In which the author has a brainwave about how to approach the wife test.
Download Finished
The beta release of Ubuntu 8.10 (that’s 2008-October) was posted a few hours ago, on time and as planned. Look on Microsoft and weep.
I downloaded it right away. Why not?
Clockwork Updates
The final release of Intrepid Ibex, as it’s codenamed, is scheduled to happen on October 30th. The chances of it not happening on time are probably small.
This ability to release software updates on time and to do it regularly is unprecedented. And not just software, but an operating system, which is to say an entire software ecosystem.
That’s a remarkable achievement. Even more remarkable is the fact that the software is of high quality and, despite prudent and appropriate recommendations against using it on production systems, it is in most cases usable immediately; it’s that good. Typically, only a few bugs affecting a few people are fixed between the beta and the final release. Nothing really new is introduced.
That being the case, I was willing to download it and put it on an old laptop I keep for trying out Linux distributions. I put it in the recycle pile one day and, sure enough, I needed to borrow it back for some reason I’ve now forgotten. It would be a good guest bedroom computer, if we had a guest bedroom.
The Computer That Wouldn’t Die
Perfect for Linux
It’s a 6 year old Compaq Presario P700 with a 20Gb hard drive and 512Mb memory which came with Windows XP Home Edition back when that was still quite new.
Feeble as it is, it works perfectly well with Linux. It has a good screen and keyboard, a DVD/CD drive and I use an old DLink DWL-650 wireless card with it–it predates built-in wireless networking.
As recently as April installing Ubuntu on it didn’t result in a working wireless connection. Ubuntu v8.04 fixed that.
I think it will not die for a few years yet, though it is heavier than anyone would want to put up with now; at 3.3kg it’s a full 2kg heavier than my Asus 1000.
What’s GNU?
Most of what will feature in the new version of Ubuntu has been publicised already including the update to the desktop environment: Gnome (v2.24, description and some links here).
If Gnome doesn’t mean anything have a look at the release notes for this version. It provides the default graphical user interface for Ubuntu.
Mainly, I was curious to see if there would be a new default theme, as originally promised. The default is an unattractive brown. And so it remains, alas. Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical’s CEO, has promised to invest in boosting the product’s attractiveness for the next release, v9.04. Yes, the default theme can be changed, but many prospective buyers will likely not give it a 2nd look.
Here’s what jumped out me:
Startling blue lugworms
When partitioning a disk during installation the disk space is shown graphically in the form of before and after blue lugworms. Why worms and not cylinders or circles, as used by the linux utility filelight which show you where your disk space has gone, with annotated slices? Still, they are fairly spiffy looking lugworms, even if the annotation is still a bit jumbled.
Your battery may be old or broken
When the installation finished Ubuntu kindly advised me that my battery, with 31% power supposedly, might be a bit past it. Indeed it is. Very tired indeed. Almost indistinguishable from dead. Thanks.
3 Updates Pending
I must have been one of the first to hit the update function on a hot-off-the-press release, but already there were three minor updates. Impressive? Or not?
On balance, yes. You don’t hear of people saying “I’ll wait for the first service pack to fix all the bugs” with Ubuntu. The develop, freeze, fix, release, update cycle works. At this point Ubuntu 8.10 is in the fix cycle where the last bugs are being killed before the release. A few may not be fixed or may be discovered later, but it won’t really matter. They’ll be fixed and updates will be available.
Tabbed File Browsing
Gnome tabs
It’s nice. Very nice! Probably the single most obvious change (click for a larger picture).
I suspect many will not even notice the variable width columns when browsing files in list mode (“details” in Windows).
I can’t live without a good side-by-side file and directory comparison tool. There’s no sign of that being built-in and I can’t see anything touching Beyond Compare, for which I’m happy to pay, even on a free operating system (it’s that good) — but you can get it for very little if you upgrade a Windows license.
Encrypted Private Directory
One of the most anticipated features of Ubuntu 8.10 is its ability to encrypt a private directory, making its contents secure against unauthorized access (ordinarily physical possession is sufficient for access to anything on a laptop).
It’s also one of the most sorely needed features. It would be an exaggeration to say that hardly a day passes in the UK now without some loss of confidential information by the government being reported, but not a wild one. Ars Technica has noted
The British government is to data protection as Hurricane Katrina was to New Orleans property values.
Adopting Ubuntu would help address this problem. For now, the public is being silly and you can probably hear rants about government incompetence in any pub when the problem is human nature not goverment.
Read User Education is not the Answer to Security Problems if you doubt it, or visit the London Transport Lost Property Office, a few steps from Sherlock Holme’s old digs around the corner. 156,000 items a year are left on London Transport vehicles and I guaratee that a growing number of them contain digital information. People lose stuff. They always have and they always will.
It’s possible to retrofit encrypted directory functionality to earlier versions of Ubuntu and other linux distributions (see here for example; but the mechanics are not user friendly). What Ubuntu 8.10 promised was seamlessness: a directory named Private in one’s home folder that would be encrypted automatically.
Alas, it’s not there and the ecryptfs-utils package needed for this is not installed by default. Data won’t be secure until this kind of encryption is there out-of-the-box and a no-brainer to use.
The help information wasn’t very helpful. I don’t know yet if I used the wrong search terms or the information just isn’t there.
Update:
I gather the installer offers an option to create a Private folder. Argh!! I missed it. OK, so you know to watch out for that.
