Trying out Ubuntu 7.04 Beta

I saw Ubuntu 7.04 Beta release note via slashdot.org. I've been testing almost all alpha version so I've downloaded and testing the new beta version right now. I was hoping for better driver support for my NVIDIA graphics card but it still sucks. Here are some new features and bugs I found:

As of version 2.6.18, the Linux kernel supports Gigabyte i-RAM. Except for the very first alpha version I tried, Ubuntu didn't have any problem using i-RAM. But it finally recognized i-RAM name during installation. No more guessing the hard drive by its size.

Another feature during installation is Migrate Documents and Settings. I was hoping to get saved passwords, Firefox bookmarks, and customized bookmarks bar(check this post). It failed to get any settings from Firefox, imported a lot of junks from My Documents folder but not from the desktop folder. However it imported the wallpaper and setup on the Linux desktop when I login first time. Later I founded out that it also imported more than 1GB of podcasts from My Music folder.

I was never able to run successfully Beryl on my machine:

• Athlon 64 3500+
• 1GB RAM
• GeForce FX 5900XT 128MB

Actually I wasn't even able to use Windows Vista Aero. It runs but it's too choppy and sluggish to do anything with Aero turn on. I've tried their Restricted Drivers, the binary driver from NVIDIA, to test Beryl again. The driver didn't crashed the system like alpha version and able to turn on some features but still unable run the 3-D cube desktop. It still had too many bugs so I had to turn it off. I don't expect to run Beryl on my computer when Feisty Fawn comes out of beta.

The coolest features in the beta version is that when a software is not installed on the system, it tells you how to get it. When I tried to use smbmount, it tells you

trogdor@trogdor-desktop:~$ smbmount
The program 'smbmount' is currently not installed.  You can
install it by typing: sudo apt-get install smbfs 
bash: smbmount: command not found 
trogdor@trogdor-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install smbfs

It took less than two minutes to mount the Windows shared folder on the Linux system. I don't know how many people know the command smbmount but I didn't know it was in the package name smbfs. I probably had to go to Google to find out.

I don't know whether it's from Ubuntu or xsane, but xsane now hangs whenever I use USB mouse. It never happened in previous version, even the gimp hangs during startup because xsane plugin.

I have no idea how was other users' experience on Ubuntu beta but I think it's still long way to go.