Natty

[mrgoose]

Anyone tried the latest Ubuntu, 11.04 yet? Codenamed Natty Narwhal, this latest release features the new but somewhat controversial "Unity" desktop.

What do you folks reckon? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Best wishes, G.

[codemonkey]

I've downloaded the ISO ready but haven't had a chance to install it on my laptop yet. From what I've read the Unity desktop will have a form of application bar much like Mac OS does?

[codemonkey]

Well just a little update. Tried the update route rather than a fresh install on my laptop and it completely mullered it. Seems to hang trying to detect the battery state on bootup and won't go any further.

Will try a fresh install from DVD and let you know how it goes.

[codemonkey]

Well Natty Narwhal really doesn't like my laptop. The installer won't display when booting off the DVD. May have to try an alternative installer disk to see if that actually works.

So far though, not a good effort this time. Especially considering Maverick Meerkat went on with no problems at all and had drivers for all the hardware. :td:

[Mr Grapes]

hi goose!

not tried natty yet (no time really) but will do soon. i wasn't impressed with unity on netbook edition of 10.10 so guessing i'm going to have a similar reaction to it, in which case i'll revert back to gnome or KDE...

but most of my (sparse) free time is being taken up with playing with android on an Orange San Francisco :D (brilliantly hack-friendly phone for peanuts. what's not to love ;))

[candtalan]

I have 11.04 installed as one of three ubuntu on this Isys Pro Q8300 which has

VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

There have been no problems, although obviously checked it out with a live cd first.

I have used it a few times (usually use 10.4) and even now, I find I am attracted back to it which is a bit odd because at first I was - wow this is weired.

Once I found what the Dash was, it is faster to use and easier than classic gnome. The launcher is nice, and again, once I found out how to manage the icons and add stuff into the launcher, it is not only nice, but - cool.

I think I will be moving to using it as my main version before long.

I also have tried it on a machine with
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
and this is not successful, the display is a problem, bug registered, confirmed.

I have another machine with 11.04, and it also works well.

[sparky51]

Better late than never

Not tried Natty yet always use LTS version on my main desktop, might try it on my laptop if I get time :thumbs: but I'm a bit busy try to get my VPS to update, it keeps running out of memory :mad:

[randommagik6]

Well Natty Narwhal really doesn't like my laptop. The installer won't display when booting off the DVD. May have to try an alternative installer disk to see if that actually works.

So far though, not a good effort this time. Especially considering Maverick Meerkat went on with no problems at all and had drivers for all the hardware. :td:
Try doing the USB option with an SD card

Did it with my 8GB, runs fine

Though my memory may be bad but it looks the same as the laptop version of 10.10?

[Pendragonuk]

I didn't like Unity at first but I have quickly become used to it. I have 11.04 installed on the Wife's PC, my netbook and a Desktop I use for videos and downloads.

My netbook was a ***** as always, due to funky GMA500 graphics. Both of the desktop computers installed very easily. One small thing of note, if your installing on a system with more than 3Gb of RAM still use the "recommended" 32bit version. The Ubuntu installer will automatically install the PAE version. The 64bit version has a few compatibility issues with drivers and stuff like Flash, none of them show stoppers, your PC will run just fine. The 32bit version generally runs a lot more smoothly, it's the "recommended" choice for a reason. Unlike Windows should only really need the 64bit version if you know that you will need it, and memory restrictions are not one of them.

[ckinren]

Got an Novatech Xplora E16 and did an update as opposed to a fresh install and everything went very smoothly and no problems encountered since I did the upgrade 3 weeks ago.

Like Pendragonuk I was a bit unsure about unity but after a few days I started to get used to it and now I probably prefer it 10.04 which I've got running on my desktop.

As a follow on question has anyone any experience of installing ubuntu onto a Novatech Gamma PC, or any of there "home range", as I'm considering replacing my current desktop and ubuntu is my distro of choice at present.

