Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#151

Post by ableal » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 11:52 AM UTC

santry wrote: post #55

Sapient wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have given up on waiting for VMWare Tools to catch up and switched to VirtualBox from Sun. http://www.virtualbox.com Unless there is some strange functionality you need from VMWare that isn't supported in VirtualBox, I suggest giving it a try.

http://www.virtualbox.org/ FTFY

And the Virtualbox repository is ready with 3.10 for Koala.

You do have to re-enable the source manually - it's not deleted, but the 9.04 -> 9.10 upgrade process turns off third party sources as a precaution.

Just finished upgrading an AMD quad core box, smooth sailing.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#152

Post by rufugee » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 12:30 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #131

rufugee wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But don't trust the upgrade if you use advanced features (as I found out the hard way) like Software Raid, LVM, and cryptfs. IT WILL BREAK YOUR SYSTEM.

Can you point to any bug reports indicating this?

No, but after upgrading via apt-get my system was unbootable. After pointing it to the proper drive in grub, it would attempt to boot but mysteriously hang. No one in #ubuntu or #ubuntu+1 could figure it out. I ended up having to boot from live cd, decrypt the filesystem, transfer it to a different box, and reinstall from scratch.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#153

Post by tocomment » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 12:42 PM UTC

notauser wrote: post #108

rbanffy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being Windows-proof is, definitely, a feature for me ;-)

You laugh but there is a lot of truth in that! I have an Eee 1000 which had a 40gb SSD - there are two reasons that you can't get that today. - SSD prices have gone up. - You can't put the cheap version of Windows on a device with a large SSD, so in the interest of rationalising product lines you can only get small SSDs or hard disks. If Windows can't be put on the device then at least the second pressure won't exist…

"You can't put the cheap version of Windows on a device with a large SSD"

Why not?

(BTW I don't know how to quote properly on HN, little help!)

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#154

Post by rbanffy » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 12:44 PM UTC

f00 wrote: post #97

rufugee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long has it been since you looked at Ubuntu's fonts? I use both OS X and Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is at least equal to OS X these days IMO.

Run, don't walk, to your nearest optometrist and get your eyes checked. Ubuntu and OS X are not even remotely comparable from a typography standpoint. Using Freetype (the Linux/X11 lib for font rendering), tracking and stem thickness is inconsistent, ascenders and descenders get cut off, etc. The Freetype team puts forth a valiant effort, but until they're allowed to use Adobe/Apple/etc.'s patented hinting algorithms…

Interestingly enough, they probably are allowed to use those in my country ;-)

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#155

Post by ZeroGravitas » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 12:56 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #100

jsz0 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno... http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu139/jsz0/fonttest.png

I'm using Ubuntu and my screen looks like the OSX screen in the picture. The default ubuntu install comes with only free fonts, and clearly HN has been designed to look best with non free. All that is required to make both look the same is to type: sudo aptitude install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

I don't install the microsoft fonts and still HN looks like much more like the Mac OS X example for me on Ubuntu 9.10 with Chromium and Firefox.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#156

Post by rbanffy » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 12:57 PM UTC

_cbsz wrote: post #129

pyre wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC 64-bit isn't just about memory size. x86_64 is a chance to use things like SSE for floating point rather than x87. The older floating point units are still on the processors, but in a depreciated fashion (Windows/Linux ABI don't use them). You can use SSE for floating point on a 32-bit system if you compile all of your apps yourself (ala Gentoo), but then the resulting binaries are not 'x86-compatible' because e…

You also get a ton more registers, 64-bit registers, and other nice processor features.

A ton as in "8", right?

It's not a ton by any measure...

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#157

Post by leh » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 12:57 PM UTC

rufugee wrote: post #87

paulsmith wrote: post #5

Smoothest dist upgrade yet ... didn't break any laptop functionality (ThinkPad T500) AFAICT. Use a mirror! ;)

But don't trust the upgrade if you use advanced features (as I found out the hard way) like Software Raid, LVM, and cryptfs. IT WILL BREAK YOUR SYSTEM.

An upgrade with LVM and cryptfs in use worked for me.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#158

Post by ZeroGravitas » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 12:58 PM UTC

martey wrote: post #145

spamizbad wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically, here's what's going on: 1) There aren't many free typefaces for daily use that are beautiful, so you have to buy (or commission) several and "open source" them. 2) Techniques for AA font rendering that maximize aesthetics and readability are protected by numerous software patents. Years ago there was a short-lived patch in Xorg that had a modern font-AA algorithm that held its own against the competition,…

A lot of information surrounding #2 is discussed at http://david.freetype.org/cleartype-patents.html

I thought the patent issues were mostly about these older Apple patents:

http://www.freetype.org/patents.html

I'd not heard about these subpixel patents, but I'd be happy to have them removed from Linux as I honestly don't think they add that much in Mac OS X style font presentation, as opposed to Windows Cleartype style.

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#159

Post by 10ren » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 1:38 PM UTC

tocomment wrote: post #153

notauser wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You laugh but there is a lot of truth in that! I have an Eee 1000 which had a 40gb SSD - there are two reasons that you can't get that today. - SSD prices have gone up. - You can't put the cheap version of Windows on a device with a large SSD, so in the interest of rationalising product lines you can only get small SSDs or hard disks. If Windows can't be put on the device then at least the second pressure won't exist…

"You can't put the cheap version of Windows on a device with a large SSD" Why not? (BTW I don't know how to quote properly on HN, little help!)

There isn't proper quoting on HN, but three popular conventions are:

1. italics - to this with asterisks ( * ). To operate, they must be adjacent to the text that is being quoted, and end up looking like this. If not adjacent, you get * this *

2. Use ">" and indentation, like in email.

3. use quotes - like you did.

nb: there is help page available for the above syntax: http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc It used to be available as a link next to the textarea when you comment, but I just checked and it appears to be gone.

You might want to check out the FAQ in general if you're new (read: I strongly suggest you check out the FAQ): http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html (there's a link to it at the bottom of the frontpage; I'm being extra helpful by repeating it here)

Re: Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala released

#160

Post by tome » Fri, Oct 30, 2009, 1:40 PM UTC

tocomment wrote: post #153

notauser wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You laugh but there is a lot of truth in that! I have an Eee 1000 which had a 40gb SSD - there are two reasons that you can't get that today. - SSD prices have gone up. - You can't put the cheap version of Windows on a device with a large SSD, so in the interest of rationalising product lines you can only get small SSDs or hard disks. If Windows can't be put on the device then at least the second pressure won't exist…

"You can't put the cheap version of Windows on a device with a large SSD" Why not? (BTW I don't know how to quote properly on HN, little help!)

Presumably Microsoft won't allow it. To make Windows competitive they have a discount for OEMs to install Windows on machines with low spec, and presumably this SSD is too large to be able to take advantage of that.