Ubuntu 9.10: The Karmic Koala Benchmarked And Reviewed

[Guest]

Please start using normal proper hardware not shit like Biostar, this manufacturer is below lowest range of worst mobo´s.
Problem is between keyboard and chair and lack of experience. Noob.

 

[Guest]

Biostar cant be blamed, i've never seen a problem with Windows with such hardware...(or Mandriva Suse and other distros)

Blaming common available hardware (its a budget board, its not crap), is a poor way to stick up for ubuntu, my friend

Ubuntu has tryed to be to adventurous with this release with a 6 month realse cycle, and never had the real possiblity of doing a full and comprehensive bug testing (blaming anything else is folly)

Begining and end of, their is no real mystery to it

Am i to understand my asus and gigabyte boards are rubbish as well, cause it can never be ubuntus fault? can it?

10.4 is going to be a more conserative release anyway, so i will be looking forward to that

 

[Guest]

I've installed 9.10 in 6 different machines, and it didn't took more than 20 minutes on each. You must be very unlucky.

 

[Guest]

Nice review. Been using Jaunty (9.04) for months now with very few unresolvable issues. So far perfect replacement for MS 64 bit. Recognizes all my memory on quad intel / OCZ / Asus P35. Recognized AND loaded correct drivers for NVIDIA 9600 Video as well as SATA disk. Had some reloads with Audio and Video format playback (ALSA, GSTREAM, VLC, flash [ yes flash works in 64-bit using alternative package ]

 

[azz156]

I upgraded to 9.10 from 9.04 and havent had a single problem so far. im avoiding ext4 since last time i tryed it i couldnt access any ntfs partitions. still i think 9.10 is a huge improvement over 9.04 by far.

 

[apaige]

Besides being cross-platform, these benchmarks are all free (as in gratis) to download, so there is nothing stopping you from testing out your own boxes.

Where? There's no download link in your article.

Due to popular demand by you, the Tom's Hardware readers, we've decided to include 7zip along with the usual zip files.

What an odd choice. You didn't benchmark gzip or bzip2 at all, which are the standards in linux/UNIX land.

 

[fadirocks]

[citation][nom]False_dmitry_ii[/nom]Linux mint is based off of ubuntu. [/citation]

I know LinuxMint is based off Ubuntu didn't say LinuxMint is better in hardware support

Knoppix does have better Hardware support I've tried on many systems and never failed loading on any system but for Ubuntu ....yea it sucked

and even for LinuxMint worked my wireless 2200BG properly unlike ....

 

[adamovera]

[citation][nom]apaige[/nom]Where? There's no download link in your article.What an odd choice. You didn't benchmark gzip or bzip2 at all, which are the standards in linux/UNIX land.[/citation]
Sorry, Tom's doesn't host any file downloads. All the benchmarks used are hosted on multiple other sites though. Thanks for the feedback, I'll post links to them the next time we bring out the suite.
Other authors have gotten many requests for 7zip specifically. If gzip and/or bzip2 gain some significant popularity outside of Linux, I'll add them to the mix as well.

 

[Guest]

??? Biostar motherboards! and three of them too! I can't believe anyone would buy such cheap rubbish motherboards for testing and informing the public. Please do us all a favor and retest ubuntu on something decent like an Asus or Gigabyte motherboard, thank-you kind sir!

 

[tpi2007]

[citation][nom]Linuxlover[/nom]??? Biostar motherboards! and three of them too! I can't believe anyone would buy such cheap rubbish motherboards for testing and informing the public. Please do us all a favor and retest ubuntu on something decent like an Asus or Gigabyte motherboard, thank-you kind sir![/citation]


Well, if it serves you anything, like I said above, I tested it on an MSI motherboard, with an Intel chipset, a Gigabyte graphics card, Transcend memory and a Seagate 120gb Sata HDD, and it didn't work. And yes, the hardware is working just fine, all tested.

We could go on and on talking about our own experience and people bashing on others just because it worked/didn't work on their system, but the fact is, like I said, six months release schedule is insane. Like Adam said, Ubuntu got reviewed in the first place because it achieved that spotlight position; if they release an OS that is aimed at grabing marketshare from Windows/OSX, they must consider carefully how they handle their release cycles.

Like two readers said before, some just skip the .10 releases because they have that experience. But the general public doesn't know these quirks, and when a new version of the OS is posted on the main page for download, the general public is expecting it to be final and not in reality something more like beta / pre-LTS. If they really want to release it every six months, then post a warning about it being experimental, as it's obvious they didn't have time to test it extensively, and simultaneously post a link on the main page to the most stable previous version. That is the only way to conquer the public's confidence.

 

[hannibal]

[*** is "guite"? I would have let it go, but you misspelled a the same word 3 times in the same comment.

