The latest release of Ubuntu hit the news a couple of days ago. I have been hesitant upgrading for some time as I have become less enthusiastic about new operating system features since moving away from system level development.
My experiences following Ubuntu has been that, every time a new release comes out, some functions are broken. Over time, bugs get reported, updates released and broken functions repaired. It has been a great OS for years, although Unity has not been my favorite. Between Gnome and KDE, I have always liked Gnome better, so I have stayed with Ubuntu, using it on my desktop, my netbook, and home server.
After reading about the 12.10 release for a few days, I decided to upgrade my desktop. The upgrade went pretty smooth besides taking a while. I went the command line route as that was easier for me.
Before I started the upgrade process, I had to enable the upgrade to a non-long-term-support (LTS) release -- Ubuntu does 2 release every year, one in April and one in October, which is where the release numbers like 10.04 and 12.10 come from. The latest release, 12.10, means it is released in October 2012. I forgot the file containing that option, so I started the System Tools » Administration » Update Manager, went to Settings and change the Notify me of a new Ubuntu version option from For long-term support versions to For any new version.
Then in a terminal window, I did a do-release-upgrade. That's pretty much it -- all I had to do after than was answering a few questions about new configuration files -- Since I haven't done much customization, I only had to answer y.
The upgrade process kept all my personalizations, including my choice of Gnome 3 and background images, etc.
But then almost immediately after reboot into 12.10, I noticed something not working: My VPN to work. It is a Cisco AnyConnect setup. The Network Manager isn't much help -- it just says connection failed. In syslog, this one message looks quite suspicious: Failed to open tun device: Permission denied -- I checked /dev/net/tun, I should already have read and write access to it per group permissions. Only by granting world read/write access to the tun device seems to make VPN work -- That seems rather strange. But that's a story for another day.
Showing posts with label Ubuntu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ubuntu. Show all posts
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Ubuntu 11.10 Unity Annoyances
I gave up on Unity on my netbook long ago, but I thought I'd give it a try on my desktop. The longer I use it, the more it annoys me, in many small ways, and below is a small list of them:
- Application menu
You have to move an application window all the way to the top of the screen so that its top edge touches the app panel to make sure you have the application menu. Otherwise, for example, if you are using GIMP, and there is another application window between the image window and the app panel in the background, moving the mouse across the app in the background up to the app panel will make it display the background application's menu instead of GIMP's menu.
I realize that this may be the residual effect of me setting up Gnome desktop to focus on the window where my mouse pointer is. I could probably figure out how to turn that off -- but I don't want to. I like to have the ability to enter text using the keyboard while the application may be sitting in the background. - Missing application logos
Many application are still missing logos in the applications panes. I was hoping the situation would turn better as 11.10 updated over time, but that has not happened yet.
I googled a bit to see what others thought. Some people seem to like it. But more do not. A snapshot of a vote in a TechRepublic article:
I think I am going back to Gnome for now.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
First Impression of Ubuntu 11.10, The Oneiric Ocelot
Saw 11.10 release the other day and gave it a go. The experience is less than impressive -- partly because 10.04 the Lynx set the bar pretty high.
The new desktop, Ubuntu Unity, started in 10.10 the Meerkat or maybe even earlier, as the default on netbooks. I remember immediately removing it and installing the classic Gnome back. I feel like doing the same thing with 11.10 -- I have a Asus EEE PC-901. After rebooting, the thing I immediately noticed was the slow boot. The Wow factor from the first time seeing Ubuntu 10.04 giving me the login screen in just 10 seconds was gone.
I have not mentioned the "waiting for network configuration" problem. When that message pops up on the Ubuntu boot splash window, if you press the Esc key, you will see that the boot process has actually gone passed the network configuration stage long ago. (It looks like some one may have been able to fix that problem.)