Update2:
Wrong! Here’s how to set up the Private folder:
Using terminal mode enter the following commands
sudo aptitude install ecryptfs-utilsecryptfs-setup-private
What Didn’t Jump Out At Me
This version has support for 3G networking built-in. I didn’t see it or try it, of course, not with this machine. I inquired about a 3G USB modem for use with my Asus 1000 but they’re only sold with Windows software at the moment. Support in the OS is excellent news therefore.
Ubuntu now supports “guest sessions” which make it possible to loan a computer to someone with no need to worry that they’ll mess it up or access information they shouldn’t. After a person who logs in as guest logs out the guest account is deleted. It’s as if it never happened. A nice bit of polish, especially for laptop users.
Under The Hood
This version of Ubuntu uses a new Linux kernel: 2.6.27-4-generic. My other Ubuntu computers are running versions of 2.6.24. The differences are not things most people need to know about, except in one respect. Later kernels support new hardware.
Thus, my Asus 1000 PC needs a specially adapted kernel because Linux doesn’t know about it yet. But the beauty of the Linux development process (described here) is that useful developments can be assimilated, removing the need for separate versions, which is what my Asus 1000 EEE PC needs now. This is the main reason I’m running Ubuntu-eee, a customised version of Ubuntu, on it.
I’m hoping that by the time Ubuntu 8.10 ships I’ll be able to run a standard version with full hardware support for my Asus netbook. As yet, some of the function keys and the trackpad (which I don’t use) are not fully supported. It’s just a minor annoyance. But Adam McDaniel’s indication that he may not need to release a custom kernel is a sign of Linux’s growing maturity.
Looking Ahead
I have had a genius idea on how to get the boss to move to Ubuntu! I’ve suggested it every time her Windows Vista PC needs to have its printing fixed yet again (it breaks constantly). She’s a perfect candidate–she just uses the web and email and a little word processing. But she doesn’t want to hear of it. She looked at me recently, suspecting I’d done something I wasn’t telling her, and she said with alarm
You haven’t switched my computer to Ubuntu have you?!
I looked shocked. Moi?! Really, I would never do a thing like that!
A Live CD perhaps, now that I think of it, just for a joke, so that it looks as if I’ve done it. But even that hadn’t crossed my mind.
What I will do is set up her old computer with Ubuntu 8.10 and configure it to work with her email and copy her files onto it and then and invite her to try it for a few days.
Then I can write an article called The Great Ubuntu Wife Test. (The girlfriend test has been done, and pulled from the web!, and a wife test would be a good update, surely?). How bad could it be? We survived her teaching me to drive.
Just imagine:
- no more anti-virus “scareware” as Avira pops-up its scary messages
- the computer will be secure against spyware
- no more messages about programs being blocked on startup and then tiresome investigations
- printing will work all the time
- software will be free and always up to date
- moving to a new computer will be trivial
She would never agree to my demonstrating this with her existing computer (I blame her brother who could never put things together again after he took them apart, not perfectly anyway; she learned to be skeptical of boyish enthusiasms and reassurances early on).
But the old computer will seem familiar<evil laugh>! And if she finds she can live with it and only complains that it’s slow I could put wubi on her Toshiba and let her try running Ubuntu there alongside Windows.
What Ubuntu really needs is a killer application.
Related posts:
- My Vista Ubuntu Double Standard My brother in law gave me some grief recently for having recommended Vista to him a couple of years ago. I had suggested that he...
- Asus EEE PC 1000 With Ubuntu & Chrome: An Inflection Point Inflection Point Most of us remember getting a first laptop, using the web for the first time, getting an immediate reply to an email from...
- Windows XP: 1, Linux: 0 The Princess is about to leave for an au pair job in Turkey and needs a laptop for Email Web browsing “Facebooking” Transfering photographs from...
- Ubuntu 8.04 And The ATEN CS1734B If you install Ubuntu 8.04 on a system with an ATEN CS1734B switch it may be worth connecting the monitor directly during the installation....
- Why Pigs Have Wings There are only 10 days to the next release of Ubuntu Linux, version 7.10 (for 2007-Oct; Wikipedia article here). Much as I would like to...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Nice article. One minor note: 8.10 is not a LTS release, the previous 8.04 release was.
Oops! You’re right. Fixed. Thanks!
Very well written review. By the way, using the “alternate” install disk, the encrypted private folder feature can be installed as an optional feature. :-) Just after disk partitioning.
I’m to assume this is still pretty “techy”, therefore has been placed in the alternate version, which also includes the encrypted LVM feature.
Ubuntu’s killer app is apt-get/synaptics.
I’m not sure that we’ll ever see a “search the repositories for thousands of software apps and install whatever you want” system on windows or even OSX.
I agree that it’s a great capability but if what’s available just isn’t that compelling it’s a bit moot. Sturgeon’s law applies. The 10% is getting better, however.
I have needed to upgrade for a long time. With graduate school starting immanently I needed to make a decision and going from a 17″ notebook (Dell) to something smaller was a snag for me.
That is, until I found about the ASUS 1005HA. When I learned about the battery life, the memory, hard drive, processor, etc., I was willing to downsize my screen size in favor of portability and speed. It runs all of my programs well and I hope to get years of service out it. Plus, for the price – you can’t beat it . . . way better than shelling out $1,000.00 on a Dell.