A Quick Review of an Ubuntu Ultimate 1.3 Install (Page 1 of 1)
Written by
Doug Bonnell
Posted on: Mar 24, 2007 at 01:20am
Section:
Reviews
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Ok. Here is a mini-review of a fresh install of Ubuntu Ultimate 1.3.
My goal was to have a stable Linux installation with a KDE desktop environment.
The test system is a Shuttle SK41G with the following:
| Quote: |
XP 2400+ CPU
1GB memory
Samsung DVD burner
60GB Maxtor hard drive
nVidia 5900XT video card
Microsoft Explorer wireless mouse
Cornea MP704 17" 1280x1024 LCD monitor
Sound: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller
(Realtek ALC650 codec)
Network: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ |
I booted the Ubuntu Ultimate 1.2 DVD and performed the install:
| Quote: |
Screen resolution was properly set to 1280x1024. This DID NOT happen with Ubuntu 6.10.
Installation took about 25 minutes.
* I clicked "Restart" after install and nothing
happened. Finally had to manually restart.
|
The only 'wart' for the installation was the failure to restart. Very odd! All my
hardware was properly detected and I logged in, selecting a KDE session. The 'Adept'
package manager informed me of updates. Most were for language support but a couple were
for MySQL, etc. I did the updates.
I prefer a 'vanilla' KDE where ever possible. I now give Ubuntu
it's first black mark:
| Quote: |
The standard KDE control panel has been
replaced with "System Settings" which is in
/usr/bin/systemsettings. Right click on KMenu->System Settings and edit
the "Command"
line to use 'kcontrol' instead of 'systemsettings'. |
Some 'starving arts student' decided to make a cute interface to kcontrol with
systemsettings. Problem here is they left out some things! Launch Feedback for the
cursor is missing from systemsettings and I don't like having a launching application's
icon hang like a chuck of snot from my mouse cursor!
Once I had kcontrol up, I was able to configure my KDE desktop environment to my liking
except for fonts. Ultimate installs a bunch of really lame TrueType fonts by default. I
use Adept, filtering for "ttf-" and removed the various language support fonts,
Arabic Web fonts, etc.
My favorite font, Adobe's Type1 "Utopia" font was not included and is not
available for download with the standard Adept configuration. Googling revealed that
Utopia is included by Xorg, but the wierd Adobe lisence for this font precludes it being
included under Debian, so no straight download.
To solve this, I copied the UT* files from under /usr/share/fonts/... on a Fedora Core
machine and placed them in a new directory at /usr/share/fonts/type1/Utopia and then did
the following admin in a console:
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fc-cache /usr/share/fonts/type1/Utopia
(creates fonts.cache-1)
Edited /usr/share/fonts/type1/fonts.cache-1 and added this line at the
bottom: "Utopia" 0 ".dir" |
I restarted X and I had the Utopia font!
Up next was installation of the binary nVidia driver. I used Adept, filtered for
"nvidia" and installed "nvidia-glx". For ATI hardware, you'd look for
'fglrx' and install that driver. I tested accelerated video by running one of the OpenGL
screensavers.
My Microsoft Explorer mouse needed some work in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to get all the buttons
working. Add the following 2 lines to the "InputDevice" with Identifier
"Configured Mouse":
| Quote: |
option "Buttons" "7"
option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 6 7" |
Restarted X and now the side buttons work in Firefox, going backwards/forwards.
I then forced the use of kdm instead of gdm:
| Quote: |
| sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm (and selected kdm) |
Restarted X, logged in and the setup the Login Manager (Kcontrol->System
Administration) for a straight startup of my user ID without a password. Not secure, but a
handy feature that I like.
The last little annoyance was the default icon for Thunderbird. Once again, the starving
student artists have declared that the default icon as supplied by Mozilla "isn't
good enough" to appear on their precious desktop (the same sissies must work at
Fedora too!). There is a script here to reclaim your Mozilla icons:
| Quote: |
| Use the "sudo bash restore_mozilla_icons" mentioned at the top
of the page. |
Good: mplayer is installed by default and has codecs for WMV9 and other popular
formats. Nice multimedia tool selection include audacity, avidemux, ogle,
qdvdauthor, etc. !
Bad: no xine! The license issues around their DVD navigation means it's not
available. Download & compile!
Overall, a very nice install. I'm very much impressed with the multimedia support and the
support for binary video drivers, enough to make Ubuntu Ultimate my distro of choice over
Fedora.
|
Average vistor rating: 4.6 out of 5 (5 total votes) | |
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