Karmic Koala Netbook Remix - bug update

A little while ago I blogged about some of the bugs I encountered when I installed the Karmic Koala Netbook Remix on my Acer netbook. Here's the run-down:

1. I never got past the upgrade installation glitch. Instead I booted from the CD and installed Karmic from there. I upgraded my desktop over the web. It only took about 5 hours to download the whole thing via my wireless network, but it worked.
   
2. I installed the Ubuntu 9.10 boot enhancement stuff, which has improved boot time, but it's still not as zippy as Jaunty was. Better, though.
3. I'm getting used to the new login screen. It actually contains more information and some options, so it's not as bad as I originally reported.
4. No more menu ghosts. I think they fixed this problem.
5. There still isn't a File System shortcut, but I'm getting over that one, as well. We must be adaptive to change, you know.
6. They have also fixed the touchpad glitch. It now stays disabled, which I am grateful for. I'm weird, I know, but I don't like touchpads. Oh, and I can work my Logitech Nano V450 mouse against my leg. It will almost work on any surface, even a rather nappy blanket.
7. I still don't know how to remove some of the stray icons, but I no longer care as much.
8. They have obviously changed the battery time calculations, but in net it still gets almost 5 hours of battery life.

I have completely bagged Firefox on Linux, and now use Google Chrome (even in beta it works very well) as my browser. I can't wait until they introduce some plugins, especially one that blocks adverts.

I want to commend the folks who fixed some of these bugs so damn quickly! There is no chance whatsoever that a commercial software company would have been so rapid in their response. I think I'm catching on to this new way of thinking: To get the über rapid fixes, you might have to put up with the occasional stray glitch.

On a semi-related side note, Songbird refused to work on my desktop machine under Jaunty. But now with Karmic (Desktop version) it works quite well there, as well. I like Songbird for playing music, except that it doesn't remember the current playlist between executions. That's an almost taken-for-granted feature of other players like MediaMonkey and WinAmp. Sadly, both of those are Windows-only players.

Hello from Google Chrome (on Linux)

It isn't yet ready for public release, but Google has the latest development build nicely packaged for flavors of Linux that can install from a .deb file. Ubuntu (I have Karmic Koala--the Netbook Remix) is one of the flavors of Debian, so installing Chrome was fairly easy.

When installing it asked about importing Firefox settings, which I assumed meant bookmarks (among other things). It may have imported other things, but not my Firefox bookmarks.

It also wouldn't launch the first time, but I grep'ed the processes and killed them, then relaunched it with success. I'm writing this blog post from Chrome. In a few minutes I'll see if it can be shut down and relaunched.

It's very fast by comparison, certainly faster than Firefox, but I wonder how it will perform once it's loaded down with all the crap we usually hang on Firefox. Probably still better.

I understand the Windows version is further along, and you can easily download and install it. I probably won't do this, right away. But, as for many things, who knows?

Karmic Koala Netbook Remix - bugs #1

I won't bore everyone with all the details, but here are some of the defects I've observed with the Karmic Koala (9.10) Netbook Remix:

1. Installation: The first time I inserted the CD, it asked me if I wanted to upgrade to the new distribution. For one reason or another, I elected not to, but it never asked me again. Furthermore, When I tried to run Update Manager to perform the upgrade, it kept insisting I had the wrong CD mounted. The volume name != the distribution "official" name. What a pain! I had to perform a clean install of Karmic. Ubuntu scores a big fat zero on the upgrade front, for that one.
   
2. It seems to boot slower. If it gets much slower, and it will be right up there with Windows. Can't have that, can we?
3. I don't like the new login screen. Perhaps it can be changed, but take me back to the older one, in Jaunty.
   
4. Sometimes the menu applet develops "ghosts"; artifacts from other menus that show behind the current menu page at half intensity. I have tried to duplicate this reliably, but can't. To be fair, I also saw this behavior with Jaunty (9.04).
5. I figured out that the folders sub-menu works from the favorites you set up in the file explorer. Too bad you can't add other things, like the "File System" root folder that was present in Jaunty. I dunno, I liked that feature.
6. The mouse and touchpad system admin functions are separated. Fine, but touchpad admin keeps losing the settings. The touchpad keeps turning back on, and this is a big pain for me. I always use the mouse. Having the mouse move because of my clumy hands is ... well, unhappy.
   
7. I don't like the gray color of the top system area. At least before, it was colorful, and I see no reason to make it boring, again. BTW, how do I remove some of the items that appear there? I haven't quite figured this out, yet.
8. The battery time calculator is somewhat too "twitchy." When I resumed my machine after some time in hibernate mode, it said I had a really exorbitant amount of time left, then corrected itself after awhile. That said, battery life seems a tad better.
   

This list is just what I discovered via my reinstall and subsequent tweaking on Saturday and Sunday. I was already using Firefox 5.4 and Open Office 3.1, so this upgrade did not affect the apps I use most often. In general, though, I like the updated look, though in retrospect I would go back to Jaunty based on my experiences. Perhaps next time (next upgrade, I mean) I'll wait until more of the initial release bugs are fixed.