“The Ubuntu team is proud to present the 6th Alpha test, called Flight 6 of our next release, Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake). With Flight 6 comes additional Look-and-Feel improvements, Live-CD installer enhancements, GNOME 2.14 final, and much more.” Download the regular Ubuntu, Kubuntu, or Edubuntu. As usual, PowerPC, x86, and x86-64 are supported with both live CDs and install CDs.
I don’t care the late release, it’s going to be a really nice release in every aspect.
It’s nice to see it evolving!
I have Dapper installed on a laptop (IBM T43p), and it works very well so far. The two features that I personally enjoy the most are network-manager and deskbar-applet. Network-manager works amazingly well for me. It supports wpa-encryption as well as WEP and switches seamlessly (nearly so, anyway) between the two. It was simple to setup and a pleasure to use. No need to keep your WEP keys in your /etc/network/interfaces file and no need to manually configure wpa_supplicant. The only drawback which is really a security feature, but may be viewed as a nuisance by some, is the need to enter a password every time you log on.
Deskbar-applet integrates well with beagle and will even display results from Google if a google key and sdk is obtained. Beagle no longer suufers from memory leakage. Its memory consumption stays at around 30 MB which is a big improvement from 1.5 GB ! This is what I would see after leaving it on overnight with the 0.10 series.
I have always been a fan of Ubuntu and Debian, but overall from installation to final configuration this has been one of the most pleasant experiences I have ever had with Linux.
“The only drawback […] is the need to enter a password every time you log on”
For me that one was the reason to un-install Ubuntu and Fedora immediately after installation.
Really, this “feature” is nonsense. If I have authenticated myself into the system why do I have to re-authenticate in order to get into the Wireless Network?
Wow, you are one picky dude. Have you given any thought as to why that might be desirable?
And even, if you think this is a severe problem. Why don’t you report it as a bug and become part of the solution instead of another nameless whiner who contributes nothing other than enless rants on sites like these?
God, what happened to the day where people took joy in making things better with their involvement?
Because there is little effort to whining.And I have a question.Are the Flight CDs live or install CDs?
Never mind.I should have clicked on the damn link.
This is not about being picky or not, it’s about common sense.
Yes I have given some thoughts about that feature and can’t find any reason to have the Network Manager asking the user password each time I logon on. Another “great” idea would be to have a “OOo Manager” that asks user passowrd each time he/she wants to open a text document… or a “Terminal Manager” that asks user password each time he/she opens a terminal…
I did not submitted a bug becasue this is not a bug, it is just part of Network Manager in Gnome. In other words, it’s there by design.
Of course I have the option of stop using Gnome but I LIKE Gnome and this annoying security feature is out of the simplicity scope Gnome is looking for.
I think Ubuntu is a great distro, really; but zealotry about Ubuntu remembers me the time of Red Hat 5/6/7, where any criticism about the distro is seen as anti-Linux/OSS propaganda.
Actually I don’t think it’s a bug, it’s just a missing feature — password keyring support.
If the Network Manager supported the GNOME keyring, there would be little reason to ask for the password each time (unless you wanted to) since that’s what the keyring is for.
I expected that the Network Manager will get keyring support eventually, but it wouldn’t hurt if you sumbitted this as a feature request since it gives developers an idea of how much interest there is in this feature.
Keyring support is forthcoming and has been discussed on the Network Manager mailing lists.
Somehow Ubuntu is one of the few where gnome (2.14) is best integrated and performs fastest out of the box.Dapper is very promising.
One of Ubuntu’s strengths is that the user is not overwhelmend with many choices about which program to use for a particular task. The community should decide on ONE web browser to include in the default Ubuntu install. Other browsers should be available through synaptic.
Installing both firefox and epiphany by default breaks simplicity of the system. Ubuntu has made the decision to sacrifice the number of choices available to the user in order to gain simplicity and easy of use. By focusing on a small subset of the total universe of available applications, more polish can go into the default set.
Firefox is a more popular browser than epiphany, and has more plugins available for it. Although epiphany is also a great browser, users looking to switch from windows will be used to firefox.
Are you sure epiphany is bundled in default installation? I seriously doubt it, firefox has been chosen and is the default since the first Ubuntu release. However, with every new release there is a debate whether it should stay the default. Personally I’m looking forward to the day when they’ll switch it or at least let the user dump firefox.
