A Diehard SUSE User Tries Ubuntu 6.10

By: Rob Reilly
Tuesday, November 7, 2006 10:18:05 AM EST
URL: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reviews/6329/1/

Fast, Carefree Installation

Unless you are living under a rock, you probably know production Ubuntu 6.10 was released on October 26. I'd heard that it was a nice package, but really haven't spent much time with it. SUSE Linux and I have been together for quite a while and when you have something that works, you stick with it. Many readers are probably in the same boat.

Nevertheless, curiosity got the better of me, so I figured an Ubuntu review from a SUSE user's perspective made sense.

With my foot in the carburetor (that's hot-rod lingo for moving forward quickly), I went ahead and downloaded the 64-bit ISO for my HP Athlon 64 laptop, as well. Go big or go home.

Downloading and burning the ISO onto a DVD was a breeze with K3B and SUSE Linux 10.0. Some download servers are faster than others, so shop around to find the best one. I ended up with a 400-500 KB/second connection, so it only took a few minutes to get the 690 MB ISO onto my hard disk.

Be sure to use the "Burn DVD ISO Image" button under the Tools menu. Life will also be much easier if you boot your new DVD while your Cat 5 cable is plugged in and working.

Ubuntu installs while you are running in Live CD mode. The machine will boot and eventually you'll get a desktop. Here, you can either just work using the Live mode or click on the "install" icon at the upper left hand side of the desktop. You'll go through a few screens asking for your language, time zone, user name, password, and so on. Fill everything in and then select the option to re-partition the entire disk. In contrast, the SUSE Linux installation (9 and 10.0 series) gives you a bunch of options for installation, but didn't have a live mode.

After Ubuntu goes through its installation, you can remove the DVD and restart from the hard disk.

One difference that I noticed was that Ubuntu uses the same password for the installation user (in my case "rreilly") and root. SUSE requires that you fill in the regular user and root's passwords during installation. Change root's password under System -> Administration -> User and Groups.

Another stark departure from the SUSE way is the GNOME desktop in place of KDE. The task bar has slightly different labels and is placed at the top of the desktop. Must we have so many options? To ease the pain of being KDE-less, I grabbed the GNOME tool bar and moved it down to the bottom of the screen.

Don't get me wrong, GNOME is a solid desktop manager, just like KDE. Both are stable and reliable. Operations are also similar. GNOME seems to start faster, although my KDE setup does automatically start OpenOffice.org, Firefox, and a few terminals. And, you could even install KDE on Ubuntu if you really wanted. (See my mention of the Synaptic Package Manager, later in this story.)

Before I could talk to anything on my network, I went into System -> Administration -> Networking and plugged my Earthlink DNS server addresses into the wired (eth0) network's DNS form. Strangely, after a reboot, the DNS entries reverted to my router's address (192.168.2.2). In any event, I was able to connect to everything.

Features And Basic Tweaking

Ubuntu detected my Ethernet chip, CD/DVD drive, 1280x800 wide-screen LCD, generic wheel mouse, and the mouse pad. Imagine my surprise, upon pushing the "WWW" laptop button, Firefox 2.0 popped up on the screen. I was happy to see that the volume control and mute buttons worked, too. I had none of those out of the box with SUSE.

Ubuntu is right up to date with the latest software. Firefox 2.0 is there, as is OpenOffice.org 2.0.4. Those of you that need a raster graphics package will appreciate The Gimp version 2.2.13. All of these worked without hassle.

GNOME didn't seem to remember what applications were running after a desktop restart. I had to restart OpenOffice.org and Firefox manually. Surely, there is a way to get programs restarted automatically. SUSE repopulates all your desktop windows, as they were in the last session, most of the time.

Connecting to a Samba share (could be a Windows file server) worked, too. Go into Places -> Connect To Server and fill in the form. Select Windows (aka: Samba) share. I put in the server IP address, share name (as defined in the /etc/samba/smb.conf file on the Samba server), the user and domain names. When the connection comes up, it will ask for the user password and then connect. The connection is persistent across desktop restarts and reboots.

As I've come to expect with any Linux installation, the Broadcom WiFi, won't work. Fact of life. Some day the vendors will realize the merits of providing Linux drivers. It looked like Ubuntu tried to install a driver for the wireless, but it failed. I tried installing the ndiswrapper binary, but didn't get very far, due to an error. I suspect the binary isn't compatible with this installed kernel. Although a show stopper for portable operations with a laptop, the wired Ethernet connection worked fine.

While I've been a fan of the YAST package manager in SUSE, Ubuntu's Synaptic program was a joy to use. In typical Debian apt-get style, you pick the packages you want to install in Synaptic and it goes out and grabs the latest revisions from the servers, then installs them. Dependencies are checked and resolved, making the whole process quick and transparent. YAST is easy, but being RPM based, has occasional dependency hiccups or conflicts. I did have to go into the Repositories screen and check the Community Maintained (universe) and Software Restricted By Copyright (multiverse) boxes to get the full complement of software choices.

Another thing that didn't work was 3D acceleration for my nVidia GeForce4 440 video controller. The problem was quickly solved by installing the current version of nvidia-glx and changing the Driver="nv" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to driver="nvidia". A restart brought up the video card in 3D mode and then I installed Tuxracer for a test. Both myself and my kids have fun flying the slick little bird down the icy mountains and gobbling up herring. The process was considerably less seamless with YAST and SaX2 in SUSE.

Other programs that aren't loaded by default include XMMS, inkscape, or Bluefish. I use all of these on a regular basis, but loading them through Synaptic is fairly painless.

I would have also liked to have seen a terminal screen somewhere on the desktop. Experienced users accustomed to using the command line, will need to round up a terminal from the menu tree and drag it out to the desktop.

You might want to pick up a copy of Sams Publishing "Ubuntu Unleased" by Andrew and Paul Hudson. It covers version 6.06 LTS. I saved a lot of time during this review because answers to questions on installation and configuration were easily found in the book.

Wrapping Up

Ubuntu 6.10 is a good candidate for people just getting into Linux. Installation is straightforward, although you might need to collect your DNS, Samba (Windows) share, and printer addresses before setting up networking.

Experienced Linux users will appreciate the Synaptic package manager and the ability to easily use apt-get from the command line. It's good to see very current package like Firefox 2.0 and OpenOffice.org 2.0 in this release.

Go out and get a spare drive, stick it in your machine and give Ubuntu 6.10 a try. It's a reliable and feature filled product.

Now I understand about all the positive buzz.

Rob Reilly is a consultant, trend spotter, and writer. He is a contributing editor for Linux Today. He advises clients on portable business computing and presentation technology integration. You can visit his web page at http://home.earthlink.net/~robreilly.