Ubuntu 7.10 released tomorrow!

[Twilight]

Just a heads up.

www.ubuntu.com


I keep an old machine around used specifically so that I can play around with the latest distros (I typically keep up with openSUSE, Fedora, and Ubuntu). I've been looking forward to 7.10 a lot - some nice new stuff packed in there!

 

[Deleted 2]

Ubuntu is arguably one of the friendliest and most usable Linux distributions around at the moment, because it leverages the (huge) Debian packages collection.

 

[Twilight]

Absolutely. It really puts into perspective something like Vista, for which you pay more than $200 - when you could get an OS that does everything Vista can do (and more) for $0. (except if you're gaming - otherwise there are comparable open source software packages for just about anything you can buy).

 

[Deleted 2]

The problem with software pricing is that the economics of scale work so well in this field that there's no way to pretend that the price at which software is sold is in any way related to the cost of making it.

And Ubuntu is run by a South-African .com billionaire (he made his fortune in SSL certificates--that's like having a license to print money) who doesn't mind spending a chunk of his fortune if it gives him a chance to upset the software industry.

At $0 or $200, Vista or Ubuntu, you're getting a bargain.

 

[Amaris]

All I know right now is that Feisty Fox crashed my system so thoroughly, that only now, after a day and a half of repair and restoring, do I have my system remotely approaching normal again. I almost lost 120 GB of data. I'm staying away from Ubuntu for a while. Edgy Eft never did that.

J.

 

[TK421]

I just downloaded it.

Does anyone know how/if it can be run from a USB thumb drive?

I'd like to test drive it seriously before scrubbing my windows system.

 

[Alaedhros]

The only way I know of requires a Linux/BSD system to set up. Any particular reason you can't just run it from the CD?

 

[TK421]

I could run it from the CD, but on a flash drive you can run it persistent, so it keeps all settings etc.

I just found a thing called WUBI, but there's no stable 7.10 release of it yet.

 

[Hitman]

I'm resisting the urge to upgrade to this one until the end of the month... I never liked to be an early adopter in such matters...

 

[Twilight]

TK421 said:
I just downloaded it.

Does anyone know how/if it can be run from a USB thumb drive?

I'd like to test drive it seriously before scrubbing my windows system.

The test drive is automatic. What you're downloading (by default) from the site is a Live CD.

This means that you just pop the 700 MB cd into your windows machine, restart, and you'll automatically boot from the CD into a live instance of Ubuntu.

You can then test drive as much as you want BEFORE installing anything. If you want to keep it (and make it run full speed), click on the install icon on the Live CD's desktop.

easy!

 

[Alaedhros]

TK421 said:
I could run it from the CD, but on a flash drive you can run it persistent, so it keeps all settings etc.

Quite right. After a bit more searching, I did find this; about 4/5 of the way down the page are Windows installation instructions. Perhaps it will be of some help?

 

[TK421]

Thanks!

I also noticed on the 7.10 it has a kind of mini-wubi so I gave it a test drive. But for some reason it wouldn't enable fancy graphics.

 

[Twilight]

You have to enable proprietary drivers for your video card. You can do this with one click post-install.

 

[Alaedhros]

TK421 said:
Thanks!

No problem. If you get it working, I'd be interested in knowing how difficult installing to a flash drive is under Windows. I'd also be glad to hear your thoughts on Ubuntu overall.

 

[BCI]

Does Flash and the Opera browser work on this? Can I install these without using the command prompt?

 

[Twilight]

Of course!

Flash is one-click install with Firefox on Ubuntu 7.10 (the Ubuntu plugin grabs the .deb from the Debian repository), and Opera is also a one click install if you go to Applications --> Add/Remove. That takes to you the HUGE debian repositories where you can install anything on your system with 1 click.

You pretty much never have to open up a terminal if you don't want to on Ubuntu.

 

[LavianoTS386]

Here's a Cnet video to help with Wubi.

 

[C. Cole-Chakotay]

The only reason I don't use Ubuntu is it won't play nice with my winmodem. I'm not one to tinker around with my PCs innards so I just stay with Windows XP. I check in the Ubuntu forum every so often to see if they've come up with a winmodem work-around, but so far I haven't come across it for my machine

 

[LavianoTS386]

One of the great things about Linux in general is how highly configurable it is. For example if you like the current Mac OS look or if you had to switch between a Mac & a linux PC and were looking to use one interface type, you could make it look like mac, and to some degree (with the mac-menu applet) act like it, like I did here: