Burace17’s Weblog

Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 3 has been released and I have not had a lot of time to test it but you can download it from: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing and click on alpha 3. The biggest change is tabs in the file manager. Remember that all the changes in this alpha release may contain bugs that could harm your computer or your data, I recommend installing this in Virtual PC which can be downloaded here for FREE!

Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 1 came out last week and I’ve had some time to test it. From what I have noticed, the biggest change is the new black interface. It looks nice but still needs some tweaks to be perfect. (like on the Update Manager the progress bar makes it so the text can’t be read very easy)

My favorite part is you can run it on Virtual PC without a lot of effort. Here’s how you do it:

1. Download Ubuntu from here: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/alpha1
2. Install it on a virtual machine
3. When it starts for the first time and it says GRUB loading press ESC for the menu or something like that, press ESC fast
4. Press e to edit the options
5. Select kernel and press e again
6. Type vga=791 clock=pit
7. Press ENTER
8. Press b to boot
9. It will take a while to boot but with it does you will see a colorful screen. Press CTRL-ALT-F1
10. Now it’s time to fix the display, type sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
11. Scroll down until you see the line that says Screen
12. Add the line below Device: DefaultDepth               16
13. Press CTRL-O (the letter O)
14. Press CTRL-X
15. Now to save the options we added at startup type: sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst
16. Scroll to the part below ## ## END DEFAULT OPTIONS ## ## and where it says kernel. It should be the first one. Go to the end of that and type vga=791 clock=pit
17. Press CTRL-O (the letter O)
18. Press CTRL-X
19. Type sudo reboot
20. This time when it boots, do not press anything. If you did everything right, it should boot just fine.

ubuntu 8.04 LTS (long term support) was released last week and i kind of forgot about it. anyway, here’s what i think of it.

The Good:

• Redesigned installer (more descriptive labels)
• Updated Applications
• GNOME 2.22 (the user interface)
• Faster
• Easy to upgrade from 7.10

this is just a little bit about the good parts of it.

The Bad:

• Takes up a lot of space
• On Virtual PC, it doesn’t save the resolution during startup/shutdown but I don’t know if it is a Ubuntu problem
• Still isn’t compatible with VPC right out of the box

really, i like this release and i can’t wait for 8.10 in october (i heard it will be REALLY good)

overall, i would give it 4 out of 5 stars.

you can download it here http://www.ubuntu.com

i might post screenshots later this week