8.10 impressions

[Knapp]

On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 3:28 PM, Lindsay Mathieson
<lindsay.mathieson at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> Well, since I managed hose my package dependencies and nuke my KDE setup
> (hint: don't use the Citadel hardy repo to install Citadel) I thought I'd give
> the Intrepid Beta a try. My home directory resides on a separate hard disk so
> its relatively easy.
>
> The CD install is easier than ever, no difficulties with hardware etc. The
> manual partition setup made it very easy to select my second hard disk for the
> home directory without formating it, while erasing my old hardy primary
> install. From CDROM boot to up and running with a new install was 15 minutes,
> amazingly fast and straightforward. My sound, network, usb printer, keyboard
> and mouse were all correctly detected – particularly impressed with the
> printer detection, even got the exact model (Samsung ML2010). I was browsing
> the web right away, no doubt this was far faster than I could have with XP or
> Vista.
>
> My LCD was being driven in native 1280x104 (VESA mode?) Of course my onboard
> nvidia 6100 was not configured but I managed to enable it via the restricted
> hardware applet. Had to hunt for that through the menus and it failed the first
> time. Second time was fine.
>
> Nice new feature in the restricted dialog, like envy it gives you a choice of
> driver versions, for now 173, 177 (recommended) and 96.
>
> Install Scores out of 10:
> ----------------------------------
> Ease of Use : 10
> Hardware Detection : 9 (Would be 10 if Canonical could auto setup restricted
> drivers).
> Newbie friendliness : 9.5
>
> Its really that good – I am way impressed. Anyone casually familiar with
> computers could be up and running with minimal to no hand holding – so long as
> they had non funky hardware :) But that applies to every system.
>
> Desktop
> -----------
> I erased my Hardy .kde & .kde4 entries, I wanted a fresh setup – don't know
> how well they would have migrated.
> It is KDE 4.1.2 of course, plasma through and through. I've got quite used to
> it, definitely way more usable than 4.0. I actually quite like the new menu
> now. Still sucks finding programs on it but once you get your favourites setup
> that's not such an issue. I'm a command line junkie anyway.
>
> There's a decent set of plasmoid's in the repos now, but you have to know how
> to search for them (apt-cache search plasmoid) and how to configure them. I
> think there's a need for a plasmoid wizard here.
>
> Kontact – still has all the same old bugs as ever, or more accurately Kmail
> does. IMAP works so long as you don't stress it. Forget about using the
> groupware features for anything except contacts. However it does look great
> and integrates well. And Aggregator is brilliant.
>
> Hardware
> -------------
> Well all my hardware worked fine :) but nothing fancy there. However one big
> improvement which I presume is down to the new kernel – for the first time ever
> with my board sound still works after a hibernate or suspend. In fact Amarok
> resumes playing perfectly after a restore. This means I may never reboot again
> :)
>
> Over all I'm really pleased with this release, normally I don't run beta's on
> my desktop but this has been well worth it.
>
> --
> Lindsay
> http://members.optusnet.com.au/~blackpaw1/album

Sounds really good. I am still holding out hope that the devs make
this look good.

In about 2 weeks I am going to try to install it to my brothers laptop
guiding him over the internet (There are no details about the laptop
because it is not standard and getting info out of xp is not something
I am good at). Not easy to do! In the past this has not worked out
because the CD will not boot is system.

Anyone have a check list for booting a really hard to boot system. As
in try this, and if not that then this, etc? I would be a real help. I
am thinking of just having him use the alt CD to hopefully avoid
problems.



-- 
Douglas E Knapp

http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page