Firefox is way slower for me and it doesn’t integrate with whole desktop like epiphany does. As for extensions, sure firefox has more, but do you need them? Are they of good quality? I seriously doubt it. Pop-up blocker, Ads blocker, gestures are probably the only ones which Joe SixPack needs.
Read the article:
Ubuntu uses Firefox by default but there is another great web browser that is part of GNOME named Epiphany. Epiphany provides users with a very simple yet very flexible web browsing experience. Epiphany 2.14.0 comes with lots a really useful plugins and allows you to customize it so you can browse the web in style your way.
Epiphany is an OPTION to install later. It is not part of the default install; it is just part of GNOME. Admittedly, it’s not clear in the article.
I thought we already had an entire war about it just four days ago…
Epiphany is an officially supported application and it might even be on the CD, but it does not come installed by default (I still hope this will change in the future ;-)).
Epiphany actually is on the install CD, but is not installed by default.
The CD for flite 6 of kubuntu for PPC is under 700 MB this time. I wan’t happy about burning to a DVD to test flite 5… This looks like the distribution that might get OSX off my mac. I’m just holding out for out-of-the-box support for my wireless card, which it looks like they’re working on.
It could be the same for me, but until printing is not working (with my USB printer, a HP 3845), I will not use it installed !
Oh c’mon, if all linuces distros are united to create 1 unified distro, it’s still far to be compared to OSX. OSX is the state of the art OS.
!!!
“Oh c’mon, if all linuces distros are united to create 1 unified distro, it’s still far to be compared to OSX. OSX is the state of the art OS”
—
OSX is a very good OS, with many good programs and even ports of Linux programs, a bit slow, but…
Linux is Far. Far in what? For what use?
Far in my choice criteria? YES. Far ahead!
Far ahead in speed? YES
Far ahead in programming and software use freedom? YES
Far ahead in number of existing programs? YES
Far ahead in Web server programs and capabilities? YES
Far ahead in net server programs and capabilities? YES
Far ahead in in number of GUIs? YES
Far ahead in gaming possibilities? YES
Far ahead in hardware support? YES
Far ahead in the ratio Cost/Quality? YES
Far ahead in freedom and NOT being spyed, DRMs etc? YES
Far ahead in other things probably? YES
Whip yourself 10 times for trolling and saying nonsenses, and then go back to use Photoshop in Your Mac…
!!!
Edited 2006-04-02 11:50
If anyone around here’s doing the trolling, it’s you. Mac OS X is much nicer than Ubuntu. If I thought otherwise, I’d be using Ubuntu on my iBook instead. Ubuntu is much faster than Mac OS X but that’s really where the reasons for choosing it over Mac OS X end.
Far in my choice criteria? YES. Far ahead!
What do you mean by this?
Far ahead in speed? YES
Yeah, Ubuntu is much faster than Mac OS X even when running it off the Live CD.
Far ahead in programming and software use freedom? YES
What do you mean by this? I’m in my last year of a computer science degree. I need to do lots of programming as part of my course and Mac OS X is great. All the programming tools you’d ever need are free and available for Mac (except for things like .NET of course
Far ahead in number of existing programs? YES
How can you make such a claim? Fink currently lists 6405 packages. Plus there are great free apps like Adium for the Mac. Also, you can run MSOffice, IE (on the PPC Macs anyway), Photoshop etc. Mac probably has much more software available on it than Linux simply because most Linux programs can run on Mac with little or no modification.
Far ahead in Web server programs and capabilities? YES
What do you mean here? Apache and FTP are both installed on Mac OS X. You can also install from source if Apple’s build isn’t what you want.
Far ahead in net server programs and capabilities? YES
Explain your point here.
Far ahead in in number of GUIs? YES
Since you can easily install X11 and GNOME and KDE and whatever else on Mac OS X, Mac OS X actually has one more GUI choice than linux: Aqua.
Far ahead in gaming possibilities? YES
I don’t know too much about gaming so I can’t really argue one way or the other on this point.