Unity did not work at all after the upgrade, likely because that I do not have a 3D accelerated video card. Switching to Unity 2D works but that still feels slow, much more sluggish than the classic Gnome in Ubuntu 10.10: Moving a window, you don't see it follow the mouse cursor as responsively as in Lynx or Meerkat.
The top panel bar -- I am not sure what it is called, Indicator panel? -- won't auto-hide, which annoys me. That is fine on a desktop, but a netbook's display real-estate is limited. I would like to use as much of the screen for work as possible.
Much in the System Settings panel seems to be gone as well, not just the icons (e.g., some of the apps in 11.10, both on the right-hand side vertical Launcher panel and in the System Settings window, refuse to display their icons, which I have not had a chance to figure out why.) I used to set the mouse cursor focus to follow the mouse pointer -- which allows one to type into an application without having to raise the window up to the front, rather than having to click a window.
I will give Unity a few more days, or even a few more weeks, before deciding if I will go back to Gnome classic, mostly because that it seems to be the direction Ubuntu is moving into. I will go back to classical Gnome if it continue to be sluggish.
[2011-10-31 Edit]
The new desktop, Ubuntu Unity, started in 10.10 the Meerkat or maybe even earlier, as the default on netbooks. I remember immediately removing it and installing the classic Gnome back. I feel like doing the same thing with 11.10 -- I have a Asus EEE PC-901. After rebooting, the thing I immediately noticed was the slow boot. The Wow factor from the first time seeing Ubuntu 10.04 giving me the login screen in just 10 seconds was gone.
I have not mentioned the "waiting for network configuration" problem. When that message pops up on the Ubuntu boot splash window, if you press the Esc key, you will see that the boot process has actually gone passed the network configuration stage long ago. (It looks like some one may have been able to fix that problem.)
Unity did not work at all after the upgrade, likely because that I do not have a 3D accelerated video card. Switching to Unity 2D works but that still feels slow, much more sluggish than the classic Gnome in Ubuntu 10.10: Moving a window, you don't see it follow the mouse cursor as responsively as in Lynx or Meerkat.
The top panel bar -- I am not sure what it is called, Indicator panel? -- won't auto-hide, which annoys me. That is fine on a desktop, but a netbook's display real-estate is limited. I would like to use as much of the screen for work as possible.
Much in the System Settings panel seems to be gone as well, not just the icons (e.g., some of the apps in 11.10, both on the right-hand side vertical Launcher panel and in the System Settings window, refuse to display their icons, which I have not had a chance to figure out why.) I used to set the mouse cursor focus to follow the mouse pointer -- which allows one to type into an application without having to raise the window up to the front, rather than having to click a window.
I will give Unity a few more days, or even a few more weeks, before deciding if I will go back to Gnome classic, mostly because that it seems to be the direction Ubuntu is moving into. I will go back to classical Gnome if it continue to be sluggish.
[2011-10-31 Edit]
I decided to go back to Gnome classic on my netbook. It does seem to be a bit faster. While doing that, I also found out that the panel auto-hide setting has changed: Right click on the panel no longer works. One needs to Alt+Right-click the panel to get to the settings, which does not seem to work with Unity's top panel. I guess I am sticking with Gnome classic as long as I can.
