There’s been a fair amount of news online about Canonical’s specialized version of Ubuntu for Atom based laptops, but the current word on it is that Canonical will only be licensing it directly to OEMs.  However, there is a PPA that you can use to turn an Ubuntu Hardy install into UNR.

Just add the repository and install the applications that it contains, then log out and in and set up your new desktop.

I have mine configured as close as I can to what the default layout seems to be from the screenshots I’ve seen online.

UNR makes good use of available screen real estate (my screenshots are running at 800×600) by putting each application in a “Tab.”  I installed a couple of extra apps, Deluge 1.0rc2 and Banshee 1.0, and sure enough, they automatically conformed to the layout.

UNR places it’s launchers and menus on the desktop, which is quickly accessible from the “Go Home” button in the upper-left corner (it looks like an Ubuntu logo).

I’m not crazy about the look and feel.  The desktop has a nice, new, polished look to it while the applications themselves use the standard Human theme.  Either are nice on their own, but they seem to clash when used together.  The interface was also a little slow, but that may be due to running it inside a virtual machine, as I’ve heard that the interface makes some use of OpenGL.

Overall, it’s a nice product and most tasks are accomplished easily.  This will make a great OS for the Eee PC or any other subnotebook.

I finally got Eclipse 3.3 working on Ubuntu.  After untarring to /opt, I was still experiencing several problems getting Eclipse to run.  It turns out that even though I had Sun’s Java installed, /usr/bin/java was still linking to the gcj compiled version.  A quick update-alternatives fixed the issue, though.

Because Ubuntu 6.06 was delayed, the next release, Edgy, is coming up fast, and here is my ongoing list of things I hope may be in it:

• Linux 2.6.17
• Xorg 7.1
• Gnome 2.16
• NetworkManager 0.6.3
• Firefox 2.0
• Gaim 2.0
• OpenOffice.org 2.0.x
• Rhythmbox 0.9.5
• Bittorrent 4.20.x
• Gimp 2.2.x

Updated June 29, 2006

I’ve installed SuSE 10.1 Beta4 and Dapper Flight4 alongside each other, and thought I’d post a few thoughts.

From the SuSE release announcement:

“Beta4 has a number of ROUGH edges, so read the Most Annoying Bugs for Beta4 before you decide to download and test it.”

Boy, they weren’t kidding. The SuSE installer crashed after installing packages, and I had to log in as root and manually set up the rest of the system by hand. SuSE still doesn’t recognize my wireless card (Atheros), but that wouldn’t be such a big deal except that SuSE 9.3 worked fine with the same card. I wasn’t able to install the fglrx drivers, so I couldn’t give Xgl a try.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, was very stable, as long as I’m not running Xgl and compiz. Xgl runs ok, but compiz crashes the entire X session. I haven’t yet tried out wpa_supplicant (that’s for tommorow), but for just a standard desktop system, Ubuntu ran great, and it’s still in alpha stages.

Just a quick update: The next installment of SuSE v. Dapper is taking longer than I had expected. Dapper Flight 4 still isn’t out yet, and while I downloaded and burned SuSE Beta3, the CD’s would not boot properly. So, I’m now planning to try Beta4 and Flight4 alongside each other. SuSE Beta4 is scheduled to come out next Thursday, and I still have no idea when Flight4 is due.

I have been keeping an up-to-date Dapper installation going on a separate partition, though, and it’s looking good.

What I’m looking for in the next trial:

• WPA support – preferably integrated in NetworkManager
• Xgl – will it run at all
• Support for advanced laptop features – suspend to disk/RAM, sleep mode, etc
• Stability/speed, etc

Well, I installed SuSE 10.1 Beta 1 and the latest daily build of Dapper today, so I thought I’d post a few quick observations before going to bed.
Continue reading →

Versions 10.1 and 6.04 of OpenSuSE and Ubuntu Linux, respectively, are coming out in the next few months. Ubuntu is due in April, and SuSE’s first release candidate is scheduled for mid-February; both distributions have preview releases available now. As they become more stable, I plan to do a series of reviews on the two distros in a college enviornment. At the moment, I don’t know which one will become my next primary distribution. Ubuntu has served me well for the last two releases, but SuSE was my first distro, and my introduction to the Linux world.