Ubuntu 9.10: The Karmic Koala Benchmarked And Reviewed

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I've given up with Desktop Linux.... what IS the point aside from hatred of Microsoft and Apple. If I can't make a truly suitable replacement for Win/MacOSX to deliver to my mother-in-laws desktop (she's 68) and have her happy with it and know she can get what she needs without calling me, why do we waste our entire lives worrying about patching and wrangling the crap out of issues with a patchwork OS like Linux. I'm a DIEHARD unix guy for 16 years ... bought my first Mac two years ago and haven't even thought of looking back.
 
[citation][nom]riscguru[/nom]I've given up with Desktop Linux.... what IS the point aside from hatred of Microsoft and Apple. If I can't make a truly suitable replacement for Win/MacOSX to deliver to my mother-in-laws desktop (she's 68) and have her happy with it and know she can get what she needs without calling me, why do we waste our entire lives worrying about patching and wrangling the crap out of issues with a patchwork OS like Linux. I'm a DIEHARD unix guy for 16 years ... bought my first Mac two years ago and haven't even thought of looking back.[/citation]


Unless Canonical, or some other entity, brings around something absolutely stunning from every angle and something weird happens to Microsoft, Linux will remain in an enthusiast niche; just like us guys who like to build our own computers.

Unless... mobile phones take over the desktop in some years, and we just connect them to the monitor on our desktop, and there open source OS'es have a word to say. But it's too early for such a prediction, I'd say.
 
Anyway, I would also like to add that I managed to install on the very same computer that didn't manage to run Ubuntu 7.04, nor 9.10, imagine this... Kubuntu 9.04 Release Candidate, from a DVD I had lying around. No problems whatsoever! And from it I did the upgrade to 9.10; also with no problems whatsoever. If I remember well, I've had a similar problem with a different motherboard, albeit that one used a VIA Chipset. But the thing is, Ubuntu didn't boot on that one and Kubuntu, although with some graphical glitches here and there, did and worked for hours on end, including me playing OpenArena almost until the end. And now the same thing happens all over again, this time with an Intel Chipset: Ubuntu, not a chance, Kubuntu: just fine! (and this time without any graphical glitches).

This goes somewhat to corroborate what Adamn Overa said in a comment that Kubuntu 9.10 managed to avoid many of the problems that plague Ubuntu 9.10.

This is probably related to gnome... I couldn't get Ubuntu 7.04 to boot on this machine either (same problem), and 7.04 goes back to 2007... there must be something they're constantly missing.
 
Funny I am "new" really at least to Ubuntu. I have never really used a Linux system for anything more than checking it out. I installed jackalope (9.04) and then did the upgrade to 9.10 and have had no problems. I have been able to do most everything I do in WIN7 except gaming of course (which I am kind of not doing much anymore anyway). I have done some work stuff in it of course internet usage and everything else not a problem. I mentioned I have tried Linux before, but I have virtually no knowledge of it besides general installation on a cleared partition to check it out. SO I am about as ar from experienced as you can get. However; I have had no issues with 9.10. I also am running on it on basically the same machine as you (AMD Athlon 64X2 4400 oc'd a bit 4 gigs and a ati 3870 2 HD) it even suggested I install new drivers for my GPU which I did. No issues for me.
 
I like Ubuntu but uuughhh that brown has got to go... almost every other version of Linux on the planet has a beautiful default wallpaper and color scheme. Nothing wrong with the color or scheme but it just could show off the OS a little better if it was something with a little more jazz. I like Mint or Mandriva or Puppy or well almost all of the other distro's, pick out something nice.