Still having trouble with the booting process dropping to a shell on my desktop. Although exit out of the BusyBox shell gets it going, that prevents me from running it with VBoxVMService. Also, I am still having the Waiting for network configuration. . . problem, which is really annoying.[2011-11-30 Edit]
Finally got around to fix the Waiting for network configuration. . . problem. The solution is to edit out the wired Ethernet interface section (eth0 on my netbook) in /etc/network/interfaces. I am not sure why the network configuration code could not sense that there is nothing plugged in there and skip the configuration in that case.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Netbooks
有一段时间了，对市场上的 netbook 大批出现极感兴趣。后来一位同事挑唆，忍不住买了一台翻新的（refurbished）Dell Mini 9。一用之下，爱不释手。机器来的时候安装的 Ubuntu 8.04，不久 9.04 出台，我就给她装上了，效果非常不错。平时我基本上用 Google 的 Gmail 和网上办公软件，有她之后更觉方便，基本上可以随时随地看点什么，或者写点什么。不久之前回国，外甥女看了也爱上了这台小机器，于是我就送给了她。因为行程匆忙，没有时间教她怎么连接国内的 DSL 服务上网，结果被我妹夫找人把 Ubuntu 给换成了 Windows。
这个小插曲让我觉得有些失落。上网搜了一下“Linux netbook”，有这样感觉的还真不止我一个。有人问“Has Microsoft Killed the Linux Netbook?”“Is Linux dead in the netbook water?”也有人宣称“Demise of the solid-state Linux Netbook”。华硕（Asus）本来是第一家做 netbook 的电脑商，也经不起金钱的诱惑，向微软投怀送抱。
对我个人而言，用 Linux 有十几年了，所以用 Ubuntu 得心应手，没有丝毫的不便。特别是 9.04 的出台解决了许多硬件兼容问题，让安装使用都更为方便。当然我也理解微软视窗系统使用者的心理，人对于自己熟悉的环境、事物总是恋恋难舍，这是自然。然而我用 Linux 最大的理由是我对于个人自由不可剥夺的崇尚，美国人有一句话，不自由毋宁死 (Patrick Henry: "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!")。用了一段时间 netbook 我最大的心得就是她给人的自由：我可以用她来阅读、写作、工作、娱乐；用 Skype 我可以与远在中国南方老家的父母“面对面”交谈。这一切用以前的 laptop 也能做到，只是 netbook 让你更减少一点负重。
从中国回来之后，把家里的 iTalkBB 换成了 MagicJack。目前使用的时间还不长，看来效果还不错，唯一的缺点是要有一台 Windows XP PC 一直开着才能打电话。当然，我也可以要打电话的时候才开机，其余时间就让进来的电话留言好了。不过，现在有了 netbook 这也不是一个大问题，我到 eBay 上找了一台便宜的 eeePC 900，接上 MagicJack 的 USB 接口，装上里面带的软件，就成了。可惜 MagicJack 现在还不支持 Linux，不然我就可以把 Windows XP 也去掉了。再装上 Skype，家里父母要找我也随时都可以了。
没有了我的 Mini，很有些不习惯。于是又到 eBay 上搜索了一番，找到一台配置相当的 Asus eeePC 901，最后价钱加运费一共 $201.98，也与我的那台 Mini 差不多。等机器到了，要做的一件事就是装上 Ubuntu 9.04！如果能找微软把上面预装 XP 钱要回来就更理想了，不过想想算了，没时间找他们算这笔小账。
这个小插曲让我觉得有些失落。上网搜了一下“Linux netbook”，有这样感觉的还真不止我一个。有人问“Has Microsoft Killed the Linux Netbook?”“Is Linux dead in the netbook water?”也有人宣称“Demise of the solid-state Linux Netbook”。华硕（Asus）本来是第一家做 netbook 的电脑商，也经不起金钱的诱惑，向微软投怀送抱。
