Bad DVD images

[Rick Green]

During the final month of US12.04 development, I was regularly downloading 
and testing the live images.  FInally, on 21 April, I installed the daily 
build, and from then on, simply did an apt-get update;apt-get upgrade each 
day.
   Monday night, I finally got around to doing a clean install of the final 
released product, and to my dismay, discovered a serious regression - The 
release version will not boot completely to the desktop!
   I'm using the AMD_64 DVD image.  I've tried two different physical discs 
burned from the image on three different systems.  Both discs pass the 
self-integrity test.
   It appears to boot, but fails when it comes to start X and bring up the 
desktop.  I see the UbuntuStudio logo with the rotating 'halo' around it 
for a while, then the halo disappears and I'm left with just the logo.  On 
the April 21st build, this state only lasts a few seconds, then the screen 
goes black for a few seconds, then the desktop appears.  On the April 26th 
release version, the 'plain' logo was there 15 minutes later, and disc 
activity appeared to have stopped.

The three systems are:
1) AMD_64 2.0Ghz laptop with Radeon Mobility 9600 graphics
2) AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 635 Processor with RS880 [Radeon HD 4200] graphics
3) Intel Core 2 Duo laptop with Intel integrated graphics

Curiously, on system 2, where I have a dual-monitor setup, during the time 
the logo was displayed with the rotating halo, they are mis-aligned, with 
the halo appearing to the left of the logo, rather than around it.  The 
left(primary) monitor is 4:3, while the secondary (right) is 16:9

Also, on system 2 during one trial, it progressed to the 'black screen' 
phase and hung there.  I was able to switch with ctrl-alt-f2 to a text 
console, and ps aux told me that X was indeed running.  But I never saw 
any indication of the desktop.

   I then started backtracking.  I downloaded the 20120425 daily build, and 
that booted to the default Ubuntu Unity desktop.  I downloaded the 
20120423 daily build, and that also boots to Unity.  Only when I go back 
to the 20120421 daily build do I get the ubuntustudio install with 
desktop,  Looks like I'll have to adopt that as my standard install disc, 
and then upgrade from the repositories.

I would think the developers would have noticed this by now and fixed the 
release version, but 
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/12.04/release/ still shows
a 25 April timestamp...

Hmmm... Something strange going on here.  The release directory shows an 
.iso image with a 25Apr12 17:46 timestamp.  That's exactly the same as the 
DVD/20120425/ image.  My release images were downloaded with Bittorrent, 
and the .torrent file in the release directory shows a 26Apr12 09:33 
timestamp.  I wonder if the tracker is referenced to a different image 
than the http download??? I'm starting an http download from the release 
directory, but the tubes are sluggish this time of day, and its telling me 
it'll take 16-19 hours to complete...

-- 
Rick Green

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
                                   -Benjamin Franklin

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our
safety and our ideals."
                                -President Barack Obama 20 Jan 2009