And no its not too hard to change, its just that you only get one chance to make a first impression.
 
i installed this on an old p4 laptop with 256 megs of ram. Boot time from the time i hit the power WITH PASSWORD entry was just under 60 seconds. This stayed the same when upgraded to 1 gig of ram, but notably impro\/ed system performance. I had maybe one error after first install and I belie\/e it was due to a bad sector on the hdd, which ubuntu promptly fixed on the next restart. The only REAL issue I had was networking with windows and it's minor fix once you know where to look. i belie\/e it's in the smb.conf file. where your "workgroup" is not capitlized by default. simply go in and caps it out to say "WORKGROUP". if that doesn't work, there's a great post on ubuntu forums on how to continue with the fix. 😛
 
Linux is not just a Free OS, its a OS with a philosophy. It gives a feeling of liberation from piracy, top notch security & assurance that you are using the best for a PC hardware ( I even consider Mac to be the best for their hardware).

The whole point is that I don't feel cheated in Linux and don't need to run a Anti virus, Anti malware, a Third party Firewall & a Defragging tool which shows the Design superiority that this free OS called Linux has provided me since Ubuntu 9.04 ( My First Distro) which its paid counterpart call Windows has failed to provide me for say 15+ years despite of having a Market Monopoly, intense resources, a heavy budget & lots of time & support.

Linux is a OS by the People for the People & most of Linux users like me feel Proud & Responsible towards it. Its unfortunate that Tom's didn't felt responsible towards the mission. Has Adam raised his voice in Ubuntu forums & brought it to the notice of Developers the problems he faced. What was their response. Thats what any Ubuntu user does when he first finds a problem & fails to solve it himself.

Its easy to write a review saying 'Alright its Flop' but its far more responsible if the author tried to find out the cause & contributed to the community positively by trying to bring it to the attention of Developers thus helping others.

Note:
*** Disclaimer for those willing to analyze this poll ***
Most of users voting at Ubuntu Forums are users with issues.
Users with painless experience are not likely to visit Ubuntu Forums.

Ubuntu Forum Polls:
If 1 person had problems with 9.04
Then 1.09 persons had problems with 9.10

So the difference is not much to claim an OS to be a Failure.

Toms hardware is a very Respected Seat & one who has the authority has to use it very responsibly...
 
i am using 9.10 and i think its certainly crash free, and i am having a very good time with it .. i rather keep moving back from windows to ubuntu, thanks to 9.10. of course flash performance is somewhat of a problem , though its better, but not as good as windows.
 
I think I fully agree with prathameshdotinfo. I dont know how such a reputed website puts such a wrong biased review. There are thousands who are using it without problem. The more the people use the more will be the number of people reporting problems, it is no indication of the quality. If you are faint hearted, then you run away from it otherwise you will stick on, fight and then realize what you were missing. How long have the people who have reviewed used ubuntu 9.10 , they have no right to label it as epic failure ! Its an epic success according to me a happy user, using it for the past 1 month.
 
I had some serious issues with 9.10, and I agree 9.04 was a dream. In fact because of how good 9.04 was I actually made the upgrade the first day 9.10 was available(I usually wait 1-2 months to see what's the feeling). In the end I sticked with 9.10 because I don't want to loose time with one more OS installation, and because I was able until now to fix all the problems I encountered. My conclusion: if you are a Linux user, do the update and help the community with your bug reports, if you just want a system that works - stick with 9.04
 
You should not expect much from the non-LTS releases. They are more for enthusiasts and developers. That should be clear from the release interval. The LTS versions are intended to be much more polished. You need to put things into the proper perspective. I'm looking forward to upgrading my workstation from Hardy to Lucid next year.

I've installed 9.10 on several computers and I've never experienced the problems you mentioned in the review. On the other hand, 9.04 would not even begin to install on my laptop due to kernel-hardware incompatibilities.