Far ahead in hardware support? YES
That’s true in as far as Linux supporting more hardware than Mac OS X but Mac OS X’s integration with the underlying hardware is outstanding. It’s a cliché but with Mac OS X, everything ‘just works’. I find that with Linux, even with supported hardware, that you still have to tweak settings a bit to get things working properly.
Far ahead in the ratio Cost/Quality? YES
Well obviously Linux beats Mac OS X in price becasue it’s free but Mac OS X requires less (i.e. no) time in getting it up and running on your computer. Time is money so it’s debatable whether running Linux is cheaper than Mac OS X long term.
Far ahead in freedom and NOT being spyed, DRMs etc? YES
Not being spyed? What do you mean? As far as DRM is concerned, it’s there in iTunes because Apple needed to have something there in order to have a music downloads service. I use iTunes to listen to my music but I don’t use DRM.
Far ahead in other things probably? YES
I’m beginning to think that you’re joking here.
About your answers to my points:
— “Far ahead in programming and software use freedom? YES
What do you mean by this? I’m in my last year of a computer science degree. I need to do lots of programming as part of my course and Mac OS X is great. All the programming tools you’d ever need are free and available for Mac (except for things like .NET of course
”
Good , but there are even more to program in linux, and free too ( but in both senses of freedom, in the linux OS)
— “Far ahead in number of existing programs? YES
How can you make such a claim? Fink currently lists 6405 packages. Plus there are great free apps like Adium for the Mac. Also, you can run MSOffice, IE (on the PPC Macs anyway), Photoshop etc. Mac probably has much more software available on it than Linux simply because most Linux programs can run on Mac with little or no modification.”
Well, in my original post I said literally: “OSX is a very good OS, with many good programs and even ports of Linux programs, a bit slow, but…”
So I knew what you anwered to me. No need to repeat it. Still, there are much more for Linux…. Look at debian ,, or getoo, Fedora… repositories!
— “most Linux programs can run on Mac with little or no modification”
Not exactly… There are many programs ported from Linux and BSD, but they do not run generaly without modification. Even betwenn Linux distros there are incompatibilities, so most Linux programs can not run in MacOS X without modification. Still, normal users, are not going to modify a Linux program to run it, even if is a little modification. Actually normal OS X users do not know even the existance of the Fink ports…
—- “Far ahead in Web server programs and capabilities? YES
What do you mean here? Apache and FTP are both installed on Mac OS X. You can also install from source if Apple’s build isn’t what you want. ”
No , this is not what I want or mean, but what I just said: Far ahead in Web server programs and capabilities. There are many more programs and utilities in Linux for servers and networks, than in Mac OS X. Apache is not the only web server, etc. Again, many can be ported, but this is another question…
— “Far ahead in net server programs and capabilities? YES
Explain your point here. ”
The same thing, for a general purpose server than for the Web servers… Much more choice in Linux than in MacOS X.
—” Far ahead in in number of GUIs? YES
Since you can easily install X11 and GNOME and KDE and whatever else on Mac OS X, Mac OS X actually has one more GUI choice than linux: Aqua. ”
You can easily install X11 and Gnome and KDE on MacOS X ??? That’s new… Guy, do not forget that you have studies computers. An average Mac user can not install that, he/she does not even know what is Gnome or Xfce.
Still there are plenty of Windows mangers and GUIs and not all of them would work in MAc OS X , or not that easily.
— “Far ahead in hardware support? YES
That’s true in as far as Linux supporting more hardware than Mac OS X but Mac OS X’s integration with the underlying hardware is outstanding. It’s a cliché but with Mac OS X, everything ‘just works’. I find that with Linux, even with supported hardware, that you still have to tweak settings a bit to get things working properly.”
Whit so little hardware and propietay, exclusive kind on PCs, the funny thing would be that the integration of Mac OS X with the Apple hardware or others were not good… C’mon.
About Linux and the tweking, it depends on the distro, but you finish tweking all OSs really. There are now Ditros thet work really perfectly “out of the box”, in everything moore or less( Mepis, SuSe, PC Linux OS…)
— “Far ahead in the ratio Cost/Quality? YES
Well obviously Linux beats Mac OS X in price becasue it’s free but Mac OS X requires less (i.e. no) time in getting it up and running on your computer. Time is money so it’s debatable whether running Linux is cheaper than Mac OS X long term. ”
Linux beats Mac OS X in price, even when is not free ( money). There are distros you have to pay for, in case you do not know it…
About the time I rpeat that here are now Linux Distros thet work really perfectly “out of the box”, in everything moore or less( Mepis, SuSe, PC Linux OS…. Easier to install that MacOS X. Some come also preinstalled in PCs.
