Thoughts on the Koala

by John Mark Walker - Nov. 06, 2009Comments (15)

It's been a week since Ubuntu 9.10, aka the Karmic Koala, was unleashed on the world. I wanted to post a general review after having used the special K since it went RC in late September and early October. In general, I've been very impressed, especially in comparison to another, recently released, operating system. This mini review will focus on using Ubuntu as a desktop system. When I drop it onto my Linode server, I'll provide commentary on server usage as well.

I have been a (mostly) happy Ubuntu desktop user since late 2005, when I finally ditched Fedora for what looked like a better desktop experience. For the most part, I have not been disappointed by that move, although I still check out Fedora and, to a lesser extent, OpenSUSE on occasion for comparison purposes. But there were always some niggling issues that popped up, whether it was a hanging update, bluetooth flakiness, a slow network connection that needed to be reconfigured, or not providing some bleeding edge library necessary for installing an "out of network" .deb. These were all minor annoyances, and were never enough to make me seriously look elsewhere. Imagine my surprise when I loaded up the most recent incarnation, 9.10, and could find nothing that particularly irked me. For the most part - and to me this is a great thing - Karmic Koala gets out of my way and lets me get stuff done.

After spending a few weeks on Karmic, I have found only one niggling issue - because I prefer to use wicd for network management, I apparently cannot use UbuntuOne, Canonical's hosted storage solution. But then, I haven't needed to use UbuntuOne, so it's been a moot point.

The first thing I noticed is the speed of bootup, as seconds have been trimmed from previous versions. The second thing I noticed is that it looked more professional, although I recognize that's a matter of taste. Still, it's apparent that a lot of work went into the UI side of things. The next thing I found is that, in contrast to previous installments, I really didn't need to use a text editor to set configs. Being a Linux user since 1998, I do it anyway because I'm comfortable with it, but I had to remind myself to do it in this case - and that's a first. Previously, there was always something that didn't behave quite as I expected or wanted, and so moving into vi was necessary to improve productivity. Not this time. As I have done with every other Ubuntu install, I decided to ditch the default GNOME GUI for Kubuntu. This was a matter of simply typing "apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" and all was good.

Of course, most of my experience on any operating system is spent on web-centric things, whether via a traditional web browser, or some web services-capable utility, such as a twitter client. What this brings to mind is that much of my experience with an operating system is no longer about bells and whistles. As long as it gives me speedy access to the net and a selection of tools for operating on the net, I'm happy. it's utterly pointless for a platform vendor like Canonical to spend oodles of engineering resources on remaking the desktop experience, when the rewards of such will continue to diminish over time. And you can see them embrace this strategy with their work on UbuntuOne (ahem... it would be nice if that dependency issue were fixed soon) and a Eucalyptus-based set of cloud services. They get it - the future is about services delivered over the network, and future enhancements will probably focus on improving that experience.

Of course, it's also important that my laptop, a Lenovo Thinkpad T400, has a good set of hardware components that Linux works well with. The experience would be different were that not the case - although Ubuntu could hardly be blamed for that.

One other pleasant surprise worth mentioning - Karmic came with Amarok 2.2, which recognized my iPod with no fiddling around, something that had been broken ever since Amarok 2.0 was released.

Next, I'll write up some of the tools available by default in Karmic, and some that you'll still need to get via a supplemental repository.

Previous: Google Provides Clos...Next: Over 10 Open Source ... Browse Blog

by kaddy on Nov. 08, 2009

I assume you are talking about Kubuntu 9.10 :p

0 Votes

by kaddy on Nov. 08, 2009

then again... kubuntu doesn't have ubuntu one.... but you said it came with amarok.... which ubuntu doesn't..... so which one are you reviewing? ubuntu gnome, or kubuntu kde?

0 Votes

by an anonymous user on Nov. 08, 2009

You don't break any rules by installing KDE programs on Gnome, you'll just have to include more libraries etc....

Maybe John likes Amarok on Gnome? It is IMHO the best music player on Linux!

