sounder 8 install report

[Jamie Wilkinson]

Powerbook IV (1Ghz G4)

After backing up my old data to an external firewire disk, booted off of
a CD of the sounder 8 ISO.  At the boot prompt, pressed enter for a
"normal" install.

I didn't take many notes from this part of the install, but I remember
being impressed that there was nothing to do.  I said yes to "erase
entire disk", and said to use eth1 (the airport device) as the network
device of choice.  We have two APs in our house, one has a broadcast
ESSID but a WEP key, the other is open access but not routed.  The
installer probably did nothing, /etc/network/interfaces said
'wireless-essid any'.

X configuration Just Worked.  No questions.  I was really impressed :)
Top work to you all.

The gdm screen had 'ubuntu debugging artwork' on it.  Same for the
splash screen after logging in.

First impressions after logging in:

* There are these ugly b/w icons, starting with the gnome foot next to
  Applications, mixed in with colour icons (wireless meter, battstat
  applet) and some really high density icons (Take Screenshot,
  Rhythmbox) so the general feel of the panel and menus is that it's
  brashly assembled, there is no cohesion, (and just because I want to
  use the word dissonant here) the three types of icons feel
  very dissonant.  I'd really like to see convergence on the simple
  coloured icons such as the wireless meter, Terminal Server client,
  About Ubuntu, and a move away from Take Screenshot and those dense
  ones.

  (James Gregory suggests that these are actually from the high-contrast
   icon theme, so I take back the comment about brashly assembled themes)

* The background doesn't fit across the widescreen of the powerbook.  I
  go to turn it off, and discover there's a widescreen version of the
  same image in the backgrounds already.  Is it possible to set that
  based on the X server config?

* The games menu is full of crap I'll never use, so I remove
  gnome-games.  The Games menu item doesn't disappear but changes to a
  folder icon.  I think it'd be better for the item to go completely if
  there's nothing in there. (The games menu icon has since gone after
  logout/login)

* The XKB error message appeared (actually, 8 or more appeared) but they
  were all masking a /dev/pmu error message, and the /dev/pmu error
  dialog had input focus so I couldn't shut any of them down until i'd
  moved the XKB dialogs out of the way.  (The XKB dialogs have since
  gone after upgrading packages, but the /dev/pmu permissions
  error is still there)

* F10/F11 aren't mapped to middle/right mouse button.  I can't find out
  where these are mapped to now.  I feel like my hands have been cut
  off...

* Hey, the snore light is not the HDD activity light!  This RULES!  Now
  I can concentrate when using the laptop again!

* What, no zsh!?  Have to set up wireless, install from the archive, no
  biggie.  It'd be nice if it was on the CD though...

* Ok time to test out this volume manager everyone's talking about.
  Plugged in the external firewire disk... nothing.  Check dmesg,
  not even the kernel knows about the new device :(

* Open Computer folder (from icon on desktop), open "CD ROM 1" (whose
  icon is a rectangle?  WTF?)  get a Mount Error dialog.  Expand "Show
  more details" and get "mount: special device /dev/hdc does not exist"
  :(

* Open Network folder from within Computer folder, look around the local
  samba shares... these share icons are what, riceboy versions of HAL
  9000?

* The external disk also has a USB connector, so try that instead.
  dmesg shows the kernel recognising the new mass storage device.
  There's a single partition, fs is ext3, however:

FAT: bogus number of reserved sectors
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sda1.
udf: registering filesystem
UDF-fs: No partition found (1)
Unable to identify CD-ROM format.
VFS: Can't find a Minix or Minix V2 filesystem on device sda1.
HFS+-fs: unable to find HFS+ superblock
VFS: Can't find a HFS filesystem on dev sda1.
EXT3-fs: Unrecognized mount option "uid=1000" or missing value
ReiserFS: sda1: warning: unknown mount option "uid=1000"
XFS: unknown mount option [uid].
jfs: Unrecognized mount option "uid=1000"  or missing value

* Back to CDROM: can't actually find where my cd rom device is.  the
  eject button (f12) does nothing.  eject tells me "unable to open
  '/dev/hdc'".  ls tells me there is no /dev/hdc.

* Notice a /dead.letter containing some messages from debconf... one of
  them mentions udev and rebooting, so I reboot.  Kind of hard to find
  though.

* games menu gone from Applications menu now

* /dev/hdc exists now!  eject command works.

* pushed sounder 8 cd back in, brings up nautilus cdrom0 window.  no
  icon on desktop though.

* F12/eject button still does nothing.

* plugged external disk back into firewire port just for shits and
  giggles: dmesg shows kernel detecting drive.  again can't mount disk
  because can't find filesystem (same dmesg output as above)

* plugged wacom graphire 3 into usb port.  kernel wacom driver loaded.
  X exhibits same behaviour as Debian X packages.  Would like to see
  latest wacom driver from linuxwacom.sf.net included with X packages.
  (I'll file an enhancement bug about this shortly, thanks Dan)

* playing with vino remote desktop; vncviewer attached to ubuntu machine
  things the desktop name is "LibVNCServer".  perhaps it should be
  jaq at willow:0 or something more meaningful?  (though this vino thing is
  sweet, i can't cut and paste between vncviewer and other windows on my
  workstation... :-)

* monospace 8 is a much better font for the terminal, now I can fit 4 of
  them on the same screen.

* /var/log/mail.log full of fatal: open database /etc/aliases.db: No
  such file or directory.  run newaliases at install time?  set root
  alias to first user?

* yay; mutt, bogofilter, fetchmail, and procmail are installed!

* procmail installed, but mailbox_command is not set :(

* sudo password prompt annoying

* this localhost.localdomain thing is a waste of effort; i've never seen
  anything that needs more than just localhost defined.  Removed from
  /etc/hosts, /etc/postfix/main.cf, /etc/mailname.

That's about it so far.  Which of these do you guys think are worthy of
a bug report and which are just me being finicky?

In general, I'm impressed with the ease of everything so far, but the
look and feel needs a lot more polish (I guess mainly because there's
these high-contrast icons which claim to be the Human icon theme.
James Gregory's install from sounder 7 has a much nicer icon theme,
imho).

-- 
jaq at spacepants.org                           http://spacepants.org/jaq.gpg