— “Far ahead in freedom and NOT being spyed, DRMs etc? YES
Not being spyed? What do you mean? As far as DRM is concerned, it’s there in iTunes because Apple needed to have something there in order to have a music downloads service. I use iTunes to listen to my music but I don’t use DRM. ”
Well, you said it: “As far as DRM is concerned, it’s there in iTunes because Apple needed to have something there…”
And to control the market too, and what you listen or not, and that you have paid for every piece of music you have ( that is the ultimate goal.. business)
But in Linux there are not DRM, and if it cames to Linux one day, you can always, change the distro…
Summarizing:
1)I answered a silly comment with a number of points.
2)You contested some of the points
3)despite saying that OS X is a good system, I answer your points too, saying and proving in what a Linux distro is superior to Mac OS X.
!!!
Good , but there are even more to program in linux, and free too ( but in both senses of freedom, in the linux OS)
Name me some programming tools which exist on Linux and are not available on Mac OS X.
So I knew what you anwered to me. No need to repeat it. Still, there are much more for Linux…. Look at debian ,, or getoo, Fedora… repositories!
Sure. There are about 17,000 packages in Debian stable right now. That’s quite a lot more than Fink’s but Fink does not contain all the apps that run on Mac. There are many applications which run on Mac that don’t run on Linux. Plus, just because Linux may have a few thousand programs on it which have not been ported to Mac, it doesn’t mean that Linux is a better platform than Mac.
Not exactly… There are many programs ported from Linux and BSD, but they do not run generaly without modification. Even betwenn Linux distros there are incompatibilities, so most Linux programs can not run in MacOS X without modification. Still, normal users, are not going to modify a Linux program to run it, even if is a little modification. Actually normal OS X users do not know even the existance of the Fink ports…
I said “little or no modification”. There are programs which can be installed from source on Mac which do not require any modification. I’ve done this myself. Programs that do need modification do not usually need heavy modification in order to run on Mac OS X.
No , this is not what I want or mean, but what I just said: Far ahead in Web server programs and capabilities. There are many more programs and utilities in Linux for servers and networks, than in Mac OS X. Apache is not the only web server, etc. Again, many can be ported, but this is another question…
Name me the Linux utilities that you refer to which do not run on Mac OS X.
You can easily install X11 and Gnome and KDE on MacOS X ??? That’s new… Guy, do not forget that you have studies computers. An average Mac user can not install that, he/she does not even know what is Gnome or Xfce.
Still there are plenty of Windows mangers and GUIs and not all of them would work in MAc OS X , or not that easily.
Linux users are not average computer users. These Mac users that you talk about probably would be stumped with trying to install and run Linux on their Macs.
You were saying though that Linux has more GUIs available to it. You did not say how easy it would be to install these various graphical environments. KDE and GNOME can be installed on Mac OS X. These GUIs are available to Mac OS X users.
About Linux and the tweking, it depends on the distro, but you finish tweking all OSs really. There are now Ditros thet work really perfectly “out of the box”, in everything moore or less( Mepis, SuSe, PC Linux OS…)
No distro that I have ever tried ran perfectly on my hardware out of the box. I like Linux. I use it in college but I’m not completely out of touch with reality as to suggest that Linux doesn’t have its flaws. In fact, part of Linux’s appeal is the freedom it gives users to constantly tweak and fix their systems to get them working properly.
When I first got my iBook, I was a little bored simply because it didn’t need any maintenance. Everything just worked. My PC running Ubuntu always has something that isn’t quite right with it.
Well, you said it: “As far as DRM is concerned, it’s there in iTunes because Apple needed to have something there…”
And to control the market too, and what you listen or not, and that you have paid for every piece of music you have ( that is the ultimate goal.. business)
I choose to not use DRM on my Mac and yet I still buy music online and listen to it with iTunes. My Mac doesn’t get in the way at all. Apple have DRM in place because the record companies wanted them to do it. I don’t like DRM so I don’t use it. Apple doesn’t force me to use it.
