Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Review

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Review

Distrowatch: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntu
Homepage: http://www.ubuntu.com/
Wiki: https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/index.html
Forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/10

Tested on a PC Tower
Hewlett Packard Pavilion 781.es Tower.
Hewlett Packard Monitor Pavilion f50s
Nvidia Geforce fx 5200 128Mb
Conceptronic Atheros Wireless Nic – AR5212 802.11abg
Via Motherboard
AMD Athlon Xp 2000 + (1.6Gb)
512Mb RAM
Three 80Gb harddrives and two Dvd/Cd combi drives
Printer Hp Deskjet 845c

Well, I have built a new tower for mixed family use, and as I have had a few problems with hardware (mixed CD/Dvd drives, 3 different Harddisks etc, I decided to go for a dual-boot.
Dreamlinux 4.0 Gnome on Ext4 and Ubuntu 9.04 on Ext4 as well to see if the hype is warranted.

Install
The Ubu install took around half an hour, not that I am all that worried any more about install times. Whatsmore, it gave me time to cook a Spanish Omelette for dinner.

Login
The install went sweet, and I was presented with a new sexy looking Ubu login screen. Although it still has the nasty brown colour around, they are doing more to make the red and yellow a bit more prominent which is good.

Desktop Appearance
I immediately removed the bottom panel after adding what I needed to the top panel. I am accustomed to having everything compact and only have applets for things I need immediate access to. I was surprised about having a plain old brown wallpaper. I was expecting some cave-painting-style Jaunty Jackalope jaunting around in the background.

Menus
Everything is clean and easy to find and also well ordered, one of the things I have always liked about the Gnome desktop (even though my main machines almost always have Xfce or Fluxbox).

New Arrivals
Computer Janitor
I have never seen this before, what is it? A mix of apt-get autoclean or some other command line tools with a gui added? I have run it a couple of times and it still hasn’t found any unneeded rubbish, so i’ll check back on this one in a couple of days.

Wireless and Graphics card drivers
I hate Network Manager, but, it connected with no problem at all using ath5k, Restricted Driver Manager also popped up and offered me Madwifi as an alternative and the driver for my Nvidia graphics card. I kept ath5k (as it connected and worked ok) and clicked on the Nvidia driver, which proceeded to download and be installed.

Printer
After setting up drivers and desktop, and allowing/installing Ubuntu Restricted Extras, I started with the peripherals. First up was my Hp deskjet 845c. I switched it on and plugged in the USB cable. A couple of moments later a little black panel popped up telling me that it was installed and ready to use, and it was. There goes the need for my easy printer install tutorial on my blog !!

Vbox 3.0
I used Resa’s excellent guide to install Vbox 3.0 so that I can continue testing distros which do not come with wireless drivers preinstalled (obviously vBox uses the host’s connection as Eth0).
I was using my laptop and another tower with Vbox 3.0 on Dreamlinux, but as they are my main work, gaming, developing and everything else desktops, I was running out of space and decided to use just one tower instead, this one with Ubu JJ.

First Impressions
It isn’t lightening fast or quick to install and boot as many Ubu Fanbois claim, it certainly isn’t as fast as Dreamlinux, but………… it is by no means slow. Everything has done what it should, installed and booted on problematic hardware without a hitch. It feels robust and reliable.
I am already installing a few apps from the repos, and searchng for any new apps/additions that I have missed over the last two releases.

I like it, everything that you need is there, and with the Gnome desktop it’s all easy to find and configure. I haven’t enabled full effects, nor am i going to start messing with the theme and all that, but I will be installing a lot of family-orientated apps and games, so let’s see how it holds up. So far, so good and as always, most definitely recommended to newbies.

Well done Ubu fellas!

EDIT: Ok, I changed to the New Wave theme……. very nice…….. and it’s staying that way…. no more messing.

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