Ubuntu Fans Move Quickly to Ubuntu 9.04
According to the poll, conducted over the past three weeks:
- 71 percent of WorksWithU readers are already running Ubuntu 9.04
- 11 percent planned to upgrade sometime in April
- 11 percent planned to upgrade within three months
When it comes to deploying Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), Canonical’s installed base seems to be a loyal, eager crowd. To wit, the vast majority of WorksWithU site visitors have already upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04, according to an informal reader poll.
According to the poll, conducted over the past three weeks:
- 71 percent of WorksWithU readers are already running Ubuntu 9.04
- 11 percent planned to upgrade sometime in April
- 11 percent planned to upgrade within three months
- 5 percent had no plans to use Ubuntu 9.04
- 2 percent planned to upgrade before the end of 2009
I’m not suggesting Ubuntu 9.04 is going to become a dominant, mainstream operating system. Also, the poll certainly wasn’t a scientific.
However, Canonical’s core user base seems to have strong faith in Ubuntu’s ongoing quality — though some readers (including our own Christopher Tozzi) have had issues with video cards.
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I tested Jaunty on my laptop (on a spare HD) and everything worked very nicely.
Between that and the number of positive review on the Ubuntuforums I figured I would give it a try on the desktop. I upgraded the Edubuntu Gutsy Gibbon desktop to 9.04 and everything has been working fine so far.
My primary laptop is still running 8.04 but that is until I can get a comfortable enough backup of the /home directories and the time to not only fresh install Jaunty, but the needed applications as well!
I have installed so many programs on these systems that I don’t want anymore, that cluttered up my hard disks and I didn’t want to bother updating ALL of these that I decided to do a fresh install on both systems.
Then, when it’s time to update again, I may decide to do an upgrade instead of a fresh install.
My server, though, is still running 8.04 LTS and probably will until the next LTS comes out.
(sorry, forgot this point of opinion)
From what I’ve seen, Jaunty has been the best Ubuntu so far. It is faster than the previous ones, works with more hardware (including my Microsoft LifeCam webcam) and the applications and user-friendly tweaks make it so easy to work with.
Would like to emhasise that I am not at all a Ubuntufan. I DID swap to Ubuntu, and the reason is that this is the very first Ubuntu installation since 7.04 and partially 7.10 that has fulfilled my expectations (based upon Ubuntu promises).
In fact Kubuntu 9.04 is far far better than expectations and matches any other distro in this respect.
Now, whether Ubuntu improves their focus on bugfixing with this release remains to be seen.
I certainly do hope so as my opinion is that Ubuntu pull their attention from released versions faster than kids pulling their hand out of boiling water.
I almost always upgrade on release date, just have to make sure to keep a separate /home partition. So doing a fresh install on the root partition takes about 20-30 minutes, no files to restore as they’re already there (delete all the hidden directories and settings if you want the full effect – just keep Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, etc..). Then the only thing that might take you an hour or two is reconfiguring (if you removed those files) e-mail, syncing up you calendar, etc. and installing any additionally needed applications.
Jaunty was a different story though, I backed everything up and reformatted everything so I could get that ext4 goodness. Should be safe even if your not reformatting the /home directory to back it up anyway though, but I’m not really one to preach that 🙂
Sorry, here at work the servers are still on 8.04 LTS also. My play server at home though gets a fresh install a couple of times a day :). Here at work my computer also gets updated every six months though, with /home on a separate partition.
Personally, I’m not going to upgrade my laptop until the problems with the Intel video driver are fixed. I use it in local install-fest and Ubuntu gatherings to show off desktop effects and make demos, and lousy graphics are a real show-stopper.
I upgraded my Kubuntu desktop machine to 9.04 and have been going through a rough road with the ati Xpress 200 built-in card.
What can I say… upgrade to Jaunty is not for everyone.
So far it looks like 1 out of 3 Jaunty users have had “many problems” with the release.
http://ubuntuforums.org/poll.php?do=showresultsamp;pollid=4964
This is a pretty bad statistic, but at least it’s better than the 45% that had serious problems with Intrepid.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=963853
Time-based releases are hit or miss, I guess.
