Ubuntu 10.10: Maverick Meerkat Benchmarked And Reviewed

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[citation][nom]loftie[/nom]Pentium M 1.8GHz, only 512MB ram though and Intel gfx. Odd thing is it runs better on battery than plugged in. Laptop is about 4 years old. Never tried Lucid, this was my first go with Ubuntu, so I could have done something wrong I suppose. And it's the desktop edition I used, not the netbook version.[/citation]
Well, that's a little old for Vista or 7, so I'm assuming that you run XP. Since you already formatted the drive and don't like 10.10, try Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx 32-bit Desktop Edition. It should run better than XP, it definitely does on the Mini 10v. Though the battery/plug thing is very odd. Does XP run better on battery as well?
 
[citation][nom]damianrobertjones[/nom]What page is the battery life on?[/citation]
It's not, we benchmarked a desktop. But we are working on a Linux battery life test for the future. For that test, we will most likely use the Mini 10v since it's sold with Ubuntu, though the rest of the benchmarks will remain on a 64-bit desktop.
 
D-Bus failed to install when installing 10.10.

All I can say is "Failbuntu"...
 
Well, after reading this review I decided it was time to go back to Linux on my backup PC. So how did this go you might ask..ugg..what a nightmare. This 10.10 distribution get a big fat "F" from this experience. I had 6 failed install attempts including both 64bit and 32bit versions, installs from both CD's and my USB stick. Failures ranging from not even being able to get past the user name screen all the way to almost complete the dieing on the branch. I downloaded both versions twice to just in case my download has hosed. Finally downloaded 10.4 and it installed without incident. Things are not necessarily all rosy in Linux land for all.
 
[citation][nom]adamovera[/nom]Well, that's a little old for Vista or 7, so I'm assuming that you run XP. Since you already formatted the drive and don't like 10.10, try Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx 32-bit Desktop Edition. It should run better than XP, it definitely does on the Mini 10v. Though the battery/plug thing is very odd. Does XP run better on battery as well?[/citation]

Yep I'm running XP on the laptop. I will most likely end up trying 10.04. Ubuntu does seem like a nice change to windows, so I am interested. And nope, the battery thing doesn't happen with XP. It seems to get a lot hotter on maverick too, but on XP i've downvolted the CPU through rightmark as i cant access it in the bios. However even without rightmark, im sure xp runs cooler. Does maverick make more use of GPUs?
 
Fresh install of 10.10 32 bit from Ubuntu User disc (don't trust big downloads)- installed fine, upgrades fine, Firefox version crap, updated it - fine, crisp and clean appearance, recognises my mobile and wifi dongles. On an elderly Athlon with 512Mb RAM, I am very happy with it. The software manager may be too bloated for purists, but by heck it makes life simpler...
 
I've now installed 10.10 on three different laptops and have had no problems that I couldn't sort out in ten minutes or less on the Ubuntu Community Forums. My Acer Extensa 5230E is eating it right up. My daughter's single-core eMachines eMD620 feels like a fresh new machine again even with 1GB of RAM. My babysitter's husband's ASUS X83V is now flying nicely. He's a gamer, too, and he has yet to find a Windows-based game he owns on CD that won't install and run smoothly with WINE. He buys new games for Xbox 360, but all his older games were 2002-2007 editions and they do fine. Video on his laptop is nVidia 9300M GS and it just plain works.

That's what impresses me about Ubuntu the most. I don't know squat about Linux. If I have to do something in Terminal I better have letter-perfect code to copy and paste. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. But I sure do know it installs on computers and there's applications out there for everyone.

I can't say 10.10 32-bit feels faster than a few weeks back when I was running 10.04 under WUBI. But it sure is faster booting up and opening applications than Vista Home Basic (was on the eMachines) or Vista Professional 32-bit, and either version is equal or better than 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
 
[citation][nom]xpower7[/nom]How do I disabled the unity interface to get the desktop interface??[/citation]
easy peasy...log out, then when you go to log back in, look on the bottom of the screen and you will be able to choose different options. Pick GNOME and you'll not see Unity for that log in session.
 
I gave this a try on my EeePC and also my Toshiba Satellite Pro P305.

Loads fast, runs smooth, found all the hardware. GUI is nice, but I might try playing with some others to see how they look and feel.

I get good battery life on the EeePC when mobile so far too.
 
I like the detailed battery information you get with Ubuntu. This isn't all, there's also graphs and charts and information on the AC adapter and everything. Truly a geek's dream if you're into battery life. I've got the power-saving thing enabled on my processor. It runs at 1.2GHz normally now and it bumps to 1.6 or 2.1 automatically as needed. There's even a little gauge for my Avant Window Navigator Dock. Here's an example of the battery information you get...

if6blg.png


This laptop battery has 90% of capacity available and can be charged up to 97%. It is and has been for the last 13 months, plugged in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When I am on battery, which is maybe 2-3 times a year, I typically get 3h20m to 3h40m of use. On a 6-cell. That's not bad considering I've added extra memory, changed out to a dual-core processor, and I don't baby it. I multitask the crap out of this thing when I'm on battery, no quarter given.
 
I have to point out that "Free" software has never meant free of charge. The reason why the acronym FOSS exists is to appease Richard Stallman, FSF and their ilk. Stallman objects to the name "open source" because it de-emphasizes the concept of freedom. FOSS does not mean (cost) free and open source and never has.
 
Ubuntu 10.10 runs like a top. I have it running on two older computers, one a laptop with Windows XP PRO Dual Boot (Dell Inspiron 8600 2GB RAM) and a desktop (old HP Pavilion 753n) running Ubuntu 10.10 with Samba.

A very funny observation - as I was setting up the dual boot environment on the Laptop, I installed Windows first and noticed that I needed to install a driver for both network cards (both wired and wireless) to work. I installed Ubuntu, and not only did it work without an issue, I was connected to the internet and surfing immediately.
 
I wait until Gnome 3.0 is ready If Ubuntu don't go for it, maybe I'll go for another Linux
 
This whole Linux thing is completely new to me. While I have heard about it from time to time, I never thought to look into it. However, recently a HP Mini 110c, 1100CA fell into my hands without any operating system on it. I would gladly have installed a copy of XP Pro on it, but, as some of you may be aware of the install requires a proper Sata Driver, before Windows Installer can recognize the Sata drive in this machine. Now, if one should own a copy of XP Pro with Service Pack 3 already on it and being that the necessary driver is part of Service Pack 3,then the install should go sucessful. However what happens when I try to install my copy of XP Pro, the install seemingly starts OK, but then I get a message that Windows Installer can't find hard drive (None)meaning no hard drive installed. It is recognized in the BIOS.

My thought now is that maybe I can install Ubantu 10.10, and that hopefully the necessary driver is included with Ubantu. Does anyone know if Ubantu 10.10, has the required Sata driver installed. And what would be the best way to approach this Ubantu installation. For instance I don't think it will install from a USB FLash Drive. Maybe CD or DVD on an external CD or DVD drive???

If I can get Ubantu to work, it just might be a way for me to get my feet wet with Linux.

Thanks in advance for any help on this.
 
Currently trying to install Ubuntu 10.04 on my girlfriends son new laptop at her request and all I can say is "stay with windows" the main reason is that "it works" It's simple to add and remove hardware no searching around for package updates and things can be found fairly easy. currently im trying to find some work arounds for some bugs which is very upsetting to do and thinking to myself.. geez, I could of had this fixed by now in windows... or it wouldn't been a problem...

People want to do things with their computers not sitting all day hunting down config files

I've had enough, I'm booting back into windows

 
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