Hardy Heron Beta is Perfect

After running brick wall after brick wall trying to get compiz working on my fancy new HP laptop I decided that I needed a cutting edge distro with the most up to date kernel and drivers. I decided to give Ubuntu a try. I had played with it before and I thought is was a good basic distro, but lacked the polish of Suse or Linspire (pre 6.0). Mint on the other hand put the needed touches on the distro, that is why I have been using it for a while now and I have no complaints except for a working intel 965 driver.

I booted into the live version and tried to get compiz functioning and could not. I have had similar problems with with live CDs and that is sometimes you have to reboot to get the changes to stick, which of course you can't do with a live CD. I installed to disk and did not have a lot of hope that I was going to succeed. The install was perfect and I booted into the OS once it was installed and it appeared that I was not going to get compiz.

Ubuntu incorrectly used the VESA driver. I had to change to the Intel 965 driver and viola, I had 3d. I had to install some compiz packages and then enable desktop effect before I had wobbly windows and other 3d eyecandy (see the movie below).

Be afraid Microsoft be very afraid. I'll be honest, the hardy heron release does not have the polish of the Vista but it it has been completely stable since I have installed it (and it is a beta release). I cannot say the same for Vista. I have had several blue screen of death's and it has been hanging during shut down intermittently for a while now. I think is is hilarious that a free beta version of Linux is more stable than a $240.00 copy of Vista Home Premium.

Just a quick aside, I have Vista Home Premium on my home desktop computer and it to has been nothing but problems since I got it. It is a Compaq tower that I got a good deal on, or I thought I did. It does not have a dual core processor and I kind of wish it did. The mobo can take a dual core Intel processor so I thing I will pop one in when the warranty expires. I had to upgrade to two gig of ram, Vista was too slow with one gig. My wife uses the machine most of the time, I may use it once or twice per week. About three weeks ago I noticed that my Zone Alarm icon in the task bar was missing. I had to reinstall Zone Alarm, I thought this was odd but I did a virus scan once Zone Alarm was reinstalled and found nothing. Several weeks later I was trying to uninstall a program but uninstall was not an option in most of the programs in control panel. I contacted HP tech support and they determined that I had a virus, it is a long story but I ended up reloading Windows.

I just tried to install a new video card with TV-out in the Compaq. It should have been compatible and it did work but I could not get the drivers to load so my max resolution was 800 x 600. I contacted EVGA support and they could not get the card to work so I am returning it tonight. This is not a Windows problem (unless you consider not releasing your source code a problem), but it is frustrating that a card that is suppose to work with my system does not.

Ubuntu has reached a point where it requires very little tweaking to make it usable and look good. I am not sure what my favorite distro Mint is going to do to their next release (they are built on Ubuntu) to polish it and make it their own.

Ubuntu had bared some codecs from the distro (mp3 for example) and relied on others to integrate them into apt-get. I think they have seen the light with the Hardy Heron release they did not include mp3 and other non-free software but they include an option in synaptic to install support for mp3 and Windows fonts etc... They finally understand that if you want the average user to use your OS you have to make it as usable as Windows.

I love several things about Ubuntu, I have it installed on my HP laptop and this is a little thing but you have to wonder why no one else (Windows or HP) has never though of it. With every other laptop I have owned you have to manually adjust the screen brightness when on battery. Sony actually dims your display by about 60% when on battery power, almost unusable, you have to increase the backlight every time you are on battery.

With Ubuntu, If I am on battery and I stop typing for a period of time the screen slowly dims until black. This sounds like a simple thing but it is a brilliant way to get a little more life out of your battery. It beats holding the function key and and pressing the f5 or f6 key to increase or decrease the screen brightness.

I also love the compiz effects especially wobbly windows, they are addictive. I have read several stories that this is the most important Ubuntu release and I agree, as far as stability and functionality Hardy Heron is a biggie.