Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) Tribe 5 Features

[Hekatommyriagon]

I just downloaded it, and I think they have a lot of kinks to work out. First of all, it automatically installed two more partitions to the hard drive in the bootloader menu... thing. The partitions aren't actually there, but they did, and now it automatically launches into something that crashes at the boot screen if you do not change the option within three seconds. There is also still the PS/2 mouse problem... again. I don't know whether it is because of restricted drivers or what, but like five minutes into using Ubuntu, the mouse freezes. I use a laser mouse... thing, and so whenever I move it, it shines up a bit. Well, once it crashes, it keeps on shining, regardless of whether I am scrolling it or not, and when it goes to sleep mode, it just loses all power from the USB port. Or something.

I'm not sure whether it's just the hardware, or how I installed Linux (the easy way... Wubi + PartitionMagic + LVPM), but Ubuntu 7.10 just doesn't work for me.

[Martin Blank]

If you're going to go with a virtual installation (and I'm not sure why you'd use PM along with Wubi and LVPM, since they use virtual partitions), skip Wubi/LVPM and install Virtual PC or VMWare Player (for which you can download a pre-installed Ubuntu installation for free).

[Deacon]

VMWare Player (for which you can download a pre-installed Ubuntu installation for free).

Where?

EDIT: After much searching, I found this, but it seems to be an RC only.

[Felan]

ubuntu 7.10 doesnt quite work in parallels yet
(well not without doing some odd forced tweaks during install but still)

[Deacon]

In...parallels?

[Felan]

In...parallels?

Yeah. for some reason the graphics environment thingy keeps failing to initialize. It has something to do that Ubuntu keeps trying to do the max res of 1600x1200. I guess Parallels doesn't quite like that.

[MasteR]

I am surprised it doesn't fall back into safe graphics mode and let you fix it.

[Felan]

I am surprised it doesn't fall back into safe graphics mode and let you fix it.

Not without trickery. When it fails, you get a nice DOS like screen saying "The window server has failed 6 times now. Wait 2 minutes before hitting OK" and you get a nice okay to click on. Part of the trick is to somehow get the console to work while it attempts to restart the Window server and quickly type in things to stop the script to install, modify a .conf file to prevent it to select the high resolution, and then restart the Windows Server.

[edge]

I never did have much luck with Ubuntu under Parallels Desktop. It would work with some poking around, just not very well.

[Deacon]

What kind of hard drive space do you need to get a good feel for the thing? In other words, I'm considering setting up a virtual machine in VMWare Workstation to play with it without interrupting my normal activities, but I don't know how much hard drive space I need to be dedicating to it. I doubt I will ever move to it as my primary OS, but I wouldn't mind kicking the tires to see how things have evolved over the last couple of years since last I gave Linux a legitimate shot.

[MasteR]

Not much. I would think 2-4 gigs is enough for install and some extra apps. Not much room to grow however.

One thing you will be missing in the VM is all the fancy new UI effects. Everything else should be working fine though.

[Deacon]

What fancy new UI effects? What are the requirements to put them into play (or at least to have them displayed properly and smoothly)? My laptop has Mobile Intel 345GM Express video in it, so it's not like it's some sort of graphics beast.

And it would be nice if I could figure out where this magical pre-installed/pre-configured VMWare image is, as I could just use that.

[MasteR]

The Compiz-Fusion effects (fading windows, cube (if you enable it), slide effects, etc).

Basically you need a recent (5 years or newer or so) 3D card with Linux drivers that support compositing. This includes almost all Nvidia and Intel cards. For ATI you either need a card that supports the open source 3D driver or install the new proprietary drivers that are not included with Gutsy from the ATI/AMD site (pain in the ass). For Nvidia cards just run the restricted driver manager to download and install the proprietary driver automatically.

I THINK your card should work okay. Only one way to find out, try it by booting from the CD (it is both and install and a Live CD so you don't even need the VM to install it if you are just testing it). The Intel driver is open source so it will work off the live CD without needing to install or run anything else. It does need 3D support and a decent video card, but nothing top of the line. I have it running fine on my laptop.

This all requires 3D acceleration with full access to the video card, so will not work in a VM.

[Felan]

What kind of hard drive space do you need to get a good feel for the thing? In other words, I'm considering setting up a virtual machine in VMWare Workstation to play with it without interrupting my normal activities, but I don't know how much hard drive space I need to be dedicating to it. I doubt I will ever move to it as my primary OS, but I wouldn't mind kicking the tires to see how things have evolved over the last couple of years since last I gave Linux a legitimate shot.

I have Windows XP running in Parallels (in XP lol) with 512 megs of memory with 32 gigs of HDD space... although that is far more than I will prolly use. It runs rather well enough so I can compile using VS .net 2003 (I have reasons for having it in a VM rather than native). What I like about Parallels (and I think VMWare does it too) is that it lets you grow into the 32 gigs so you don't have to use up right away.
Although I have to say that I got Virtualization on my workstation at work so that helps in terms of performance.

I even got Vista to run in Parallels lol (although I had to bump up memory usage to 1 gig)

The nice thing is that a lot of these settings are not set in stone when you use a VM. If you have 2 gigs and only use 512 and feels sluggish, you can bump things up a little. You can even install direct from an ISO image.

It is also dependant on the host OS too. We found that because vista uses more resources (for obvious reasons) and thus, unless you have a good pc behind it, isnt nearly as nice as a VM host. I also find that Virtual PC 2007 is rather resource hoggy so I prefer VMware or Parallels.

This all requires 3D acceleration with full access to the video card, so will not work in a VM.

Actually.. I do think VMWare does have experimental support for 3d...so it might work depending on how much it needs. I know VMWare Fusion for the mac did have some success in DX8 and below (with some experimental DX9 support)

[MasteR]

I think the 3D support in VMWare (or was it Parallels?) just uses WINE in the background. It is not exactly direct hardware access so my guess is it doesn't work.

Who know, I could be wrong.

A live CD just seems like a better idea for the 3D stuff to me. VM will work out if you don't need that.