0 Votes

by kaddy on Nov. 08, 2009

"You don't break any rules by installing KDE programs on Gnome, you'll just have to include more libraries etc...."

i know that

but he said quote "Karmic came with Amarok 2.2"

Which it does not in ubuntu.... you get rhythmbox... but in Kubuntu, you get Amarok 2.2

0 Votes

by Nintendo DS Games on Nov. 08, 2009

I have been using ubuntu for a while now and I am quite impressed with that. Now the kubuntu I just installed is proving to be much better than its previous ubuntu versions. Now it seems that Microsoft is surely going to loose it hold on the market.

Nintendo DS Games

0 Votes

by LovingTheKarmic on Nov. 09, 2009

I started using Kubuntu 9.10 today after using Ubuntu 9.10 for a few days and being disappointed. I'm not going to talk about my disappointment with Ubuntu Karmic, but I will talk about my 24 hour experience in Kubuntu Karmic. I loved KDE 3.x, and I have avoided KDE since the nightmares of the earlier stages of 4.x occurred. My opinion on KDE 4 has been blown away with 4.3. It's incredible. I think they have achieved close to what they originally envisioned with KDE 4. Everything is MUCH more integrated, smooth, and it all just works with a flow that I had not seen in previous releases - that's why I always went back to Gnome. I have been using Ubuntu since 6.06 and I have to say that now, I may just be a Kubuntu fan. I read some pretty dull reviews on it before deciding to put all that aside and give it a try for myself. Others have mentioned problems and I have not seen one of them. I installed the nvidia driver with no problems. Rebooted, installed the kubuntu restricted extras package, clicked the provided Firefox installer, then went out and got some of my favourite applications. All with absolutely no problems. Smooth, crisp video - properly configured. No KDE crashes what-so-ever - which is fantastic. Seamless plasmoid functionality - love the twitter and facebook plasmoids - btw. I have to say that this is the best Kubuntu I have had the pleasure of installing. If you are interested, I suggest downloading it and giving it a shot.

A side note: Not that I really care about it's competition with Windows or Mac, but the - and I know it's shallow - beauty of the KDE 4.3 GUI far surpasses that of Windows and Mac with this release. (I used to like Mac OS' better) - and yes, I know about themes and how the default really doesn't matter since you can make your linux desktop look however you like. But for a first impression at that initial desktop experience, Kubuntu 9.10 with KDE 4.3 delivers outstanding eye candy. As well as the long awaited stability.

Try it. Odds are, you'll love it.

0 Votes

by Andydread on Nov. 09, 2009

Well I am running he 64 bit version of Ubuntu 9.10. Flash in Firefox is flaky (cannot pause or use the slider to skip in some videos) And Audacity is unstable. It crashes when manipulating recorded audio. Other than that everything else seems fine so far.

0 Votes

by Kendall on Nov. 09, 2009

My gripes are (as mentioned) Flash is flaky in Firefox. This more or less pushed me into migrating to Opera. And I can't completely disable the touchpad on my laptop like I could in 9.04. I had significant sound issues with the beta, but everything was groovy in that department with the final. Overall I'm happier than with previous versions and I think 9.10 is a definite step in the right direction.

I've never really fooled with KDE before so I'm biting the bullet and downloading it now.

0 Votes

by John Mark Walker on Nov. 09, 2009

Sorry for any confusion - I installed amarok with the vanilla gnome-based system. You don't have to install Kubuntu to use Amarok - and when you issue "apt-get install amarok" you get the 2.2 version. At least I did :)

I'm pretty sure I didn't add any special repos to get that...

I didn't switch to the Kubuntu desktop until a few weeks later, well after I installed Amarok. But now that I think about it, I did have to use the "add software" utility to install.

Since I started with vanilla GNOME, UbuntuOne was already installed - and yes, I'm using UbuntuOne now with Kubuntu, and it nicely switches to using dolphin after I changed desktops.

0 Votes

by Robert on Nov. 09, 2009

The difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu is just the selection of software installed by default. Removing gnome and installing kde would be something like a swtich to kubuntu. I don't really see a difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu though. For example: Debian is called Debian whatever you choose to install. So does OpenSUSE, Fedora etc.