 
My first Ubuntu install was 8.04 and I loved it. Then, I made the mistake of "upgrading" to 8.10. Broke my video drivers, broke Compiz desktop, broke my sound, and buggered my GRUB so I couldn't even boot into Windows. This caused me to spend hours and hours on the internet (on another computer) trying to figure out how to get my system to work again. I finally got back to a reasonable functionality, and was happy. Then I "upgraded" to 9.04, and I loved it. No problems, no issues, just a really slick OS that I would have totally switched to if I was not an avid PC gamer. Having "learned" from my upgrading experiences, I decided to install 9.10 on a separate partition on one of my drives. I use Windows 7 for my main OS (cuzz I am a gamer), and didn't want to mess with a GRUB overinstall of my MBR on Win7, in case 9.10 was crap and I wanted to delete it. This would cause problems with booting into Win7. So, i chose to use EasyBCD2.0beta as my boot installer. While I can easily boot into 9.04 using EasyBCD2.0, I can't even boot into my 9.10 install because GRUB2.0 causes problems. There is NO FRIGGIN WAY I am going to allow 9.10 to install GRUB over my Win7 bootloader, so, because EasyBCD2.0beta can't load 9.10, I am not able to assess 9.10 as a totally installed OS. Not willing to be deterred by this, I installed 9.10 in VirtualBox, so I could at least take a look at it. Unfortunately, when installed inside VirtualBox, I cannot access all the cool functions of Compiz, and the fancier aspects of Ubuntu. However, it is still really nice to be able to use Ubuntu 9.10 in a window of my main OS. I can surf, email, and do online banking with no security worries. I can also access the multiple desktop features of Ubuntu, which I really love when doing complex emailing, scheduling, and surfing jobs, while listening to music, downloading TV programs, and updating MP3 playlists all at the same time.
As for Empathy, wtf? Where is my Xfire?? With Pidgin, I can download Gfire, and chat with all my Xfire buddies. So, I installed Pidgin.
And wtf with Pimpsest or whatever the heck it is called???? I liked Gparted because I could easily change partition sizes on any drive, at any time. I have an external drive dock, and use Gparted to partition new drives for computers I am building for clients.
Also, ALL, my previous Ubuntu systems were 64 bit. I absolutely could NOT install 64 bit 9.10 on my system. WTF? I have a 64 bit computer, and have been using 64 bit OS for a while. Why can I not install 9.10 64 bit???
I am disappointed with 9.10, and would agree that it is an EPIC FAIL! And, with only 1% of the market share, Ubuntu cannot afford to have 10 million Windows zombies spreading the word that Ubuntu has lots and lots of problems, and should be avoided. Go back to the drawing board, and make 10.04 the best OS available.
 
I have 4 fresh installs here of Karmic and not one single problem with any of them. They are all Ubuntu 64 Bit Karmic and the final machine was an upgrade and I have a few minor issues with some panel plug-ins but that was a simple delete and re-add them otherwise all is a source of joy.

I cannot see how many people are bagging Karmic out so badly when I have had such an easy upgrade. My worst upgrade was from 7.10 to 8.04 which I personally had the most issues with.
 
I've done a handful of 9.10 installs, the only real problem I had was from the incredibly shit Insyde H2O BIOS I had to deal with on 2 of those installs, with it's non-standard ACPI implementation. I was still able to install with the acpi=off switch in GRUB2, but that's hardly Ubuntu or kernel.org's fault. I'm looking at hacking the BIOS to change some of the options that are hidden, but I squarely blame Insyde for this, and 9.10 is an otherwise stellar OS, that performs flawlessly. I never even use my Windows7 boot anymore...
 
I installed Karmic on 3 systems. One older Dell desktop, one newer Acer laptop and a recent ASUS Netbook. In all cases I used the opportunity to load Windows 7 and Ubuntu side by side on brand new (and larger) hard drives on the laptop and desktop. I 'upgraded' the netbook online from Jaunty.

Pretty much everything worked first time out of the gate. The netbook is stuck on ext3, but I will say that it is possible to go to Grub2 post upgrade. There is a relatively simple procedure to accomplish to move from legacy menu.lst to etc/default/grub.

I had a horrible time with Ubuntu One (folders would disappear and reappear at random) and therefore abandoned it in favor of Dropbox, which is multi-platform anyhow.