I was also 'quite' annoyed with your statement that Win7 is a minor update to Vista. So Win7 is a "minor update", and this Unbuntu release is not? I swear... there's no excuse for the amount of problems this 9.10 release has, and frankly, its a little depressing to see how poorly the dev team has its act together on what should be pretty mature releases. Fiddling with horrible installation problems for days is what drives users back to Windows and OSX. When Unbuntu has crap releases like this, it does serious damage to whatever pitiful momentum Linux has. I'm not a Linux fanboy, but if I was, I'd be freaking pissed, not making excuses.

Sorry for misspelling, lousy job from me. And no I don't wont to make any excuses to support this release. I just mean that when there are so many updates in one release, it should need more time to test it before releasing it to public. You are right, this is not a good publicity to any program, just like Vista was not good publicity to MS, even they made it much better with upgrades.

 

[jrabbitb]

kubuntu's multi monitor support is a joke. i wish ubuntu (kubuntu) would do two things. keep it simple, get one thing right before adding crazy features.

 

[apaige]

[citation][nom]adamovera[/nom]Sorry, Tom's doesn't host any file downloads. All the benchmarks used are hosted on multiple other sites though. Thanks for the feedback, I'll post links to them the next time we bring out the suite.[/citation]
Fair enough, that's all I'm asking. Why not now though?

[citation][nom]adamovera[/nom]Other authors have gotten many requests for 7zip specifically. If gzip and/or bzip2 gain some significant popularity outside of Linux, I'll add them to the mix as well.[/citation]
So you're not really benchmarking linux, you're benchmarking linux in a Windows world. Again, fair enough, though it's kinda like benchmarking bzip2 under Windows 7.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

What I found interesting is that some people managed to install and run the new version without experiencing any problems while other had all sorts of problems. I'm wondering why there's such a major difference. Does it have something to do with a user's brand of pc, specific download of the new version, or something entirely different?

 

[doopydoo22]

I guess you can add me to the apparent few that had zero problems installing 9.10. I can attest to the slow downloads (and horrible design) of the software center, though I usually use Synaptic anyways.

 

[Guest]

No problems to report installed 9.10 on 2 Dell Latitude 610 and 1 630. Also no issues with EeePc 900a with the remix.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

The way Phoronix has it, the Netbook Remix version is pretty much top of the heaps compared to other distros too. If I were in the market for a netbook, I'd be putting Karmic NBR on it without a second thought. That seems to be one area where Canonical really has their ducks in a row.

 

[Guest]

I don't understand the black-eye. I have install 9.10 on numerous computers, from dual quad AMD's and Intels to core i7's to Atom's and various Athlons and Opterons. I have installed mostly 64 bit systems, but some 32 bit systems too. Some have been upgrades. I have had hardly a hickup. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Karmic at all, especially with the updates.

 

[mircea273]

At work I have a dual Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz with 500GB WD HDD and 4GB RAM. I installed Karmic on it with no problems at all. Maybe there is something affecting some AMD systems... Don't just give up on Karmic Desktop 64 just because your system had problems.

 

[Guest]

I've been using UNR on my Asus 1005HA and for the most part, it has been a wonderful experience. It's responsive, attractive and functional. There are minor issues that grate on my nerves (like hearing sound out of my headphones and speakers at the same time) but I experienced worse in Windows 7 (headphones not even recognized). I'm happy with Karmic, and if Lucid can improved upon the new features like the Ubuntu Software Center (Linux Mint does it right) and I will be staying with Ubuntu for the foreseeable future.

 

[Guest]

Speaking as someone who did multiple installs without a hitch...

I may be asking for too much but.... when testing any software and particularly OS the bigger sample the better. Is it out of the realm of possibility that a site like Tom's could corral 10 different machines to test the install part. Also, while the ratio of commenters with negative experiences to positive is not a very accurate measure given the much higher probability of people with negative experiences to post.
Maybe I missed it but did you have any conversation with Canonical about your issues and did they offer suggestions, which did not work?
Might it have been useful to do the heavy lifting and figure out exactly what the incompatibility or actual problem was?

 

[oneeighteen]

i had absolutely no problem installing this on my main pc (x64) and another side pc (x86) but your problems most likely stem from hardware issues imo 9.10 is much better than 9.04

 

[Guest]

All you do is talk crap , shutup nobody likes you. Tom!

 

[Guest]

Windows > Linux

 

[Guest]

I had the same sort of problems installing 9.10 on two different machines, a Dell E521 (Athlon 64 X2 3.1 Ghz, 4gb ram, ATI 4830, Nvidia 6150SE chipset/IGP) and a Lenovo Y710 Laptop (Core 2 Duo, 3gb ram, ATI 2600 Pro). I reinstalled Ubuntu several times on both machines, with absolutely no luck what so ever. I don't doubt that many people had success on other configurations, and other versions of Ubuntu have worked fine for me. It's just unfortunate timing for Canonical, with Win 7 coming out. At the moment, I consider Win 7 the best all-around OS, but Ubuntu is a real contender, and free is awesome. Hopefully 10.04 changes my mind.