dstiles - 11:26 pm on Dec 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

Took me about a week to get the new machine almost entirely working. Time taken was mainly due to pressure of work etc elsewhere but also included having to find out why I couldn't use the printer located on another Ubuntu machine (turned out I needed the machine's IP (fixed) added to hosts. The other problem is Kate - see below. Setting up Gnome-RDP wasn't a problem and worked immediately but also see upgrade info below.

Last night, with the new machine in place as a backup if needed, I upgraded my other linux desktop from Hardy 8.04 to Lucid 10.04 (Click Here to Upgrade!).

During update I had to make decisions on a number of script replacements: replace or keep. Most I replaced, two (hosts and one of the Sane scripts)) I kept (they are important for my system).

At auto reboot the system hung with a recurring message every 11 seconds concerning a bug: Soft Lockup which seemed to be about an inaccessible file. It kept repeating the error message until I finished supper and dealt with it. Not a lot of info online specifically about this problem: the reports were about the error occurring AFTER a system rebooted and referred to specific apps, so I forced a hard machine reset with crossed fingers, toes and eyes. Everything went reasonably well after that apart from having to re-select graphics resolution, which presumably it had lost (hard boot after that one) and the odd app re-install I had to do later.

I received a couple of messages concerning some installed apps no longer being maintained and one, the popup for smb4k (forget the name), was dropped from the new installation but replaced by Dolphin.

Problems so far on upgraded machine:

Gnome-RDP not working. This is a known failure point (database not read properly in each new version issued!) but there are fixes for it online which I'll put in place tonight. For some reason uninstalling it and trying to set up a new set of data did not work - probably needs a file removing somewhere.

The new Add/Remove app Ubuntu Software Centre does not make friends. The old one allowed several apps to be ticked and (un)installed at the same time, as Synaptic does. The new one starts the process afresh each time with no tick option, which is tedious when removing or installing a lot of apps (eg taking out all the damn games!). The general presentation is also annoying.

I have to persuade Kate to read my windows machines across the network, on both Ubuntu machines. Hardy did this using smb4k but Lucid seems not to like this at present; but I had problems setting this up on Hardy anyway. I can load individual files but can't display the Windows folder in Kate. More online searching. :(

The switch of app window closure/max/etc buttons from top right to top left isn't a real problem to me even though I also use Windows machines, and there is a fix, but the reasons given by the designers seem puerile and arrogant and it's a poor decision, especially for most Windows users.

The upgraded machine also seems to put the Restart/SwitchUser/etc button in the middle of the task buttons group not at the right, which is clumsy. This may resolve itself later; I don't know.

In general I like Ubuntu and have worked with it for almost three years, gradually moving most of my internet work to it (there are some Windows apps I still need hence the Windows network). There are annoyances which, I think, are a stumbling block for ex-Windows users and the initial setup of a machine is amongst those.

My brother has used Ubuntu Hardy sucessfully for a year or so but on upgrade to Lucid it killed his network access. This has been fixed several times but keeps regressing, and he has tried 9.04 and 10.04 and 10.10, all installed on a bare machine. He's currently pushed it aside.

Ubuntu still has some way to go but when it's working it's great! :)