UBUNTU: Ready for primtime? Maybe...

[Cova]

For me, VM compatibility to the ESX servers here at work is also important - I'll be sticking with VMware server.  BTW, version 2 of it should be out real soon now (I believe next week release during VMWorld)

[Lazybones]

So after my test Vista machine desided it was not genuine (yes it was), because it could not contact a DNS name (dns was working in limited mode), I figured I would give Ubuntu 7.10 a shot.

The main install was super simple, I had a running graphical desktop in minutes. However I wanted to see these new Compbiz effects in action, so I tried to enable them and got an error. After a little checking I found that I did not have the ATI drivers installed.

Opened the package manager, found the ATI package installed, rebooted.

Still nothing.. Checked... O it hadn't changed the driver. looking at the mess of generic drivers I could not tell which one I needed.

After some hard searching I found directions on how to do it.

After about 3 failed install script attempts that deleted my x11.conf file each time.
Installing an extra x server
editing 3 text files
and several reboots

I got it working..

Conclusion, if it doesn't work on fairly common hardware for me, joe user is going to find it impossible... OR not notice they don't have 3d support..

It is hard to tell.

[Tom]

Weird, many people had it "just work". What radeon do you have again? Ultra new cards aren't always detectable even if they are supported by a driver..

I havent tried a fresh install of Gutsy yet, but I will sometime this week, or next week after my new SATA DVDRW comes in the mail. (for some reason my ide controller doesn't want to allow me to burn disks any more, so I removed the drive and put it in another box, and I really don't feel like moving stuff around again)

[Lazybones]

This was on a P4 Dell Workstation with an ATI X1650Pro video card... All the Dell hardware, including the sound just worked. Video was a PITA to get the 3D working.. 2D did JUST work but that is not the point. of Gutsy..

[Tom]

Yeah, I'm surprised.

I'll post here later with my experiences with a fresh install once i do it.

[Shayne]

4 things killed it for me...

1)  Won't "just install" on my nvidia FakeRAID.

2)  When I removed a drive from my computer it would fail to boot.  Turns out you gotta remove the drive from some obscure file.  So it's not really that plug&play.

3)  Games still perform poorly under Wine

4)  Applications that I need to use for my every day operations can't be used without jumping through hoops (Office 2K7, iTunes, etc)

...a good "virtual buddy" of mine uses Ubuntu and says that the easiest way to migrate to Linux is forget about all the software you used to use as their are better applications on Linux anyways.  I fail to see that.

[Tom]

When I removed a drive from my computer it would fail to boot.  Turns out you gotta remove the drive from some obscure file.  So it's not really that plug&play.

Windows allows you to remove the drive it boots off of and it'll work?

...a good "virtual buddy" of mine uses Ubuntu and says that the easiest way to migrate to Linux is forget about all the software you used to use as their are better applications on Linux anyways.  I fail to see that.

Depends on what you need, and if you like being locked into things like Itunes.

Won't "just install" on my nvidia FakeRAID.

That surprises me actually, I'm pretty sure it _should_, but who knows, maybe they didn't include the nvidia driver in the livecd and/or installed kernel, which would need to be in the initramfs file.. Also, booting off a softraid anything but mirroring or linear appending is very unsupported (theres really no way to make it work, the kernel needs to be loaded off a disk that needs a driver to be seen properly? not going to happen)

[Shayne]

Windows allows you to remove the drive it boots off of and it'll work?

Wasn't the boot drive, was a media drive (that i was worried ubuntu would kill for some reason)

Depends on what you need, and if you like being locked into things like Itunes.

I haven't found any sort of media player/organizer that does as fine a job as iTunes (podcasts are important for me as well).  Their are options but that elusive compilation flag always has me going back to iTunes.

That surprises me actually, I'm pretty sure it _should_, but who knows, maybe they didn't include the nvidia driver in the livecd and/or installed kernel, which would need to be in the initramfs file.. Also, booting off a softraid anything but mirroring or linear appending is very unsupported (theres really no way to make it work, the kernel needs to be loaded off a disk that needs a driver to be seen properly? not going to happen)

I have 2 500GB drives in RAID 1.  When I go into the Ubuntu setup area it shows me 2 separate 500GB drives instead of 1.  Their are ways you can do it, but its not intuitive at all as you need to do some terminal stuff and package installations all before you can do it properly. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto  The biggest deal breaker of them all.