[Pendragonuk]

Ubuntu or almost any of the current crop of Linux Distros should install on any desktop computer. There are of course some things to think about... nVidia graphics card have better support than ATI/AMD. You don't really need 64bit unless you KNOW that you need it (monster encoding jobs). Linux gets around the 32bit memory address issue by using the PAE kernel. Gnome is going through some freaky changes so it might be time to have a look at using a different desktop environment. KDE has matured nicely after it's hiccups from moving to kde 4 a couple of years ago. KDE is way nicer to use right now than either Gnome3 or Ubuntu's Unity. I have given up on Unity at the mo and Gnome3 is in no better shape. I'm running Lububtu on my laptop and desktop, it's simple and lite. Have a look at kbuntu because that is a well sorted distro. Also have a look at some others, there is way more to Linux than Ubuntu. One of my personal favourite is PCLinuxOS, it has all of the problems and befits of having a really small dev community. The complete opposite of Ubuntu with it's multimillion supporter and thousands of international dev's. PCLinuxOS is a handful of people but mainly this one guy in Texas that dose 90% of it all on his own. I love that, much how Linux was 10 years ago before the corporate guys got involved, PCLinuxOS has a home brew feel that is refreshing and you will learn something.

Everyone has their own personal fav distro, go and explore.

[tea for one]

Anyone tried the latest Ubuntu, 11.04 yet? Codenamed Natty Narwhal, this latest release features the new but somewhat controversial "Unity" desktop.

What do you folks reckon? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Best wishes, G.

Good evening

Approx 4 weeks ago, I installed Ubuntu 11.04 on a Novatech X10 Netbook (last year's model with the Atom N450 processor).

The OS runs well bearing in mind the PC capability. Wired internet connection is automatic but you have to turn on the wireless device with Fn & F2, then it works well.

USB ports and SD card reader are flawless.

The only slight niggle is an audible buzz when you use headphones. The buzz cannot be heard by the headphone user but by other people nearby. i suspect that this is a little hardware issue?

The webcam is also detected using the software package Cheese.

The Ubuntu Unity interface is a bit of a learning curve and I am still willing to persevere with it. I have noticed that many users dislike Unity due to the lack of configuration options (i.e. you can't move the launcher and you can't add the old Gnome applets).

However, I expect there will be more configuration choices in the future as the development progresses.

Overall, I am pleased with the Netbook and happy to use 11.04. I have also dual booted 11.04 with other distributions (e.g. Lubuntu, Elementary & Bodhi Linux) but I generally end up using Ubuntu 11.04 on this little PC because it does everything I need on a portable PC.

[norm.h]

Got an Novatech Xplora E16 and did an update as opposed to a fresh install and everything went very smoothly and no problems encountered since I did the upgrade 3 weeks ago. Like Pendragonuk I was a bit unsure about unity but after a few days I started to get used to it and now I probably prefer it 10.04 which I've got running on my desktop. As a follow on question has anyone any experience of installing ubuntu onto a Novatech Gamma PC, or any of there "home range", as I'm considering replacing my current desktop and ubuntu is my distro of choice at present.

Having successfully upgraded my 32bit, custom built desktop from Ubuntu 10.10 to 11.04, I decided to do the same on my 64bit E16 Xplora laptop.

My first attempt was via Update Manager, which didn't install the Unity desktop, the pointer kept sticking, and the wifi connection kept dropping out, which made me suspect a driver issue.
Each time I rebooted, the desktop icons were in different positions.

I then tried a clean install using a cover CD, which although it installed the Unity desktop, I still had a sticking pointer and the dropping wifi connection.

The CD recommended having no internet connection (which I complied with), but Update Manager needs a connection, and at no time did it suggest disconnecting.

I then decided to return to 10.10, which meant having to install 10.04 from a CD and upgrade via Update Manager.

I'm now back to square one, but I would like to understand why 11.04 wouldn't install properly.
Could it be something as simple as the difference between 32 and 64 bit, and if so, why didn't either of the upgrade methods give any choice or recommendations?