TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

I expected much of the 8.10 release of Ubuntu. After a stable but underwhelming 8.04 release, many users were looking forward to a more ambitious set of new features. After all, the non-LTS releases are generally where new things get added.

Will Intrepid Ibex live up to my expectations? I endeavored to find out, so I downloaded the final release candidate. Generally these releases are indistinguishable from the final version, so I felt confident in using it for the basis of my rant.

Install:

I did two installs for 8.10, much like I did for 8.04. The first was an in-place upgrade. The update manager told me an upgrade was available, so I chose "Upgrade" and went through a few dialogs, watched it download and install some things, and then was asked to reboot.

The whole process took roughly an hour and a half. That's about normal based on my previous upgrades. Your mileage may vary depending on your system and internet speed.

Aside from a new wallpaper, the installer is identical to that of the last few versions. I guess I can't complain too much since it works, but Mandriva and openSuSE have updated their installers recently, which makes this one look dated in comparison.

I rebooted to find a new GDM login screen, and on the surface not much else. The default theme is pretty much identical to that of 8.04, which is a pretty big disappointment for me. I expected a more significant visual refresh.

Apparently there was some debate on the look of the menubar between the initial release and the updates released this week. I can't say I necessarily liked the original pattern, but at least it was something different.

There is a new theme called DarkRoom which I'm fond of. I just wish more work had gone into making Gnome look, well, less like Mac OS 9.

There were some stunning mockups made while 8.10 was in development. I don't understand why one of these wasn't used as a template.

DarkRoom looks nice as long as you're using the programs that came with Ubuntu, but I found out early on that others don't translate so well. I ended up settling on the blue "ClearLooks" theme as a compromise between something new and something I could read.

On the subject of swapping themes, I noticed some artifacts left over when swapping between the dark and light themes. Logging out and back in fixed it, so I assume this is a refresh bug.

Nautilus received a bit of an update with a few subtle changes, such as eject icons next to removable devices.

Network Manager has also been updated, adding support for mobile broadband devices. This would have been very handy about six months ago when my only gateway to the internet was a Verizon cellular modem.

While I was attempting to copy some files to my USB thumb drive a curious thing happened. Nautilus popped up a dialog saying it thought my USB drive was a Picture CD, and asked if I wanted to open it using Brasero. Color me confused. I closed the dialog.

Apparently this is a bug related to how Nautilus detects picture CDs. If a mounted drive has a "Pictures" folder in the main directory, it thinks the device is a Picture CD. Odd logic there. At least it's being worked on.

MP3/WMV/MPG/Flash support was (as is usual for Ubuntu) not present. That can be fixed with an internet connection and sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras, one of the first commands I always run on a new system.

Software Selection:

The software setup hasn't changed since 8.04. You get the usual complement of Firefox, Pidgin, GIMP, and OpenOffice as well as a handful of Mono applications that I find useless. One of the first commands I generally run on a new Ubuntu system is sudo apt-get remove --purge mono-common.

There was one new entry I noticed: Cruft Remover. I get the general idea of what this does, but apparently on my newly-installed system there wasn't any cruft yet so I wasn't able to give it a test drive.

This isn't something that comes default on the CD, but I was happy to note that the version of Gweled in the Intrepid repository wasn't in French this time (a problem I had in Hardy).

Conclusion:

On the positive side, Ubuntu has reached a maturity level that forces pessimists like myself to concentrate on the minutae rather than any major flaw in the OS. Props for that.

My expectations had me thinking this was supposed to be a more exciting release than the LTS. Sadly, that's just not the case. There are a lot of little improvements, but nothing that sets it apart from 8.04 for most users. If you're looking for a revelation, you'll be sorely disappointed. I know I was.

Intrepid is more of an iterative improvement than anything. If you're perfectly happy with 8.04 LTS, I see no real compelling reason to recommend you upgrade, particularly since 8.04 will continue to be supported for several years to come.

I didn't see many glaring bugs in this release, which is good, but I didn't really see anything interesting either. It's just disappointingly bland. Perhaps a better code name for this one would have been "Inoffensive Iteration."