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Our latest operating system was released yesterday. I had v9.04 (the April issue) and last night I decided to upgrade to v9.10 (the October issue), left the laptop running all night and this morning it was asking about removing redundant software. I keyed in "yes" and it finished in a few minutes. Re-installed several software packages today. I had to switch from two that had problems to two others that didn't, other than that, it's faster and easier to use. I have a 64bit processor and it seems to work better than it did.

 

i dont understand you

 

In non-techy terms:

On a PC, we are not forced to use Microsoft Windows. There are alternatives available. One such alternative, which is completely free is called Ubuntu.

Ubuntu has a six monthly release cycle, meaning a newer version is ready every six months. The latest version has just been released.

The Ubuntu (and indeed Linux - which it is based on) philosophy differs from that of MS Windows in that there are always more than one way to do do the same thing. It is maintained by a huge, world wide group of volunteers rather than a commercial software company, so it sometimes inevitably happens that some of the standard parts don't work for or don't suit some users, in which case we can swap those bits with other free alternatives.

Most older computers, and indeed some of the less powerful new ones, had/have 32 bit processors, meaning they can only process 32 binary digits in one go. Newer ones generally have processors that can process 64 binary digits in one go, but it took a little while for programmers to modify their programs to reliable take advantage of the extra capability, so historically 64 bit software sometimes had reliability issues, but apparently that is not the case now with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux.

 

Hi, Not-so Clueless1.
Very well put. The 64bit problem manifests itself when you try to install Adobe Reader, it seems that Adobe haven't got round to writing a version for 64bit machines. Ever since i've had this machine I get "wrong architecture" when trying to install Reader, so I have to use Evince.

 

I've upgraded to 9.10 but was disappointed when I didn't get a pic of a Koala :hehe:
Havn't had time to work my way through it yet, but the bits I have tried have been very promising. Pc boots from cold in about 50 seconds, again, no trouble connecting to the net via my wireless router. Everything seems to work faster and more smoothly than the last incarnation. Had to download latest JAVA flash (why didn't they incorporate that into the final mix) but it loaded without any issue. So far so good.

 

As i have said before ,you explain everything so well clueless

 

I've just installed Ubuntu v9.10 on my old desktop (it's about six years old), did a restart which took 40 seconds. This new version is fast. I shall have to check it against my newer laptop which has an AMD Turion 64bit processor. This one has an AMD Athlon 32bit.
I am looking forward to using both machines. The real test will be my video clips (HDMI 1280 x720 pixels).

 

Although the video works OK on the laptop, it fails on the desktop. either the processor is not fast enough or there's not enough memory.
It seems that it can't keep up with 30fps as it's very jerky.

I have found another problem with video, I connected the laptop to the LCD TV with the AVG connector. While the normal screen display was OK, when I tried to run the video it didn't work (it works OK with my digital projector).

 

Just realised my DVD drive isn't working since I upgraded, I'm wondering if the new version doesn't recognise it?
Larkshall, are you using an add on graphics card in your lappy of desktop? I'm just asking because I'm just using the onboard graphics on the motherboard as I don't have a graphics card. I use iPlayer a lot, with the old version, it ran far to slow to be usefull but with 9.10 it's just about good enough although if I try to use full screen, the video is really jerky.

 

See if hardware acceleration is enabled. Start the Terminal (in Applications->Accessories) and run this command:

Code:

glxinfo | grep rendering

The default multimedia engine in Ubuntu is GStreamer. It is slow as it doesn't take advantage of hardware acceleration and direct rendering. The Xine core works much faster, but has the disadvantage that there are fewer codecs for it. Xine supports the main standards (Mpeg video and audio and few others).

I'd also run that command I mentioned above. You would hope to see 'Yes' as the output. If it says 'No' then all the graphics work is being done by the main CPU instead of being delegated to the graphics hardware.

The most likely cause of hardware acceleration being switched off is if you are using the default open source display drivers rather than the proprietary ones from the hardware suppliers. The most common graphics chip sets have proper drivers for them in the Ubuntu repositories.

 

Well ladies and gents, I've installed and tried out the latest Ubuntu, and I have to say it is awful.

They must have hired a blindfolded monkey to configure all the visuals, the fonts they've chosen are awful. I've made a number of config changes to try to improve it, but to no avail. Even here on the internet, I know that the web folks for this forum did an excellent job, but it looks awful on my machine, the system has overridden all the font settings that the forum admin did and imposed its own over the top.

I'm going to go back to Windows me thinks. This Ubuntu game just isn't working out anymore:(

 

Sorry to hear that... but I`m glad you posted because I was maybe thinking of having a change.
Just out of interest I had a major clean up of Vista lap top yesteday.
Registry clean up, msconfig to reduce the amount of programmes running on start up, uninstall no longer wanted progs, and a defrag on the internal 500GB HD.
The defrag took all night with a couple a breaks for a auto power down.
End product is that Vista is now cleaner and working well.
Looking good....

 

I'm slightly warming to it now. It still looks awful, but I reckon it is because it is optimised for newer LCD monitors, whereas I have an ancient CRT monitor.

It won't keep my screen settings. Every time I boot up it has set my monitor to interlaced, which is torture on the eyes, so I set it correctly, apply the changes, and it has reverted back next time I boot up.

Boot up and shutdown is very fast, which is good. That's about as much I can say about its good features though. I'll live with it for a while I reckon.