Gutsy issues

I like my eye candy. Without Beryl or Compiz, I would have found no real reason to switch to Ubuntu. I know it makes me seem shallow, but seriously, I have found it very productive and rewarding to have the 3D desktop switching effects. I use GIMP a lot in the course of my work, use NVU/Kompozer for a lot of things, I keep firefox open, Tend to keep a nautilus window open and terminal is usually kept open, switching to other desktops by moving my mouse to the top corner and then clicking is really fantastic to me and when it is smooth and cool-looking, that is always a plus.

Feisty had this locking up problem. Ctrl+Alt+Backspace wouldn't even work, the clock stops ticking, keyboard and mouse don't respond, except the mouse pointer will still move. The problem is still not solved and is possibly worse in Gutsy. See this thread. I personally think it lies with S-ATA drives, My box doesn't have quite enough memory and when it is writing to swap, that is when the lockup occurs. I am a habitual Ctrl+S saver, so I usually don't lose any work, and the only thing I find I can do on the keyboard is hold Alt+Sysrq S, U, B, - This (S) syncs all mounted filesystems, (U) remounts all mounted filesystems read-only, and (B) Reboots the system.

This sucks, Frankly. Almost an Ubuntu killer to me. I have been using Ubuntu installed since Dapper Drake, and I have gotten quite used to it. It is a philosophical stance regarding Open Source that I have and other distros don't seem to have the same type of support network available when things go wrong (and I am still a noob, believe me)

Messing around with my system (I experienced alsa sound issues) (trying to fix the lock-up issue) I lost my USB ports. At first I thought it was a printer issue (wasn't using any other USB devices at the time) and troubleshot that for hours to no avail, then realized my external USB harddrive wouldn't mount when I turned it on. USB flashdrives won't mount and their little led's won't light up. Now doing a reinstall of my Ubuntu partition and crossing my fingers for the best. I will still experience the lockup issue I am sure, but at least I will have a fresh install of Gutsy without all the baggage that is on the machine since Edgy, the last time I did a fresh install.
I am a computergeek and a tech at heart, but if some of these issues are not solved, and fast - Well, it makes it difficult for me to suggest switching off of Microsoft to anyone else who is not such a computergeek.

When I started this blog, I thought I would post some thoughtful information for people to use, I am still a Linux/Ubuntu Newbie, so this blog isn't so much tech support information, but general information. Today I did some updates via the update manager and when I rebooted, I found that it had modified my grub menu.lst, this probably wouldn't affect most people, but I have a dual boot machine (no support for my printer in Ubuntu and my wife needs native M$ apps for her schoolwork.) I want it to boot to XP by default and in the past few months, I have grown proficient at modifying the menu.lst to meet my needs. All of my "#commented out" kernels re-appeared due to an update today. (haven't discovered which one yet) - So anyone that hasn't done a command like the following lately:

sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.backup(date)

I suggest you do that before running the update to save you the headache of completely re-doing your menu.lst

NEWS: Dell offering Ubuntu

Dell announced that they will be offering Ubuntu pre-installed on desktops and laptops within the month. This announcement comes right on the heels of announcing they will resume offering XP.
eweek:Linux Vendors Welcome Dell's Prebundling Move
eweek:Dell to Preload Ubuntu Linux on Some Consumer Machines
I think it is because enough people feel that Feisty Fawn is ready "out of the box"

Beryl

I installed Beryl which is the impressive rotating cube that you may have seen. Here is the movie of my setup.

Here's what happened. I qualified for the Vista upgrade because of when my computer was purchased. I work tech support and have heard a lot of frustrated Vista users who actually paid someone to "downgrade" their new computer to XP so they could do this or that. My computer only has 512MB of ram and instead of dealing with the frustration, purchasing memory right now, I really wanted to upgrade to Vista, but... Then I saw a movie like this one. It blew me away. This sealed the deal. I did my research and realized that I can do anything in Ubuntu that I do in Windows. (I am not a hardcore gamer) So, I setup a dual-boot XP/Ubuntu computer.

Ubuntu is...

Ubuntu is an ancient Zulu word that means humanity to others.
Ubuntu is the operating system that is bringing Linux to the masses.

I have been toying with different LiveCD Linux distros for a number of years now. Knoppix, Slax, Puppy, and a few others. I never came across one that didn't have something about it that I didn't like. I had someone give me a breezy badger set of CDs a few years ago and I never installed it. I was impressed with Ubuntu more than the others. I finally installed Ubuntu this fall on a computer that could barely handle Win2000 and it could barely handle Edgy - someone suggested that I try Xubuntu on it, I did and it ran perfect. It found its home as the backup server on my network now.
That brings me back to the first line of this post. The experience learning about Ubuntu was completely different than learning about other Linuxes or even Windows. There is a community of helpful Ubuntu users out there. Just go to ubuntuforums.org or google keywords and the word "ubuntu" or "edgy/feisty" and you will see what I mean. Instead of negative, unhelpful responses like "did you even read the README file?" or "google it" or "RTFM" you will actually find that people are willing to do what they can to help.
This is what sets Ubuntu apart from other Linuxes. We are just people. Computers are just tools. When I needed to network my Xubuntu-Server to my windows computer for file backups, I was able to do a little research, find out the program was called Samba and even how to configure it properly. And it works. And all of you Ubuntu users out there who are helpful in the forums, spending your time writing "HOWTO's", We thank you. Keep it up! The community of Ubuntu (living up to the ideals of the Ubuntu philosophy) is what really makes it work!