On the flip side Ubuntu Server is incredible.

[Cova]

When I removed a drive from my computer it would fail to boot.  Turns out you gotta remove the drive from some obscure file.  So it's not really that plug&play.

Windows allows you to remove the drive it boots off of and it'll work?

Obviously no - I think he meant to remove a disk other than the one the OS is installed to.  But guess what - that's just as likely to break windows as linux.  All the boot-loaders I know of (the windows one, and both grub and lilo) number all your disks/partitions in the order they find them in.  If the number of the OS drive is changed, it won't boot anymore - whether you removed a disk before it causing it's number to decrease, or you added disks before it and its number increases.  And the fix is the same for both windows and linux too - you edit some obscure file, in linux likely /boot/grub/grub.conf or in windows likely c:\boot.ini (which is flagged system, readonly, hidden, and you need to manually remove those flags before you can edit it, and put the flags back when yer done).

Won't "just install" on my nvidia FakeRAID.

That surprises me actually, I'm pretty sure it _should_, but who knows, maybe they didn't include the nvidia driver in the livecd and/or installed kernel, which would need to be in the initramfs file.. Also, booting off a softraid anything but mirroring or linear appending is very unsupported (theres really no way to make it work, the kernel needs to be loaded off a disk that needs a driver to be seen properly? not going to happen)

nVidia fake-raid is supported under linux, if you have a recent kernel.  But it's probably not enabled by default, as you really shouldn't use fake-raid under linux unless you have to dual-boot - linux software raid is better than fake-raid.  On gentoo at least, if you want fake-raid support from the install cd / live cd, boot with the "dodmraid" boot parameter (so on the cd boot prompt, type 'gentoo dodmraid').

[Shayne]

Obviously no - I think he meant to remove a disk other than the one the OS is installed to.  But guess what - that's just as likely to break windows as linux.  All the boot-loaders I know of (the windows one, and both grub and lilo) number all your disks/partitions in the order they find them in.  If the number of the OS drive is changed, it won't boot anymore - whether you removed a disk before it causing it's number to decrease, or you added disks before it and its number increases.  And the fix is the same for both windows and linux too - you edit some obscure file, in linux likely /boot/grub/grub.conf or in windows likely c:\boot.ini (which is flagged system, readonly, hidden, and you need to manually remove those flags before you can edit it, and put the flags back when yer done).

I gotta call shenanigans on that one Cova.  If I shut down Windows, unplug a drive (not the primary boot drive) and reboot windows will boot just fine.  Try it yourself, i do it regularly.  Also the file i had to modify was /etc/fstab

[Tom]

Yeah, Actually, you should have been able to boot fine, with just a few warnings in syslog about a disk that failed to mount. What actually happened? I've removed secondary disks all the time without problems. Even the disk with /home on it.

Oh wait, no, I think ubuntu asks to dump you into a "rescue" single user login shell if fsck fails, so you'd have to press something like CTRL+D or something to skip the shell and keep going.

[Shayne]

Ya Tom, i think thats what came up.  As a windows person having a bunch of warnings and a failed boot to OS it was annoying.  I know that I could ctrl+d to skip but it took me a long while to figure out how to fix that issue.

[Tom]

I honestly think ubuntu should either put non os disks on "auto" mounter (so it doesnt fail...) or just ignores fsck failing when the actual device isn't plugged in.

[Lazybones]

I must say that Virtual Box runs Much better on a UBuntu host than it does on a windows host.

Had to much with more config files today just to get the system to 1280x1024 resolution.. Even with the correct driver running now it could not pickup the cards valid settings.

Compbiz is much more interesting than Vista Aero Glass.. Way more fun options and MUCH better task switchers.

[Tom]

This is why I like VBox. Its faster, and has the same features as VMWare server on linux. And uses Qt for the gui, so its automatically better