Ubuntu 10.04 (lucid Lynx) Review A Very Early Review......

[The Simpleton 2]

I don't know whether I should blame Canonical or my 8-year old PC, but I'm really disappointed with the Lynx It's getting positive reviews in a lot of places so I guess I have my old PC to blame. But there's no denying the fact that the same old PC was able to run older versions of Ubuntu without a hitch. So there must be something wrong with the Lynx!

 

Before I go ahead and compose the list of things that are wrong with it, let me tell you that I've used it for only about two hours, but I think I saw what I needed to see.

 

Usually to keep things positive I start off with the good points, but there hardly seem to be any to write about...maybe the only good things are the improved theme, built-in social networking client (Gwibber) and the faster boot-up time (more about that later). Other than this I didn't find anything worth putting under the "good" category.

 

Now off to the "bad" category. Oh and this category definitely needs a list!

 

1) Where are my ntfs partitions?!!! Since I use dual-boot, I keep most of my data in NTFS partitions so that they can be accessed by both Ubuntu and Windows. Lynx gave me a huge shock when it failed to detect the NTFS partitions! This is a weird bug and I don't know if anyone else has got it so far. Without all my data what am I supposed to do in Ubuntu.

 

2) It's too damn slow!!!! I've always liked Ubuntu because of its speed. Unlike Windows, which became slow and bloated after sometime, Ubuntu never lost its speed. I don't know what's wrong with Lynx, but everything is going on in slow motion. Since mine is an old PC, I never expected to get the "10-second" booting time as promised, but was still surprised to note that the startup music played on in just around 17 seconds. That's the sign indicating the system is ready, right?

Wrong! Even though the music plays within 17 seconds, the system isn't ready for another 30 seconds! It's just that slow. And if I try to open anything - a browser, a file manager, a music player - it takes at least 10-15 seconds to open. Once again I'm not sure if only I've got this bug everyone else.

 

3) The placement of the Window controls on the left side -- it may be nice and different to look but is definitely confusing and irritating to use regularly. Yes, over time one may get used to it but I use Ubuntu and Windows so different schemes for both OSes creates more confusion.

 

4) GIMP is no longer pre-installed. After including PiTv video editor and Gwibber, I guess they had no more room left for it.

 

5) The default 'keyring' prompt pops up everytime I try to use Gwibber, and I didn't seem to find an option to turn it on permanently (there was an option in 9.10 if I remember correctly). So everytime I restarted the system, the prompt popped up, which is a bit irritating.

 

Well that's what I got after using it for two hours. The new version of Firefox seems pretty good and I had no problems using the internet. It was the offline work that was full of bugs. I'm going to re-install karmic koala in the evening again - clearly something is wrong with atleast my copy of Lynx. I tried to read reviews but no major sites have put up reviews of the final version yet. All I find are reviews of the RC.

 

If there are any experienced users who haven't found these problems in the final version, please share them. And any new users planning to start with 10.04, I'd recommend waiting for a few days, or to start with 9.10 first.

[truefusion 3]

I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04 (not Kubuntu) to see if i would get the same problems from #1 and #2. My NTFS partition was picked up and i can access it. The time it takes to boot up and log in is about the same as when i was testing 10.04 in Kubuntu (though perhaps slightly faster do to there being no splash). The other three mentioned in your review aren't necessarily problems, but i do find myself reaching to the upper right when i want to close the window, only to get reminded that it is at the upper left now.

[The Simpleton 2]

I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04 (not Kubuntu) to see if i would get the same problems from #1 and #2. My NTFS partition was picked up and i can access it. The time it takes to boot up and log in is about the same as when i was testing 10.04 in Kubuntu (though perhaps slightly faster do to there being no splash). The other three mentioned in your review aren't necessarily problems, but i do find myself reaching to the upper right when i want to close the window, only to get reminded that it is at the upper left now.

After writing that rather hasty review, sense prevailed on me and I guess the only real fault with Lynx is that it doesn't like my hardware I've seen some reviews scattered here and there over the internet, and a few pre=release videos on Youtube, and none of them seemed to have problems # 1 and 2. Talking about the first problem, I noticed that the NTFS partitions keep appearing randomly; I had 10 sessions yesterday and the partitions appeared around four times; in the remaining sessions they were invisible.

 

I got a doubt whether the installer CD has any fault, and that's why I'm downloading another copy right now, and I'm going to burn the iso image at the lowest speed possible to avoid any damage, and if the fresh install still continues to give the same problems, then I guess it's back to Koala for me till I get a new PC!!!

The other three mentioned in your review aren't necessarily problems, but i do find myself reaching to the upper right when i want to close the window, only to get reminded that it is at the upper left now.

I didn't exactly label them as problems - just tiny little things that disrupt the smooth experience! There are ways to fix all three of them, but for a new user it can be very daunting.

