Go to page: 1 2 3   

Printer Friendly Version

4) Usability issues are generally dealt with in LTS releases

Although you may see what are deemed to be usability improvements in Ubuntu 8.10, the fact remains it is going to the Long Term Support releases that will reflect broken functionality. And even with that, this is the same bunch that brilliantly release a beta version of Firefox with their LTS product just a few months back!

It is well known that in the Ubuntu world, non-LTS releases are rolling beta disappointments that never really live up to their promise for many users. So lets say 8.10 suddenly stops working right with your webcam, but only with Flash 10. And to make matters worse, the webcam works fine with other programs besides Flash 10 in 8.10, but works with Flash 10 in 8.04, and you are to feel confident that this is a release to trust with your data? Come on, why bother putting yourself through the headache.

5) Wireless is always broken to some degree with updates

As the idiotic pursuit to support the ever-buggy Broadcom chipset continues, you know that something else along the way is going to pay a price. Thus far, two out of three tested natively working wireless dongle I have tested do in fact retain their ability to work with Ubuntu in this release. That being said, I have yet to test any of my Intel based chipsets yet ... sigh. So again, if you want to spend a lot of time tracking down more regressions when the previous install worked fine, be my guest. But do not say nobody warned you.

6) Chasing down audio problems

ALSA and OSS may be old ways of dealing with audio in Linux, but the fact is that they work. PulseAudio, on the other hand, while a nice idea, is also a pain in the butt. Despite writing about this over and over, Ubuntu devs STILL do not provide you with any ability to work with the PulseAudio system without you knowing that you must download the PulseAudio Applet -- padevchooser.

Why in the world would you take the time to tie PulseAudio in so tightly to the ubuntu-desktop package set when the developers can't even bother to provide the basic ability to use the damned sound system effectively in the first place? Come on, include padevchooser by default for Pete's sake!

7) Xorg.conf headaches

I am the first to admit that I am not totally up to date on what all of the hoopla is about with regard to the latest xserver release. But based on what I can tell, any ability to edit your Xorg.conf has been removed as it appears to not be effective any longer.

Again, not totally clear what changed to create so many problems, but the bugs have been pouring in from all over the Web regarding everything from NVIDIA, to Intel, and of course, ATI.

Go to page: 1 2 3   

Printer Friendly Version