Below, please find my impressions of running this release. I'm using an
Asus 1015PE (a netbook) as my work-a-day system. Suggestions and
comments welcome!
I am running Ubuntu 11.04, but still with classic Gnome. Unlike on
the live cd, there are no crashes like we saw, now that I've installed
it to hard drive. The machine is not vinucized; that is, I did an
eyes-free, independent install from the stock 11.04 image. Orca got
screwed up during the animated slide show that runs while the install is
in progress. When I got to the final step, I turned Orca off and hit
the 'install' button. Then, I just walked away, and came back to the
machine after about a half-hour. I assumed all was ready, ejected the
usb drive, and rebooted. To my delight, The narwhale came up talking,
on the gdm screen.
Access to the Indicator Applet (the thing used for setting up wifi,
checking the battery, etc, is a bit flaky, but, fortunately, one doesn't
need to play with the thing often. I activated keyboard shortcuts for
adjusting volume. Next, I added the apt repositories for the Orca daily
builds, installed Thunderbird, Drobbox, and a few other things I like.
In every stock Ubuntu system I've ever used, Orca won't give access to
the gui admin apps, unless one runs them from the terminal, with sudo.
The next thing I noticed was that the skype api plugin for empathy and
pidgin does not work fully in Natty. I can make calls, send and receive
text messages, but cannot accept incoming calls. I hear the ring tone,
see the 'accept' dialogue, but attempts to accept do nothing.
I have about 12 gb of tunes, mostly in 'mp3' files. In prior Ubuntu
distros, I could manage this music collection with the Rhythmbox
application. In 11.04, Banshee is the new media player. Before I loaded
my music collection, Banshee could open and play streams. Now that the
music is in place, Banshee will not fully open, and attempts to run it
result in a frozen X session. I installed Rhythmbox for comparison.
Rhythmbox will browse my files, create the indices, and play the music.
It will not, however, save the database for future sessions.
Finally, Something I unwittingly did on Saturday has resulted in a
system in which Orca will, sometimes, not start post-login. I get the
login drums and talking gdm screen. I log in. I get the post-login
music, then, sometimes, nothing. If I wait a minute or more, then
manually start Orca, it still won't go. I have to pull the switch and
restart; maybe it will work.
Well, there, you have it! I'm not sure whether I'll down-grade, change
distros, or just make this thing work. I have a stubborn streak that
makes the third option most appealing.
YMMV,
Dave Hunt
Twitter and Skype: wx1gdave
Tel: 617 319 4491
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