Comments on: Ubuntu 9.10: Initial Reactions?

By: eionmac

eionmac — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:50:54 +0000

1. Does not load as live DVD on HP computer circa 2000.
2. we use this old HP to test distros before using in UK or Africa where there are many old machines.
3. Ubuntu 8 .10 does load, it is a screen resolution thing from what I see.

By: Roland Ansgar

Roland Ansgar — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:58:13 +0000

Ubuntu 9.10 is the easiest Linux distro I’ve ever used on the desktop. So many apps work right away, it’s so easy to install more, all my hardware works, and on and on. Essentially, it rocks!

By: Fandango

Fandango — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:01:09 +0000

I had many Ubuntu generations running smoothly, was happy to get it fine on my new Toshiba Portégé m800 with an intel card (i810 if I remember well), the previous Ubuntu worked fine with it.
As reported above, 9.10 just killed my wireless. After having patched the kernel, I got it working. Despite approx. 10 iterations of updates from the update manager, the newest kernel still do not allow any wireless, and even worse, do no more allow to boot (“MAC in deep sleep!”). That’s the kind of experience I really hate after so much years of Linux developments, the kind of things which really kill this OS, and just gives lots of credits to costly systems, as another user says above -

By: Tom Oncken

Tom Oncken — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:00:07 +0000

Did the upgrade online.
Now my laptop has no internet connection.
Its like filling the car with fuel and finding out it will only go at walking pace from now on. USELESS
Its a common fault from my reading on the net.
There is no easy fix available for someone with my skill level.
Imagine if a Microsoft upgrade had this fault..they would be crucified.
But for Linux its OK
The Linux community needs to get it head out of the clouds.
Only then will it be unstoppable.

By: nintendo dsi r4

nintendo dsi r4 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:33:56 +0000

The OS was unable to wake up sometimes and kept losing time or gaining it on our test machine..

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:32:18 +0000

Hi Everyone
I have been reading alot of comments on here and it reminds me of a operating system glitch for all of you having problems. I love UBUNTU, great system, in the past I was running into some problems up ubtil I downloaded WUBI.
WUBI knows which proper downloads to use in order for it to work with your operating system. It will detect the compatabilities and fix them.
Hope this helps?

By: Joseph A. Millikan

Joseph A. Millikan — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:53:24 +0000

We are warning all users in all court systems in America not to upgrade to this release for the simple reason of segfaults and kernel panics, something that is critical here. Best to stay on Jaunty or Intrepid with kernel 2.6.27-11 or 2.6.27-15. What a mess.

I wish the focus were more on stability and testing before exposing the unsuspecting to this. We are not the least happy with this version. Yes, it is quick and flashy and pretty, but give us something that works flawlessly, something we’ve come to expect from Ubuntu. Disappointed.

By: Temik

Temik — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:56:42 +0000

Well, in my opinion 9.10 fells more solid. It’s more polished than the last releases and a bit more stable. I also migrated my server yesterday, everything went without a hitch
The only thing that bothers me is the “system janitor” – it’s a half-baked app that deletes all custom and unsigned packages and can also potentially harm the system.
I don’t use it, but many new users will…
It’s in the system for 2 releases, can’t they fix it already?

By: Jose

Jose — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:00:23 +0000

It is lighting fast! Boots in my Dell Inspiron (2 Gb/160 HD) in just 30 sec and shuts down in less than 10 sec!!! It recognised all the hardware and my mobile broadband is working faster than ever (and consuming much less than windows, with all its antivirus updates and patches…)
Great Job, keep up with it!

By: Steven

Steven — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:35:03 +0000

multimedia in 9.10 is a disaster!!! mplayer doesn’t work properly, code 127, vlc even, totem doesn’t support wmv, avi…
Looks like ubuntu tries to run while they even can’t walk…
I rather prefer a stable release every year, than a bugfull release every semester!!!

otherwise 9.04 was pretty stable!!!

By: Brian McCullough

Brian McCullough — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:13:59 +0000

My upgrade was a bit rough, but you have to put that into context. I was upgrading a three-year-old HP DV6305US laptop which was recalled about six months ago after baking its Wi-Fi board, its video processor, and several other components to a tasty golden brown. So, it’s not the best hardware design out there.

I also installed the 64-bit build, which has never been quite as polished as the 32-bit build (but it’s closing the gap fast).

I had the following four problems:

1. False error messages from Palimpsest. As soon as I had booted up, I got a big, scary error message that said my hard disk had too many bad sectors and was about to fail. So I read through the detailed report to see how many bad sectors there were, and Palimpsest reported … -1. I went looking for reported bugs, found some, and therefore have turned off Palimpsest notifications for the time being. (I hasten to add that it is a great idea, though. It also reported that the drive had been operated at excessively high temperatures, which is undoubtedly true. See above.)

2. False error messages from Kerneloops. These error messages appeared periodically and informed me that my kernel had issues that would make the system unstable. Again, this is a known bug and the computer seemed fine (or as fine as it gets). I went into Synaptic and removed the Kerneloops daemon (just “remove”, not “remove completely”) for the time being.

3. Speaker pops before and after each sound played back. Not at all threatening, but the mother of all paper cuts. Found a workaround in the forums, commented out the line that activates audio power save behavior in my /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file, rebooted, and all was well. Once again, great idea — save power by switching the audio circuitry off when it’s not in use. The only problem is that my audio circuitry is noisy when switched on and off.

4. On boot, the first thing that appeared was a “tty1 login:” prompt, which remains alone on the screen for about 5-10 seconds. Fixing the kerneloops issue seems to have gotten rid of this.

With these issues fixed, 9.10 is up and running, and it looks and acts great! But if I’d been a typical Windows user trying Ubuntu for the first time, I would not have gotten past the tty login or the fake critical error messages. It doesn’t seem as though most users are having this much trouble, and hopefully the chances are smaller for those who are installing the 32-bit build.

– Brian M.

By: sonay

sonay — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:57:42 +0000

just a quick add:

my wireless card working just perfect: fast and 95% signal receiving most of the time, whereas it was %60 or so in my campus library.