Ubuntu 9.10

An article submitted to IT mag which was rejected...


Introduction
The release of Ubuntu 9.10 which coincided with the release of the latest Windows OS prompted comparisons between the two. With many sites even suggesting that those who are not satisfied with the MS product should give Canonical's a spin.
Frankly, this writer is not as thrilled about Ubuntu 9.10, even without having used Windows 7. So, strangely, an article titled "Tips and Tricks" for Ubuntu 9.10 also includes a suggestion to avoid the OS if possible!

Who is it for?
After trying out Ubuntu 9.10 this writer feels it necessary to discuss the target audience of the OS and this article.

If you are someone who has used earlier versions of Ubuntu upto 9.04 and is familiar with the OS, the latest version doesn't bring anything conspicuously new to the table, except some eye candy. For you, the OS and this article are avoidable. The extremely short release cycles ensures that minor releases are nothing but "service packs", and do not deserve the song and dance and alliterative codenames - in Ubuntu's case atleast - that usually accompany them. And, summing up the relevance of 9.10 going by online opinions, 9.10 is just a stepping stone to 10.04 which is expected to be a major release.


If you are someone who has extensively used Linux, but have not used any Ubuntu version seriously before, there is nothing in Ubuntu 9.10 that is compelling enough to make you hop from your existing distro. Most importantly, if you have found solace in KDE 3.5 and have grown familiar with most admin routines/commands, you will be tearing your hair out when dealing with the Gnome interface and the other new features in Ubuntu. For you, the OS is passable, and the article will shed light on the reasons for this suggestion.

If you are someone who has never tried out Linux at all, but have used some GUI based OS before, and are thinking of making Ubuntu your first step into this wonderful world, after being bombarded with the U marketese: be warned, Ubuntu is not the best distro for newcomers. More userfriendly distros like Opensuse and PCLinux do a better job of presenting the prowess of Linux in a seamless package. Yes, no other distro is as responsible as Ubuntu for popularising Linux and it is considered the hippest distro, but for a new comer Ubuntu 9.10 can be quite frustrating to the point of making the competition look better. This article should offer some comparisons with other distros to prove the point on userfriendliness to influence your choice of first Linux distro.

Probably anticipating this frustration, Canonical has included Wubi with the distro CD. Wubi offers a safer way to sample Ubuntu without the delays associated with a Live CD environment, but will work only in Windows. Which puts off Linux-only users!

If you have managed to slip through the above categories, Ubuntu 9.10 should be an ideal distro.

Where does the writer stand : After having tried out over a dozen distros, this writer settled on Opensuse 10.3 and has stuck to it even while sampling a few distros over the years. Being more comfortable with the GUI (rather than the Command line), the writer is representative of the bulk of the computer using population that shares a similar bias.

This writer would like to humbly submit the golden rule for people venturing into the Linux world for the first time, to make sense of the superabundance of Linux distros and avoid unwanted frustration of failed installations and internet scouring for fixes:
Do all the distro hopping till you find a perfect match (when all hardware works in perfect harmony), and then avoid all temptations to switch. Ofcourse, since all distros come in a live CD format, one can always succumb to the temptation without breaking one's vows.

New Features in Ubuntu 9.10

An exhaustive list is available on the ubuntu.com website, so we shall avoid duplicating it. Briefly, what would be relevant to lay users is summarised here.
Ubuntu 9.10 being woven around the latest Linux kernel version (2.6.31) supports the most hardware among the Ubuntus. So if you have a system that is loaded with the latest components, Ubuntu 9.10 offers the best chance of getting the most out of the system - right out of the box.

For those who spend time tweaking the appearance of the installation, 9.10 offers the latest Gnome Desktop Environment (2.28) which has a lot of visual appeal. Even on a system with 256 MB RAM, the visual effects were truely impressive without slowing down the OS collaterally.



Ubuntu uses the newest version of the GRUB boot manager. GRUB2 adds a lot of features, but for the lay users, it is nightmarish to configure in contrast to the earlier version. More on this later.

9.10 includes the new Empathy Instant Messaging client that includes support for most chat protocols, like Yahoo, Windows Live and Google.

Ubuntu introduces the online storage and syncing service called Ubuntu One. A free 2 GB account is available to all users, and data can be stored and synced across any PCs loaded with Ubuntu 9.10.

One has heard of the App store concept used in Apple products, which allows independent developers to create software and make it available for use/purchase to end users directly. Ubuntu incorporates the Ubuntu Software Center which offers similar function, but at present all apps available are free. This utility is not to be confused with Synaptic which is the default application manager, and also exists alongside.


Tips and Tricks

Setting boot options
If you are satisfied with the Live CD experience, and choose to install the OS to the disk along with any existing OS, you will feel miffed.
During installation, Ubuntu succeeds in annoying the user by displaying what is hallmark Windows behaviour - messing up the bootloader. The boot loader installation cannot be tweaked, so one cannot change the default boot option - which is Ubuntu. Dedicated tools to modify the boot menu are available in some distros like PCLinux and Opensuse, but in Ubuntu one needs to do the modification maually using the text editor and command line. Additionally, those who are familiar with editing the /boot/grub/menu.cfg file will be clueless here. The reason : Ubuntu uses GRUB2 which works differently and doesn't use a menu.lst file.


