly slow to install, and left to it's own devices would have tried to make the complete installation to the 4G drive, ignoring the (permanently inserted) 16G card. I therefore chose manual partitioning and initially set the 4G partition to / and the 16G one to /home. The installation then proceeded without incident.
Once installed, boot-up is much faster and cleaner than it used to be. The new netbook desktop is much better than the earlier one, but still does not suit me for work in a techie environment, so I reverted to a standard gnome desktop.
To do this you have to use synaptic to install the ubunto desktop and also uninstall the netbook one. This tuned out to be quite painless and I now have full control with stackable, resizeable windows etc.
Also, because I need proper root access sometimes I enabled it as:-
sudo passwd {enter user password}
{enter a new password for root, then confirm}
I then created a new directory /home/tmp and used:-
chmod 777 /home/tmp
to make it universally accessible
next deleted the default one in root and created a link to the one I'd just created :-
ln -s -T /home/tmp /tmp
This was so that crap would not fill up the valuable space in the system partition.
I did the same for /var/tmp and also moved /var/log to /home/log in the same way.
I now have a 27 second boot up to a neat usable deasktop. Wireless, bluetooth, printing no problems. 62% usage on / and currently 2% usage on /home - that will rise of course!
is there 10.1 Flash for 64bit as well ?
@Akashiro - you should be able to control the Broadcom WiFi driver by going to System/Administration/Hardware Drivers. That should show you the currently installed driver, and give you the opportunity to remove it. After that, reboot and then go back to Hardware Drivers again, and you should be able to choose which driver to install again - try the other one.
So far on my 2133 I haven't had any of the hanging/crashing/screen size problems with the b43 driver that I had seen with previous Ubuntu releases, but it does look like it still has the problem with inactivity timeout on the wireless disabling the device permanently.
@Tezzer - thanks for adding the interesting information.
jw
Hello again,
finally I could install the STA driver. The problem was that the installation was made from a sd card, and therefore when the "Hardware drivers" attempted to the read the CD searching for the needed packages it was impossible. I have installed manually the packages that the STA driver required from the sd card where I installed the Live CD and afer I was able to active it, actually I'm writing from my 2133. I know the problem was simple, but... I didn't think in that slightly difference between CD Live and "SD Live" installation.
Now I have detected (I didn't see it before because I was focused in the STA driver) that the sound suddenly crashes, for instance trying to use skype, and the speaker in the upper panel appears with three lines (---) as when is in silent, but if I try to configure the sound, the sound car is such as not recognized. I mean that the car doesn't appear in the box where devide to configure must be. This can be only solved by restarting, then the sound card is working normally. Let's fix this then! as somebody said: "In windows if you have a problem reboot; In Linux if you have a problem: be root". I'll post the solution if I find it.
Any way, thanks for your recommendations JW.