First Look Ubuntu 9.10

I did an upgrade sometime last week and it broke my video.

I think the kernel was 2.2.28. Nonetheless at the exact version, now I was dead in the water. Knowing the 9.10 was close, I downloaded a RC version and installed on my laptop. I would then install on a spare 13 Gig drive in the Desktop. Live worked and even though it asked to install Restricted Drivers, seemed ok. I never have enabled Compiz and should run something else on the laptop. So I fiddled with it and rebooted to the desktop and was able to get to low graphics and attempt repair of NVidia 180 drivers.... which did not work. I installed the RC on the 13 Gigger and did the upgrades (medibuntu, restricted drivers for NVidia 180, Exaile, Pidgin (hated the new IM client with 9.10) and so on). It was not as stable as I liked, but I even installed grub2 graphics for boot screen. Since I use the FEBE extension, i SHOULD have the same desktop in FF on any system.

Last night I did the plunge and moved the contents of the 320 /home to another spare drive with rsynch. I did a NEW install of 9.04 and then installed NVidia 180. At reboot I had wobbly windows so all is well. I let Update Manager install 9.10 and so far no issues. I have to reinstall VirtualBox and will have to rsynch /home again for some settings.

[rant]For the average Windows user, this is a nightmare for an issue that is known to exist. I know 'buntus are released on the side of wobbly for sake of bells and whistles. I also know that Win7 was a reason to make it happen right this time. The fact that I knew how to tweak xorg was a help, but the average user will have struggles that IMO are unforgable for issues that are known. The users with broken ATI video are about the same numbers. [/rant]

My (not so humble) advise is two fold-

1- if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Wait a few weeks to instal/upgrade to 9.10

2- you will be happier it seems with a clean install than a upgrade.

:major

 

Ya, some %20 of folks had issues installing KK properly. I was OK probably because it was on a VM. There aren't too many new bells and whistles that I could see but for what I use it for(folding) it's the same as 9.04

 

My install of 9.10 went as smooth as 9.04 but I didn't upgrade I wiped and reinstalled however I am still having the same probs with video tearing that I had with 9.04 with my 4870

 

I upgraded a couple of days ago with no problems. Satisfied with the upgrade.

 

So far when I reinstalled the desktop and did two upgrades this week, all is well. I see NVidia 185 drivers now in use so perhaps the bugs were in Nvidia 180. Ubuntu by design is released with lower stability, so this is about when I would have preferred to wait to do an upgrade.

 

A very indepth discussion can be found here on Ubuntu with a lot of very technically minded people providing "trouble shooting" workarounds:

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=757806

Many there have also experienced upgrade issues with many providing advice.

Personally I took Ubuntu 9.10 for a spin on a LiveCD but then yesterday had a look at Linux Mint and was very impressed with the later (also LiveCD).