Ubuntu - first impressions

Posted 00:31, 20/4/2007, in Ubuntu

Yesterday I tried Ubuntu for the first time in the form of the "edgy" live CD (where you can play about with the OS without actually installing anything). Today I downloaded and installed the newly released "feisty fawn" version, and I'm impressed.

The installation process is pretty straightforward. The only thing that could be improved (if anything) is the partition selection screen. Rather than giving me a list of the machine names of various hard discs (fairly cryptic), give me some options like "Do you wish to replace your existing Windows XP installation?  Or install Ubuntu alongside your existing Windows installation on Hard disc 1 (name here), 200GB, Hard disc 2 (name here)."

Problems encountered

The main problem post-install was it not correctly recognising the screen resolutions my monitor and graphics card are capable of displaying. This left me using a horribly stretched 1600x1200 on a widescreen monitor. A quick bit of googling revealed that this is a known issue with whatever component detects screen resolutions.  Editing the config file at /etc/X11/xorg.conf to add my preferred resolution (1920x1200) fixed this.

Things I like so far

The main strength of running an open source operating system - the add/remove applications option from the menu opens a system that allows me to browse literally thousands of free, categorised and rated software apps. All installable within a click or two of the button.

The process for installing codecs is nicely implemented. There is a built in media player app, but without any codecs (for copyright reasons). When I double-clicked on an mp3 file for the first time it told me I needed to install a codec to play mp3 files, and gave me a list of suitable ones. Two clicks later and it was installed. The same works for videos.

Stuff I still need to figure out:

  • Beryl - sounds awesome from what I've read, but I haven't got it to work yet (the settings app works fun but running it from the command line gives me the error "No composite extension")
  • Although my sound card was recognised and works, I'm only getting sound out of two of the speakers.

And things I'm not quite decided on yet:

The look and feel - although I can see what they were trying to do with the whole "tribal" theme (from the sound effects to the orangey-brown colour scheme), sit it alongside with Windows Vista and you'd be hard pushed to say Ubuntu looks better. I know desktop appearance is easily changed, but first impressions matter.

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