My impressions of 12.04 alpha 2

[BlueDaisy]

Hello. as my internet was working, I was going to try 12.04 alpha one, then noticed alpha 2 was coming out, so I waited and download alpha 2.

My computer:
DELL Inspiron-531S
AMD X2 dual core processor 5000+
3 GB RAM, NVIDIA GForce 6150 LE

Here are my impressions so far:

-The nouveau NVIDIA driver is much better, and desktop effects work much smoother than in the past with them. (although they aren't good yet at handling 3-d software and games on my computer)

-The sound notifications are absent, but the forum instructions fix this.

-Booting into KDE has become a few seconds faster than 11.10

-the drivers enabled pressure senstivity on my CTL-460 wacom tablet, which they didn't in 11.10

-Reconq has improved it's speed in that it's starting to catch up to Firefox, which is important if it has to be the default browser.

-The new Ubuntu medium fonts are a LOT better on 12.04 than the regular fonts in 11.10, as they seem more space-economical.

-Moun Package Manager is much better when it comes to notifying you of dependencies, but somehow when I first opened it, it broke the font rendering, so I had to go to system settings to render them manually. (It could also be the fault of starting Lancelot, but either way the problem stopped occuring after configuing the fonts manually)

-The Update Manager is much more convienent and good looking, but I wish it would show package updates individually, rather than in one cycle.

-Muon Software Center is better when warning about removing some packages, but I hope in newer updates that they finally show in apps how many bytes to download after all the dependencies needed with them.

-(Not the fault of Kubuntu) My favorite application Blender at this point is at 2.59 in the software repositories. I hope before the feature freeze it hits at least 2.61: that was the milestone release that has really wonderful features, to the point that it clogged the blender website in demands.

-Ever since 11.04, ubuntu distrobutions have not been able to set display resolutions correctly for the GRUB2 bootloader my 1440x900 monitor. The problem persists in this release, although it's easy to resolve anyway.

Overall, however, it's really responsive, and a step faster than 11.10. I hope 12.04 becomes perfect in the end!

[malbolgias]

I loaded 12.04 on a new computer after a few days usind 11.10. !2.04 has been much more stable for me in its alfa state than what I had experienced with 11.10 on this new computer as well as taking into account my laptop. I am very happy with how everything is working, the only problems I am having is with AMD Video drives. X dies after a couple of switching between full screen games like minecraft.

[SteveRiley]

the only problems I am having is with AMD Video drives. X dies after a couple of switching between full screen games like minecraft.

Try the updated X.Org stack and graphics drivers.

[malbolgias]

Did that and my pc became unbootable, it would get stuck on the kubuntu boot screen and it was imposible to get a terminal. Had to boot with a live cd and chroot to downgrade the packages.

[SteveRiley]

Oh, sorry about that. xorg-edgers isn't perfect, but in my experience it works more often than it doesn't.

Did you try the ppa-purge method of reverting to previous drivers?

[baronharkonnen]

Pulling git builds of core system components isn't a good thing to do unless you know how to back them out when they start causing problems. (and it is when, not if).

[Teunis]

Sure it can be harder to reverse builds but in this case it was deb's from a ppa.

[baronharkonnen]

xorg-edgers isn't exactly simple to remove if you have anything that depends on ia32-libs or the i386 versions of multiarched packages.

Removing xorg-edgers later on will want to remove all of that and any 32-bit software you have installed, including but not limited to Google Earth (even the one that claims to be 64-bit), most of the humble bundle games (including some that claim to be 64-bit), and of course Wine.

That's assuming it doesn't go crazy and prevent you from being able to use a graphical log in.

Recommending it to people without mentioning that it could be dangerous, difficult to get rid of, and time consuming when that happens is irresponsible.

[SteveRiley]

xorg-edgers isn't exactly simple to remove if you have anything that depends on ia32-libs or the i386 versions of multiarched packages.

Removing xorg-edgers later on will want to remove all of that and any 32-bit software you have installed, including but not limited to Google Earth (even the one that claims to be 64-bit), most of the humble bundle games (including some that claim to be 64-bit), and of course Wine.

I've successfully ppa-purge'd xorg-edgers in exactly the scenario you describe.

[baronharkonnen]

I've successfully ppa-purge'd xorg-edgers in exactly the scenario you describe.

They keep their own version of the 32-bit libs in xorg-edgers and ppa-purge isn't smart enough to just revert to the ones from Ubuntu and leave your installed 32-bit software intact.

I just stopped dealing with xorg-edgers once I realized that whenever I want to remove it, I have to get rid of all my 32-bit software and reinstall all of it after ppa-purge is done.

[SteveRiley]

Then I wonder why our experiences have been so different? When I ppa-purge'd xorg-edgers, the ia32-libs reversion succeeded...my Wine installation remained intact.

[baronharkonnen]

Then I wonder why our experiences have been so different? When I ppa-purge'd xorg-edgers, the ia32-libs reversion succeeded...my Wine installation remained intact.

Ever since Oneiric and the botched Debian multiarch thing, Wine 32 hasn't even been installable without the PPA that has multiarched Wine, installing wine:i386 will otherwise fail when it can't find packages that don't exist.

If you just tell it to install Wine, you get Wine 64, with no 32-bit support, because Wine has its own funky multiarch deal going on there with its approximation of Windows WoW64 process context switcher. I tried running some 32-bit Windows software in Wine64, and it will either fail or end up freezing X when it attempts to load and then can't find some 32-bit library on your system that it needs.

Apparently, proper multiarching for Wine is on the target list for Precise, but to my knowledge it hasn't landed yet (and they never keep up to date Wine in the distribution itself anyway). I might yank out the multiarch Wine PPA later and see if I can get the version from the Ubuntu repo to install or possibly the Oneiric version from the official Wine PPA. *sigh*

This multiarch thing is a disaster and violates the FHS, but that is hardly worth going into. It would be better if they just had /usr/lib and /usr/lib64 and ilk like FHS compliant distributions do. It might be hard on the eyes, but it works.

I've already gone way off the topic though, which was xorg-edgers. I just thought I'd mention that removing it would nuke all your 32-bit software and libraries, and now I've gone off on a tangent about Debian's FHS violation and that multiarch itself is dumb. *sigh*

EDIT: Oh wow, they finally did multi-arch it in the official PPA version for Oneiric.

I added the official PPA, changed it to point to Oneiric, and installed Wine:i386. And it...worked. Yay! For a while they were chucking new versions of Wine into the PPA that wouldn't even install (32) or work even if they did (64).

[SteveRiley]

Ah, I think I understand why we see different behavior, then. I'm using Wine 1.3 (x64) from the WineHQ PPA, which doesn't have an ia32-libs for Oneiric.

Oh... this is on my Oneiric laptop. I haven't installed Wine on my Precise laptop.

[malbolgias]

I purged via live cd and all went well but my wine was killed as well. Just re installed it so no problems here. I also installed amd's drivers but stilln no luck.