I hope the 'upgrade' to 10.4 is as good as a new install, I've used and customized Ubuntu more than in the past and don't want to lose the customization.

My boot-up times are much much quicker than Toms on all platforms. I wonder why his kit had great specs. The little ASUS Netbook with a Runcore SSD is really quick.
 
"That means 7zip compressed more than ten times the capacity of zip."

Main Entry: 1ca·pac·i·ty
Pronunciation: \kə-ˈpa-sə-tē, -ˈpas-tē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural ca·pac·i·ties

2 a : the potential or suitability for holding, storing, or accommodating b : the maximum amount or number that can be contained or accommodated
 
Thank you for your review, it almost exactly mirrors my own experience with Canonical Vista (er Karmic Koala). The install, the grub-xsplash-usplash-exsplash-usplash-xsplash-gdm-xsplash-gnome ridiculousness, the horrible brown of xsplash, the lack of customization of GDM, the stalls with Firefox, the lockups with both Totem and Mplayer, the really really slow install times, all have left me on the verge of switching to Windows 7 (and I've been running Linux exclusively since 2001 mind). I've now reinstalled 9.04 and will look at Arch Linux on my older laptop; I definitely will not be installing any Ubuntu release in the future without serious second and third thoughts.
 
Hmmm... If you are not adventurous, it's always easiest and safest bet to install X.04 version of any Ubuntu. They are the long time support versions, so they are allso most stable and best tested versions. Consider anything else like release versions. They can work just fine and offer the newest improvements, but the most stable version is X.04 version. The Ubuntu 10.04 is coming soon enough, so most these improvements will be there.
 
Hi I'm not sure what happened with you but, I've installed 9.10 on my schools computer labs desktops (Intel p4 3.20ghz duel core, 2gb ram) duel booting with win xp, and on my laptop (Intel Centrino core 2 duo 1.66ghz, 2gb ram) duel booting with win 7. I have had absolutely no problems what so ever on any of them and actually had a very large performance boost on every system (they all have Intel graphics), so ya I love it, best OS ever.
 
Hi I'm not sure what happened with you but, I've installed 9.10 on my schools computer labs desktops (Intel p4 3.20ghz duel core, 2gb ram) duel booting with win xp, and on my laptop (Intel Centrino core 2 duo 1.66ghz, 2gb ram) duel booting with win 7. I have had absolutely no problems what so ever on any of them and actually had a very large performance boost on every system (they all have Intel graphics), so ya I love it, best OS ever.
 
Hi I'm not sure what happened with you but, I've installed 9.10 on my schools computer labs desktops (Intel p4 3.20ghz duel core, 2gb ram) duel booting with win xp, and on my laptop (Intel Centrino core 2 duo 1.66ghz, 2gb ram) duel booting with win 7. I have had absolutely no problems what so ever on any of them and actually had a very large performance boost on every system (they all have Intel graphics), so ya I love it, best OS ever.
 
Hi I'm not sure what happened with you but, I've installed 9.10 on my schools computer labs desktops (Intel p4 3.20ghz duel core, 2gb ram) duel booting with win xp, and on my laptop (Intel Centrino core 2 duo 1.66ghz, 2gb ram) duel booting with win 7. I have had absolutely no problems what so ever on any of them and actually had a very large performance boost on every system (they all have Intel graphics), so ya I love it, best OS ever.
 
I will do a clean install of 9.10 very soon as it should have had most of the problems sorted out by now.
I did an upgrade to 9.04 shortly after it came out , and found that it had too many faults, causing me to go back to 8.10.

Left upgrading until late September and 9.04 worked well,so it seems to be a normal situation with each upgrade.

Despite the problems that 9.10 is having, it is not any worse than 9.04 was.
 
Listen, man, if you're having trouble getting the disc to boot over and over on multiple machines, the only honest route to take is to drop $3-5 and get a guaranteed good disk from on-disk or the like to install for your review. Otherwise, the credibility of the review is nill - a critique of process not of character.

 
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