In Ubuntu to get the default OS entry right, you need to edit the /etc/default/grub file. This file is not quite helpful because it does not list the boot entries. So either recall the entries in the boot menu displayed when your booted, or open the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file to figure out the exact entries and their sequence. In the grub.cfg file, the "menu entry" prefix denotes the entries in the boot menu. The first entry is numbered 0, and the second 1 and so on.
Once the required default entry number is arrived at, this figure can be added to the line "GRUB_DEFAULT=1" replacing the 1. This line is in the /etc/default/grub file, NOT the grub.cfg file.

The default interval of 10 secs can be adjusted by tweaking the "GRUB_TIMEOUT=10" line, in the /etc/default/grub file.



Ofcourse, there is a possibility that the GRUB routine gets the boot parameters wrong. In the case of the writer's system already containing a PCLinux installation, GRUB did not properly detect the boot parameters leaving the PCLinux installation inaccessible. In such cases the menu can be modified by editing the /etc/grub.d/40_custom file to include the corrected menu entry. This is a bit advanced, but for minor editions, like in the writer's case, the relevant entries from the grub.cfg can be copied over to the 40_custom file and necessary changes made.

Once all modifications are completed, the command "grub-update" needs to be run to ensure that the changes are incorporated in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file which is the basis of the boot menu.

What is the root password?
In the Linux world the root account is held in high esteem. In 9.10 the all powerful root account is practically insignificant - the first user becomes the defacto root. Unfortunately, if one doesn't know this fact, it can be quite frustrating trying to figure out what the default root password is (a online search reveals this is "rootmein"), since the installation routine doesn't seek one and trying the user password is the last thing on a Linux user's mind.
Also try logging in as root or su, and you won't get much far. The solution is to use the "sudo su" command to stay on with higher privileges for a longer period.

Getting the Resolution right
Getting the video right can be considered as a top most priority for a distro, and when two year old distros manage to get it right, one would expect the latest distros to atleast do as much, especially since the hardware is not cutting edge. But, Ubuntu 9.10 (or 9.04 for that matter), fails to detect the max resolution on two of the systems this writer tried installing the OS on. Now had this been PCLinux or Opensuse, the tools to modify the graphics properties would be available within the GUI, but this is Ubuntu. So one needs to be prepared for some command line action.
There are a few surprises in store here as well. For one, the familiar xorg.conf file is missing. So to create a xorg.conf file, one needs to run the "X -configure" command after logging in as superuser.
As in the writer's case, even this doesn't always work, in which case the best option is to download the relevant graphics drivers and follow the instructions.

Getting on the Cloud
Ubuntu One is the name of Ubuntu's cloud service. The Link to Ubuntu One is under the Appications, Internet Menu. A user needs to sign up for the service first, and on first launch a browser window takes you to the sign up page. Subsequently launching Ubuntu One link opens the preferences window, where one can set the behaviour of the service. An icon in the system tray will display the status of the Cloud and allow easy synchronisation. Unfortunately, despite 9.10 being the first Ubuntu to offer this feature, the synchronisation operation is not smooth and the reason for this is that the client software is incompatible with the server.

Nonetheless, one can add data in the form of files, contacts and notes to the Ubunto One account and these can be synchronised within applications like Nautilus, Tomboy and Evolution respectively on systems running the service.

Migrating settings from Other Installations
Theoretically, it involves merely copying the files from one installation site to the other. Ubuntu has incorportated a tool to do this during the installation, but in the three installations that this writer did, the tool failed to detect the Windows installation on the same disk, and in one case the PCLinux installation as well.
Even when the other OS is detected, the end result of the migration is not obvious. There doesn't seem to be any documents imported to the user's home folder, and neither are any settings changed in the Ubuntu environment as a result.


Wubi (Ubuntu Installer for Windows)
This is an interesting utility. Briefly, it allows one to install Ubuntu in any Windows partition. Wubi creates a folder in the Windows partition where all OS files are stored, and requires atleast 3 GB free space to start.

After providing a password, space and location to store the files at the start of the process, there is no user interaction required. So, potential minefields like creating partitions are avoided. Once launched, Wubi goes through the same motions as the normal installation process. On rebooting, post installation, the modified boot menu presents both OS options with the default option being the Windows installation. The Ubuntu installation performs quite smoothly with no apparent lag inspite of using a non native file system.
The application can be uninstalled like any Windows program and the disk space freed, but the boot menu is not restored (atleast in Windows XP). If no entry to the uninstall link figures in any menu, the uninstall file is present in the Ubuntu folder
Wubi is highly recommended for people using Windows and should be the only way to try Ubuntu to avoid most troubles of a normal installation. Sadly, Linux users are not similarly treated.

Automatic Mobile Broadband Configuration
One feature that thoroughly impressed this writer was the automatic configuration of the GPRS enabled mobile phone. Just plugging in the mobile presented a wizard, which already had the settings to access various GPRS service providers from India, like BSNL, Airtel, Idea etc. A few clicks and one was online. Impressive. In contrast with the earlier PPP or wvdial routine in older versions of Linux, and the Nokia PC Suite in Windows, 9.10 truely is in a different league.

Conclusion
9.10 is for the inveterate distro hopper who already has gotten into the Ubuntu groove. For Windows users, Wubi is the recommended route - probably the best way to sample a distro, something for the other distros to emulate. For the rest of us, 9.10 is worth a dekko to drool over the visual effects, and return to our more familiar distros.