Ubuntu 8.04 Beta

Well as almost always I decided to give the latest beta release from Ubuntu a try. I always start from scratch just like someone trying it out for the first time might do it. As usual I burned two CD images the i386 desktop and the alternate install ones. My experience has been that only one time I have been able to get the desktop image fully booted and installed. This foray proved no different than what I am generally used to. I just gave up I didn't want to spend hours with the task and used the alternate install CD instead. All went smooth with that except the part near the end where it comes time to install GRUB not only did the install program not ask me where to put it, the program itself couldn't figure it out either and kept giving some message to the effect of "/target" wouldn't work. Luckily good old reliable LILO boot loader thing was available and even asked where I wanted to put it (complete with a list of reasonable choices so I had to just pick one). Not exactly beginner stuff but not that bad as long as one pays attention to the whole install routine as it happens. Since this was a from scratch type install I repartitioned the drive on which I always put my Ubuntu installations as I had saved everything that mattered to me to a my rather recently acquired NAS device. One thing that was different this time was that my drives were being identified as sda* and sdb* instead of the usual hda* and hdb* flavors if the LILO thing had not been so automatic, not noticing this might have been an issue. Well that was it the system was installed and I was ready to reboot back into XP just long enough to modify my boot.ini file and then continue on to Ubuntu.

I used to use another boot manager utility which worked really well but somewhere along the line I lost my license for it and most of the cooler features were tied to the license so the last couple times I went another route. The instructions make using the thing sound difficult but basically it just boils down to something similar to this.

Download th zipped archive
Copy the executable bootpart.exe to Drive C:\
Run bootpart.exe (there is a tool to simplify even this)

At this point the program will read the partitions on the hard drives installed on the system and output a list with information about the different partition types.

Next run:
bootpart 4 c:\bootsect.lnx "Some Linux I Like"

After this the executable bootpart.exe can be deleted or moved as it is no longer needed and leaving it in the root of ones system drive is some sort of risky behavior I would think. Although on second thought one might want to successfully boot Linux first.

The way the program fleshes out is "bootpart 4" is telling it what partition is the root partition or contains LILO or GRUB and this would be whatever number the program identified "4" is just an example. "c:\bootsect.lnx" is where the program will create a small image file that allows XP's bootloader to hand the booting process off off to GRUB or LILO and last "Some Linux I Like" is what will appear in the OS choices menu when the system boots (could be almost anything really but Iwould probably stick with letters and numbers). The only reason I am getting into all this is because the installer gave no options on how to boot other operating systems and I didn't feel like restoring XP's mbr later. Again not exactly beginner stuff but not that bad as long as one pays attention to the whole install routine as it happens. Fooling with way ones computer boots can and often does have consequences attached so proceed with caution.

The first reboot into Ubuntu was a seamless experience and not long after I was greeted with the message that I could install some 400+ updates which I went ahead and did the update thing and was suggested to that I reboot for best results. I forgot the first time to enable my restricted drivers and was obliged to reboot again. After that setting up is sort of like shopping add some additional repositories to simplify things somewhat and then get to picking and choosing what packages one wants. My printer/scanner both worked straight away with no additional configuration which is always a plus as I actualy like to print a fair amount of things like instructions for instance. Included of course is Firefox 3.0b5 (don't really know if that was the original installed version or from that initial 400+ package upgrade). Interesting thing is that while it still has a few rough edges it runs smoother on Ubuntu than same version for XP on the XP side of my PC. I am basing that on certain pages from CNET in particular (the next link could possibly lock your browser or even result in a BSOD) LIKE THIS ONE freeze Firefox on either Ubuntu or XP but in Ubuntu it recovers and asks if I would like to stop running the embedded script and then all is fine. On XP though it ends up being an end process type event and has caused the PC to crash completely. It only seems to happen on the CNET pages but that is not completely tested as it could be just certain CNET pages. Not scientific or anything just a observation on what I have experienced. So for the most part Ubuntu provides me with a decent multimedia PC experience (music, movies, light text-graphics editing, web, email, simple 2D game capabilities, printing...etc).

Once one gets it all up and configured Ubuntu is a very well behaved OS. It is not not for people who don't like tweaking however and therein is why it remains sort of an an anomaly, perfect for some (tweakers) to much trouble for others (pointers/clickers) even though the learning curve is really not all that steep. Once either group has it configured properly it is extremely easy to use. Each subsequent release gets more features and since they occur in a predictable cycle it is more like upgrades to than a radical departure from the base system. Unlike some commercial offerings Ubuntu seems to try and compliment the current installed hardware capabilities of the average user whereas some other OS products seem more like they are out to consume the current installed hardware capabilities of average user. I have been able to install 5 successive versions of Ubuntu on the same PC each improving over the last and to me that is impressive. If Ubuntu (I know I am looking at this from a beta release standpoint) ever gets some polish on some of those rough edges... who knows what could happen! Finally as always here is my new again Ubuntu Desktop Picture.