I’ve been avoiding the “upgrade” after all the problems and regressions I’ve had with previous releases.
32-bit 9.04 works fairly well on my laptop. All the major niggles more or less ironed out.
64-bit 9.04 on my desktop is a different story. DVDs don’t play, it locks up when returning from a screen saver or locked screen and applications crash at random. If a fresh install doesn’t iron things out I might go back to 32-bit and use PAE to try and get my full 8GB of RAM.
I upgraded to Jaunty in my Desktop (Ati vga), but I was shocked with the regression in the Intel Driver and had to refrain from upgrading my Laptop and my netbook. When this regression is fixed, I ‘ll upgrade both immediately.
Yup, good release for me (not an Intel user).
Currently i have only two issues with Ubuntu 9.04
Ugly fonts on some websites
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1093157
and bad audio playback in some flash videos, related propably to Pulse Audio…
http://vimeo.com/3082659
After 4 or 5 years as a relatively happy Mandrake/KDE user, I tried 4.10 and have remained a faithful Ubuntu/Gnome user ever since.
I must say though, that after years of excitedly awaiting every new version coming out, I think when the next Desktop LTS comes out, I shall stick to just LTS releases. As I am not a coder (just someone who loves timkering) I have found the graphics of 9.04 a little nerve-wracking. My main machine is an AMD780G board which runs 8.04 pretty solidly and 9.04 a little shakily as far as graphics are concerned.
My test machine, however, (Intel DG945GCLF) still hasn’t completed its first lap of 9.04’s Supertuxkart however, despite some improvement with updates!
If I can keep my ten-year old happy with the latest versions of games like Supertuxart and Cultivation, which are both much changed in 9.04 (she tells me!), I won’t bother upgrading to every new release.
Note to self – learn about backports and installing tarballs to /usr/local/…!
I have an Intel, and upgraded with no real problems. My screen flickers randomly every once and a while, but doesn’t interrupt or damage anything, so I’m willing to let that go.
I like the new popups, suspend/hibernate finally works on my laptop, and it’s very slick. I think this is the best ever Ubuntu.
Now all I have to do is convince my husband to upgrade (he’s on 7.04).
I installed the 9.04 version over the 8.04 LTS I’d been using on my on-the-road Dell Mini-9. The first install from a downloaded ISO file didn’t work so well. The second time after the install, it was missing Nautilus and desktop icons upon startup, but was finally back once nautilus was in the startup list. Since then 9.04 has been a real winner on my Mini-9 being fast and feeling solid.
The best fix over the Dell version of 8.04 on my Mini is that rsync using ssh from my business laptop to the Mini finally authenticates properly and allows the synchronization to proceed normally. (no more swapping a USB key)
My office computers–laptop and server–both still use 8.04 LTS because I like the stability of that environment and the applications there just have to work the same way every day.
Everything worked perfectly using the 9.04 liveCD but I am staying with Ubuntu 8.04 because I have programs installed and is set up the way I want it and most of all, it is a delight to use. It’s my main work horse so I’ll wait until 10.04.
I have install it too. so far all device works fine, screen could reach upto 1280×800. Great, fade out effect like vista are on. So i figure compiz works fine, but i did not see any option on appearence?? Where to config compiz by the way?. The other problem is i could not hibernate due to lack of swap? Funny since I parted the HD using partition magic 8 and i choose 2GB because my RAM is 2Gb. Do you have any solution? I dual boot with windows xp, I use 20GB for ubuntu.
I finally upgraded to 9.04. I have a very simple system, i just needed a desktop to do some browsing and aMule. Since this PC is up all the time, I rarely turn on my Windows XP anymore. I still have my 8.10 for dual boot – I’ll keep this for awhile.
Hello there
I have problem with Skype audio feedback. When I call someone with skype, they can here my voice, but I can not here their.
Same problem with test call, I hear operator coice, but I can not hear my own voice back.
How to fix this, if anyone has idea/
Thank you in advance
rick