对我个人而言，用 Linux 有十几年了，所以用 Ubuntu 得心应手，没有丝毫的不便。特别是 9.04 的出台解决了许多硬件兼容问题，让安装使用都更为方便。当然我也理解微软视窗系统使用者的心理，人对于自己熟悉的环境、事物总是恋恋难舍，这是自然。然而我用 Linux 最大的理由是我对于个人自由不可剥夺的崇尚，美国人有一句话，不自由毋宁死 (Patrick Henry: "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!")。用了一段时间 netbook 我最大的心得就是她给人的自由：我可以用她来阅读、写作、工作、娱乐；用 Skype 我可以与远在中国南方老家的父母“面对面”交谈。这一切用以前的 laptop 也能做到，只是 netbook 让你更减少一点负重。
从中国回来之后，把家里的 iTalkBB 换成了 MagicJack。目前使用的时间还不长，看来效果还不错，唯一的缺点是要有一台 Windows XP PC 一直开着才能打电话。当然，我也可以要打电话的时候才开机，其余时间就让进来的电话留言好了。不过，现在有了 netbook 这也不是一个大问题，我到 eBay 上找了一台便宜的 eeePC 900，接上 MagicJack 的 USB 接口，装上里面带的软件，就成了。可惜 MagicJack 现在还不支持 Linux，不然我就可以把 Windows XP 也去掉了。再装上 Skype，家里父母要找我也随时都可以了。
没有了我的 Mini，很有些不习惯。于是又到 eBay 上搜索了一番，找到一台配置相当的 Asus eeePC 901，最后价钱加运费一共 $201.98，也与我的那台 Mini 差不多。等机器到了，要做的一件事就是装上 Ubuntu 9.04！如果能找微软把上面预装 XP 钱要回来就更理想了，不过想想算了，没时间找他们算这笔小账。
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Ubuntu 服务器安装
用了很多年的 Gentoo Linux，每次更新的时候总是有这样那样的错误，有些累了。逐渐桌面上转向 Ubuntu，服务器改用同样的系统似乎也更合乎情理一些。
家里现在的服务器一台老的 PATA 硬盘开始出现故障，昨天安装系统的一台机器是从 NewEgg 买来的一个使用 VIA C3 的套件安装的。开始安装 Ubuntu 9.04 的时候还算顺利，但是装完之后出现一些问题，不知道是否与硬盘上有一些老的系统文件有关。但是重新安装之后还是死机，想来可能还是与网上其他人发现的 ACPI 问题有关。
于是下载了 8.04，安装过程基本顺利，就是在识别硬盘上原有的 RAID 和 LVM 设置的过程没有 9.04 那么流畅，8.04 基本上得手动走过整个 RAID 和 LVM 设置的程序，其实也不用做什么，原有的 RAID 和 LVM 设置都可以保留。这也是用 LVM 的一个好处吧，后期修改存储容量比较方便。
系统安装过程中好像没有手工设置网络地址一块，每次都是自动选择 DHCP。好在这块的设置不难，网上发表的资料搜一下就有。网址的设置是在 /etc/network/interfaces 文件里，把原来用 DHCP 的一行注释掉，加上静态的网址设置就成了：
之后，还要做一下网络端口的重新启动：
这之后，就不必人守在服务器前面了，系统管理的工作基本上都可以通过 SSH 来做。
家里现在的服务器一台老的 PATA 硬盘开始出现故障，昨天安装系统的一台机器是从 NewEgg 买来的一个使用 VIA C3 的套件安装的。开始安装 Ubuntu 9.04 的时候还算顺利，但是装完之后出现一些问题，不知道是否与硬盘上有一些老的系统文件有关。但是重新安装之后还是死机，想来可能还是与网上其他人发现的 ACPI 问题有关。
于是下载了 8.04，安装过程基本顺利，就是在识别硬盘上原有的 RAID 和 LVM 设置的过程没有 9.04 那么流畅，8.04 基本上得手动走过整个 RAID 和 LVM 设置的程序，其实也不用做什么，原有的 RAID 和 LVM 设置都可以保留。这也是用 LVM 的一个好处吧，后期修改存储容量比较方便。
网络地址设置
系统安装过程中好像没有手工设置网络地址一块，每次都是自动选择 DHCP。好在这块的设置不难，网上发表的资料搜一下就有。网址的设置是在 /etc/network/interfaces 文件里，把原来用 DHCP 的一行注释掉，加上静态的网址设置就成了：
# The primary network interface
auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
iface eth0 inet static
address 172.16.4.88
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 172.16.4.0
broadcast 172.16.4.255
gateway 172.16.4.1
之后，还要做一下网络端口的重新启动：
sudo pkill dhcp-client
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
这之后，就不必人守在服务器前面了，系统管理的工作基本上都可以通过 SSH 来做。
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