Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy” Tribe 5 : A Review

By | 2007/08/24
15 Comments

I recently re-installed my machine using the latest Ubuntu 7.10 alpha “Tribe 5”. There are some things that I thought the public would like to hear about, and also a few bugs I found and submitted. If you are able to duplicate the bugs please follow the links and offer any additional information you can.

Points of interest:

  • Resolution detected and setup properly out-of-the-box (1280×800, intel graphics chipset – macbook)
  • Compiz “normal effects” enabled by default out-of-the-box
  • Fast-user switching enabled and applet applied out-of-the-box
  • 2.6.22-10-generic kernel (w00t!)
  • Appears to have main restricted universe and multiverse enabled by default, also the commercial repo is listed but de-activated (easy activation via radio-button click)
  • System-config-printer replacing old printer utility. Zero configuration required for supported printers. Connect and Print.
  • Partition table recognized as gpt on my macbook. Minor but its getting smarter 🙂

Bugs of interest: (bugs I submitted or appended today)

None of these were show stopping bugs. Some minor annoyances, some things that need to be polished a bit.

For those wondering I am running this on a C2D macbook (early 2007 release). I am using LVM (for those hoping for LVM improvements), and running the 64bit release.

Again, I invite you to help improve the next release of Ubuntu by testing the alpha within a VM or spare machine. The more bugs we can squash previous to the final release the more polished Ubuntu 7.10 will be!

15 thoughts on “Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy” Tribe 5 : A Review”

  1. Ian MacGregor

    None of these were show stoppers? I beg to differ. Compiz/Beryl is nothing more than a resource-wasting, unnecessary, problem-contributing, useless toy. One of the first things I will do if Compiz or Beryl is enabled by default is take that useless piece of crap completely out of the system.. it’s garbage and should never have been allowed to be “enabled by default” in the first place. Toddlers might like it, but it doesn’t do anything for productivity. Of course the kids who like it will come up with all sorts of garbage in a vain attempt to justify its use.

    How did this junk end up in Ubuntu anyway?

  2. Gwendal

    Compiz/Beryl is not the kind of software I like to, but it has a great impact in term of public relations. It allows to show to non-Linux users that it is possible to make “awesome” 3D effects, even better than those Vista do. It shows that Linux has left the “command line only” world that just nerds can use to enter in an era where anyone can use it.

    When I showed to a friend videos of Beryl on Youtube, we both agreed that most of the effects would be disturbing on the long term. But at the same time, he was very impressed and gave him one more reason to try to switch to Linux.

    I think that’s why it ended up in Ubuntu

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  4. Big Dan

    Been following this blog a while via Planet Ubuntu, nice place you’ve got here. 🙂

    I did a review of tribe 4 with a bunch of screen shots on my blog a week or so ago. All in all, I like it but it’s nothing to write home about.

    Probably the best improvement is making /home more windowsesqe with predefined video, music, pictures, and documents directory.

    Everything they’ve done if for new users. Those of use who already use Ubuntu have configured our printers, and followed wikis to add a PDF printer. We’ve also made our own directory structure.. Nuttin new to see here. 😉

    I don’t see anything *must upgrade* in this release. Much like the upgrade from Edgy to Feisty.

  5. Antonio Salazar

    I differ strongly, Compiz in *not* a useless resource waste. It might be a resource waste, but far from useless. There are many useful features, for example:

    The Exposé-like Scaling plugin lets you choose among many windows easily, and even find those frustrating dialogs who didn’t want to steal focus.

    Well used, a slight transparency lets you keep up with your email in the foreground while you monitor the progress of your compilations in the background, both full-screen.

    The enhanced zoom plugin gives far better performance than the software scaling of many games or media players, with usually equal or better definition.

    The group plugin lets you group individual windows as a sort of tabbed interface, which I find more productive than manually keeping track of their relations.

    I’m pretty sure more useful plugins will be developed in the future, but I can’t deny that working in a modern and attractive environment really does wonders for your morale, and hence your productivity. I use Compiz all the time unless I really need the extra resources for something else, which is a rare occurrence.

  6. Athropos

    * Compiz “normal effects” enabled by default out-of-the-box

    Does that mean that Metacity is no longer the default WM for Gnome on Ubuntu? Compiz has come along way, but it’s IMHO still far from being a rock-stable WM…

  7. Lane

    My complaint about Compiz is that there seems to be no easy intro to its use and configuration. At least the last time I tried it, you needed to be in love with it to use it.

    I’ve tried Tribes 4 and 5, and with both of them, as soon as I did a complete update, they were broken. I don’t have time now to analyze the problem and report it, so I guess I’ll wait for a beta.

  8. Mahyar

    Will Compiz work with an integrated VIA chipset? It doesn’t currently on Feisty.

  9. Onkar

    You fotgot to mention …
    1. Latest xorg and new intel driver , the reasons behind out-of-box support for weird resolution.
    2. OpenOffice.org 2.3 RC (I guess). It has really fast startup.
    3. Latest rhythmbox with new icons and support for MTP devices.
    4. Tracker by default.
    5. Almost every other software upgraded to latest version except ekiga. 🙁

  10. Martin

    Cofiguring Compiz is not that hard.. just install the CompizConfig Setting Manager..

  11. Thomas

    About Compiz: I think this is NOT a bad evolution and it allows for some great features that will increase productivity.

    – The ‘fading’ of windows is much easyer on the eyes (especailly on big monitors)
    – The switching between multiple desktops is much more intuitive, I like the feature where you can zoom out and see 4 desktops near each other for a quick, in detail overview. I don’t use the cube.
    – Previews in taskbar are easy when having a lot of windows open
    – Going to next desktop is simple as moving your mouse to the edge of the screen and doing a mouseclick (never happens unintentionaly thanks to the needed mouse click
    – The function where you can see all open windows together on your screen and click the one which u want to go to is also very easy

    What’s next? The possiblities are endless and anyone can use the compiz framework to build his/her ultimate plugin.

    Compiz is not bad. I will turn off wobbly windows and crap like that too, but a lot of the other features are very handy.

  12. Lane

    After another install and update, things work pretty well for a while. But then I start resizing a window in KDE, and the system hangs hard. Maybe it’s a KDE-version problem, rather than a Gutsy problem… but I prefer KDE.

  13. Lane

    Since my problem with Gutsy seemed related to KDE, I thought I’d take a look at Ubuntu with just Gnome. But this error message kept me from installing it:
    migration-assistant needs to mount a partition, but cannot do so because the following mount point could not be unmounted:
    /mnt/migrationassistant

  14. CalcProgrammer1

    I have the exact same problem. It seems that when trying to set up dual booting with an NTFS partition, 7.10 fails because that stupid migration assistant complains about mounting stuff…please…OPTIONAL! Make the stupid migration optional…I want Ubuntu, if I want my Windows stuff…I’ll boot Windows! Install and don’t worry about things that aren’t important…it won’t let me install because of that.

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