[mahesh2k 0]

Yet to upgrade to latest version. And with my broadband issues i guess it'll take some time for me to update it. Didn't tried last kubuntu version. I want to try that as well. Not sure what are the improvements to KDE side last few months. I hope it is much improved now. By the way how much time it'll take for upgrade ? (i've 128kbps broadband connection)

[The Simpleton 2]

Yet to upgrade to latest version. And with my broadband issues i guess it'll take some time for me to update it. Didn't tried last kubuntu version. I want to try that as well. Not sure what are the improvements to KDE side last few months. I hope it is much improved now. By the way how much time it'll take for upgrade ? (i've 128kbps broadband connection)

If I remember correctly, they've put in the RC version of the new KDE in Kubuntu. So I guess that means more visual appeal? I haven't tried out Kubuntu because the less resource-hungry Ubuntu itself isn't working properly on my old system! I think it's become something like Windows Vista - on old systems it behaves strangely!

The Ubuntu servers are really stressed out right now and fetching all the files with the update manager is taking hours, even on fast connections (on my first attempt it took 2 hours to fetch the files - that was on the first day it released). I guess till the first week it will remain like that. For my second attempt I downloaded a copy using BitTorrent and it was over within 90 minutes on my 2mbps connection. So I guess a faster way to upgrade would be to burn the iso to a cd and then upgrade via the cd?

[truefusion 3]

Some time after the install, i came across the same problem as i mention here. I'm not entirely sure when it occurred, as i was able to install plenty of things (none of which were updates) before the problem occurred, but it still seems to be time related. I'm inclined to say this is a bug in the kernel, but so far this has only happened with GTK-based desktop environments, though i haven't tried XFCE yet.

[rob86 2]

I once had a disappearing drive on Ubuntu Jaunty. It worked when I first installed Ubuntu, it worked for months after, and then it just disappeared for no apparent reason and nothing knew it existed. I'm not sure if this is the same as your problem or not.

Here's how I fixed it, it might not help though as this is linux territory I'm not too familiar with, I just got this advice from someone else. So use your own judgement.. all I can say is I did these steps and it fixed my disappearing device problem. Maybe it's different if both are on the same drive? I have no idea!

In a terminal emulator, type:

cat /etc/fstab

This will list your file systems, you should be able to see your NTFS partition there I think -- but if it's really disappeared, I imagine it won't be there. You don't really do much here, just look at it and see if anything makes sense.

Then type:

sudo blkid

This will list block id's (whatever that is) of your devices. See if there's one that looks like what you need. For example, here's what shows up on mine.

/dev/sda1: UUID="0EC86536C8651D69" LABEL="Windows HDD" TYPE="ntfs"

Take note of the UUID of the problem device. If it's missing from your /etc/fstab, you can type in this: BUT, replace the UUID with the one you want to fix and the two occurences of the name 'mystuff' to whatever you want it called (any normal name with no spaces).

sudo sumkdir /media/mystuffecho "UUID=REPLACE0EC86536C8651D69THIS /media/mystuff auto users,uid=1000,gid=100,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137 0 1" >> /etc/fstab

Nautilus should find it now hopefully. Like I said I'm not sure if this is even the same problem as what you had, but I was annoyed when my drive disappeared and someone told me to do this, it fixed the problem.

Or just re-install Ubuntu..maybe that will help.
Edited May 3, 2010 by rob86 (see edit history)

[The Simpleton 2]

Thanks for the help, Rob. But after five re-installations I figured out that my system is too old for the Lynx, so i went back to Koala. But hopefully I'll get to try it out again on a new system soon, and if the problem resurfaces I'll look in here

[bluedragon 0]

Hi Simpleton First thanks for the review. I wish I had read it earlier. I installed it on one of the slower machines in my college. And I felt , I was trying to run Vista Its slow as hell and yes It fails to mount NTFS (sometimes). It might be due to the OLD motherboard. Thats all we can blame. I think I'll format it and install Koala on mine also. But , I liked the new theme. For some reason I think its better than the one in 9.10 NEways, I hope they fix the slow speed issue in their next release or release a patch or something. I used to think that Ubuntu was not resource hungry, Guess I was wrong. BTW.. My personal desktop is too fast for Ubuntu 10.04 . I was having issues with installing ATI drivers on 9.10 so I had to switch to 10.04. Its not as fast as 9.10 but I dont feel much of lag on this machine. And It detects almost all my HDDs up till now. I think Ubuntu is also removing support for Old hardware like Windows

[Bankai 1]

hey, i think this version of ubuntu is nice and has gone "easy in the brown".though i agree with you on the fact that it's speed is "draging a little. I share, partially, the same views as you. I guess if ubuntu becomes popular enough it's going to change and move on with technology, just like windows. i have to face thefact that as new technology comes the older ones get run down!Its preety sad, hope i'm not saying a whole lot of mumbo jumbo....Personally i'm ok with it, since i got a pretty good pc.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I've been having some of the same issues as you with 10.04. I have run 8.10, 9.04, etc. and this is the slowest one I've experienced (I'm on a 2.8 GHZ quad core with 8 GB of ram, 512 MB video card). In fact, my graphics are very choppy -- I can see splits when watching videos, even when they are stored on the HDD!The lack of GIMP is very depressing for me. Instead of that it seems they added the social networking stuff, which I don't use anyways.On a positive note, I do like that the installation has been simplified. No more having to customize anything -- just choose your location, install area, and let it go by itself.