Next was state of the art years (nearly decades) ago, but OSX is hardly that today. Its window handling is quite nice, but that’s about it. My biggest gripe is the ancient wreck that is the OSX Finder. It has support for a whopping three networking protocols (SMB, FTP, and NFS3). None of these are secure in the slightest (well, SMB at least can encrypt the authentication part of logging in, which is a start). KDE under linux supports NFS4 (an actual secure networking fs), and it can emulate a remote filesystem on any machine where you have ssh access and perl. That pretty much covers my requirements for secure network access.
The Finder also seems to run in a single thread, or at least it has a really nasty Huge mutex that makes all Finder windows (including the desktop) freeze when a remote server becomes unavailable. I have my Powerbook connected to my NFS3 server at home so I can watch TV shows. If I take my laptop to work without disconnecting from the NFS server, the entire Finder freezes for a few minutes, until the NFS connection finally times out. All FInder windows are unresponsive, as is the Desktop. That’s really not cool. I don’t know if all the Finder windows are seperate process that try to access all resources constantly, or if they are all controlled by a master process that chokes, but the end result is the same. It’s not pretty.
When using the column view (with the preview pane on the right), clicking on a movie file brings up a preview of the first frame of the movie. That frame isn’t apparently stored in memory though; the finder will actually use all available resources displaying that first frame forever, or at least until I click on a different icon. Also, when accessing the movie across a slow network, the preview operation brings down all Finder windows until the preview is complete. Once again, not cool.
Overall, I do like OSX. It’s decently stable, it’s pretty, and it supports all the hardware that it ships with. Linux is also stable, not generally as pretty, and lacks the hardware support. Once that final bit is there, I’m switching. I don’t care about prettiness, but I do care about functional networking and a system that doesn’t constantly hang for noticable periods of time when accessing network resources.
I thought flight5 was supposed to come with a graphical installer, but when i used it, it was the same installer they’ve had since Hoary. Does flight6 have it?
Ubuntu is remarkable though. I was a staunch Slack’er, and I haven’t looked back since using Ubuntu on the desktop (big change, i know).
I have been enjoying the flight cds though. The quality is even better than i’ve come to expect from Shuttleworth’s great distro.
Hmm, sorry I did not see your comment earlier
try the liveCD. It’s on it.
Guys, here is something I suggest you try: do not download the install CD. Download only the Live CD. Why? Because it contains the graphical installer. First, it’s a LOT faster and easier to install. Second, if you happen to find a bug, PLEASE file it on espresso in http://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+filebug
That way, espresso will keep getting better for the release
In flight 5, I reported about 2 or 3 bugs on espresso related to partitioning. And they are all fixed. Woohoo! ^^
I have installed flight 4 and each night, I am prompted for updating my system with the latest updates. So do I have flight 6 now or do I have to download flight 6 from the net and install seperately?
No, it’s exactly the same. You could even come from wart and dist-upgrade to dapper, and you would be flight6 (considering you still have the ubuntu-desktop package around to make sure you have the default installation).
Flights (and whatever name depending on the animal type) are only to allow having a more up-to-date installer or if your hardware only works with the latest bleeding edge thing (I saw that with a laptop once.. It HAD to run dapper, otherwise sound did not work, which in turn prevented hotplug from working)
Seriously, I am still nestling comfortably into Breezy because it is just so darn good. I am glad they are taking the extra time with Dapper because for one, we don’t need it yet, and two, I want Ubuntu to be so freakin’ good that no one gives a care when Vista is finally (ever?) released. People that have not yet tried Ubuntu are just stubborn, because that team has the right head on their shoulders.
Unbuntu is really well layed out as a desktop, with really sane defaults.
But its stability is trully god awful, even straight debian with the same stuff installed doesn’t give me this sort of crap.
There is something trully wrong with ubuntu somewhere to make it this unstable, and no, not one of the other half dozen distro’s I’ve tried exibit anything like this sort of instability on this hardware, only ubuntu.
The KDE front-end for NetworkManager is integrated with KDE Wallet, so you only have to give a password once per session (the KDE Wallet password) as all the WEP/WAP keys can be kept in the wallet.
Are you talking about Breezy or Dapper?