0 Votes

by Victor J Kinzer on Nov. 09, 2009

I have been using Ubuntu on and off since Dapper Drake. The version I did not use were primarily because of major hardware regressions that made the OS unusable on my hardware. I thus far only installed 9.10 on my netbook, and immediately ran into a wireless hardware regression. It's one that is relatively easy to take care of, but I have a Dell 8 inch netbook, so it's not exactly obscure hardware.

Application instability, and graphics and UI design are all things I am generally willing to forgive. Everyone will gripe about them till the day they die, but to me there is only 1 running problem with Ubuntu, and to be fair to Ubuntu they aren't the only linux distro with this problem, is Quality Assurance. This is a basic distro design mentality. I personally don't care if the sound server project of choice says their product is up to a full release, the distro should do their own quality assurance testing of everything early enough in the process to ditch it if it's not up to snuff. I have never installed a version of Ubuntu that didn't break something that worked in the last version. EVER.

With my old HP laptop I went from everything working to the entire system being destroyed by a bad audio server.

I had a friends computer I recovered some files from with an old ubuntu disk I had lying around. Everything worked perfectly. They told me I could keep it after getting their family photos and tax files off it. I tried to install a newer version of Ubuntu to turn it into a usable server and X wouldn't load because of a graphics incompatibility. An epic fail no real fix one, just like the audio regression.

My current server became a server instead of a desktop because of a wireless regression which meant when I updated it had to be tethered to the ethernet on my router, while before it's wireless had worked perfectly.

With my Dell netbook the Creative webcam which worked perfectly with 8.10 broke in 9.04 because of a support regression in the kernel.

Now the same dell I had to jump through manual wireless driver configuration when the wireless worked flawlessly "out of the box" with the last version, which was by the way the biggest selling point for me.

The internet is rife with similar stories, and if I included stories of my close friends hardware this list would be considerably longer. Many of these regressions are mostly out of the control of Ubuntu, they are symptoms of a larger open source development model problem. I know, I know I speak heresy to criticize open source development at all, and I am among the first to cheer on it's successes and benefits of which there are many. Quality Assurance issues like this are among it's flaws. Windows has similar issues, but even with Windows it doesn't inflict them on you ever 6 months. The short release cycle is both the source of many of these problems, and the main reason why fixing this problem is that much more important.

0 Votes

by an anonymous user on Nov. 09, 2009

Shame that Linux and most other major software projects cannot get away from the dandelion development philosophy (it works, it works, not; it works, it works not) of continually going round in ever descreasing circles rather than moving forward . I can install 8.04 on my PC, no problems, but 9.10 boots up to a black screen. I have to use the basic graphics driver to get 9.10 to be visible on the screen, and then install the ATI proprietary driver to get the proper resolution. Its always a case of two steps forward, one step back. As soon as something is finished and actually works, its scrapped and replaced with something new and unstable. Take this kernel mode setting - is it really so important to stop the flashing during boot that its worth changing everything yet again? When something works leave it the hell alone and move on to something new. This is the problem with a development methodology whereby the software is designed to suit the developers rather than the end users. I wonder how many end users would have cared enough about Kernel Mode Setting to put up with another year or so of instability?

0 Votes

by John Mark Walker on Nov. 09, 2009

I think this illustrates why the world is moving to mobile - more consistency (hopefully?) and a more locked-down environment. But something tells me that as mobiles become more like PC's, this advantage will go away.

0 Votes

by SilverWave on Nov. 10, 2009

@Andydread Flash Fix

Edit /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer to include a line, "export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1".

Step-by-step instructions:

1) Run "gksudo gedit /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer" with Alt-F2.

2) Add the "export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1" immediately before the last line of text.

3) Save and exit.

See here:

http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8228704

Notes:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/flashplugin-nonfree/+bug/41040...

0 Votes

by John Mark Walker on Nov. 18, 2009

I should note that I've been hit by my first major bug, though I'm not sure if it was because I was booting into KDM. Regardless, it's kind of useless when you find that you can't even boot into recovery mode anymore.

0 Votes