Arun's Blog

Ubuntu team has released the first beta of Ubuntu 8.10 code named Intrepid Ibex. There are couple of issues I'm having with Ubuntu 8.10.
The 1st one is the ATI proprietary driver fglrx which is not compatible with the new Xorg, so Ubuntu will default you to open source driver which is quite slow in my system. Using GMail in Firefox is also terribly slow. I'm not sure if it's due to the driver issue or Firefox issue or installation issue on my laptop.
The 2nd one is webcam. Ubuntu 8.10 detected my webcam as usb camera (It's a built in webcam). Ubuntu 8.04 and previous version correctly detected it as Logitech Quickcam and the video worked fine on AMSN, Skype etc. The video doesn't work with AMSN in Ubuntu 8.10 and with Skype, I get only green color with my face outline. I'm not sure if it's a known bug.
The reason why I'm still with 8.10 is the wireless network. It's works much better and detects and connects to the network much better. Again there is an issue here. Network manager doesn't store the key. You have to enter the key each time.

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I upgraded my Ubuntu installation in my laptop Acer Travelmate 8204 from Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubuntu 8.10. It's an upgrade and not a fresh installation. I had both Ubuntu and Kubuntu 8.04 installed in my laptop and I set Kubuntu as default and was using that for the past few weeks to test KDE 4.1. I didn't want to download the complete ISO file of the alpha version to upgrade, but I couldn't find an option in Kubuntu to do a pre-release upgrade. I used update-manager -d in a Kubuntu terminal and it started the Ubuntu upgrade manager. I proceded with the upgrade.

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Ubuntu has released their 6th and final alpha version of Ubuntu 8.10. Along with lots of bug fixes, alpha 6 also contains

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I'm happy to say that my dad and my father-in-law use Ubuntu as their main OS. My FIL used Ubuntu when he stayed with us and liked it, so he asked me to install Ubuntu in the new Dell Inspiron laptop he got. He logs into Windows for tasks that can't be performed in Ubuntu or not straightforward.

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Mark Shuttleworth announced that Ubuntu 9.04 due out in April next year will be called Jaunty Jackalope. Shuttleworth has set some specific goals to meet in Jaunty. One of them is boot time. He wants Ubuntu to boot as fast as possible - both in the standard case, and especially when it is being tailored to a specific device. According the him, The Jackalope is known for being so fast that it's extremely hard to catch, and breeds only when lightning flashes. He wants to see if Ubuntu developers can make booting or resuming Ubuntu blindingly quick.

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Ubuntu team has released their 5th (and I think final) alpha version of Ubuntu 8.10. Alpha 5 brings the following changes:

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Dell launched Dell Inspiron Mini 9 today. Dell Inspiron Mini 9 comes with either Ubuntu or Windows XP. Ubuntu system costs $349 and is $50 less than Windows XP system with identical configurations (except for the hard drive). The Mini weighs 2.28 lbs and carries solid state drive. The display size is 8.9». Built-in webcam and bluetooth are available as an option. Dell also offers 2GB of online storage from Box.net.

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I tried using Kino and Cinelerra to capture video from my Panasonic DV camcorder in my Ubuntu 8.04, but none of those softwares detected my camcorder. I tried both firewire and USB. Kino was giving me «WARNING: raw1394 kernel module not loaded or failure to read/write /dev/raw1394!» error. I couldn't find out how to load raw1394 kernel module, so I tried changing the permission to 660 for /dev/raw1394. That didn't help. I finally got it to work after I changed the permission to 777.

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According to Gizmodo, the internal 910 web documentation they got, Dell's Inspiron 910 (Mini), Dell's answer to Eee PC, will sport Intel Atom N270 processor (1.6 ghz), 512/1024 MB memory, 4/8/16Gb Solid State drive (SSD) and Ubuntu 8.04 or Windows XP SP2. The system will go on sale on August 22nd. It's good to know that Ubuntu is doing well with Dell.

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Ubuntu team has released their 4th alpha version of Ubuntu 8.10 code named Intrepid Ibex. Some of the new features in this release includes

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