I was very impressed with Ubuntu 8.04, I couldn’t let 8.10 pass without testing it. The 8.04 I had tested on a virtual machine, Microsoft’s Virtual PC, worked well after passing some parameters to the kernel initialization. Two weeks ago I also had another pleasant surprise using Linux when Bluetooth in Java worked without problems, or better, with fewer problems than in Windows. This sums up how motivated I was to install the new Ubuntu.

I downloaded the image and burned a CD of boot with 8.10. To my surprise, although the burn occurred well, the CD did not pass in the available verification at boot. I burned another CD because I don’t trust my burner anymore. The second CD booted well and also passed the integrity check. I had separated partitions on the disk to play with Linux: one for /boot, another for swap and finally one for the root. Although the installation was slower than I expected, everything went well, except for the loss of colors when switching from terminal mode to graphical mode. This reminded me of one of my biggest nightmares when I installed my first Linux: making X work! In the era of Trident VGA cards… it was really ugly. I remember that I started using Linux because it could create multiple terminals and it came with a simple floppy of 1.44 MB!

What most annoyed me during installation was the partitioning part. I had installed various Linux before, but this time I felt a bit insecure with Canonical’s partitioner. First, it gave a nice problem because my wife’s iPod was charging and was recognized by the partitioner as a USB drive, but with incompatible partitions. After that, the partitioner got lost and I had to restart the installation from scratch without the iPod this time.

In the second attempt, everything went well and even the partitioner was helping. Except for the screen asking to choose the partition where Ubuntu should be installed. I wanted to test 8.10 on a real partition, nothing virtual. But the machine is also used by other people at home and it runs Windows. That was the most difficult part: choosing manual partitioning with untrustworthy disk allocation graphics and believing that in the next screen I would have the opportunity to choose where to install Ubuntu. In the end, everything went well and the partitioner finally asked where to install Linux and which partitions to format.

The installation took longer than expected, but I think my CD drive was the culprit. In the end, Ubuntu installed Grub (without asking) and even added Windows boot. A note for Grub: a simple black screen! The Gentoo grub is much more beautiful and colorful. The default theme of the GRUB in Ubuntu is too simple until from the era of DOS.

After a reboot, the system started working very well and even offered to install ATI proprietary drivers! This was really unexpected. Normally distributions are purists and don’t let you install “impure” software without asking three times when they do allow it. The truth is that whoever buys an ATI or NVIDIA graphics card wants to use them in games and applications with 3D acceleration, regardless of where the driver came from as long as it works. The Grub-xiita-open-source-Stallman follower should be optional. Nothing against open source, but not all Linux users have a vocation or time to be an Emacs warrior or something like that. Many want just a computer that works well. If you’re going to have problems with drivers and constant pauses, it’s better to stay in Windows.

A disappointment came with the version of OpenOffice still at 2.4 and not 3.0, but for now it passes. Another problem were the themes… The choice is so bad that the “human” theme looks really nice. I haven’t looked for other themes yet, but I need clearer screens for children. I installed Edubuntu to have the programs they use, but I still need to humanize the “human” to be used by younger humans.

A good news is that the mouse problem that froze the computer in previous versions seems to have been resolved. It was a hardware problem with the Nvidia USB controller… but it only occurred in Linux, the old XP had no problem at all with the mouse (even choosing Portuguese for Brazil came out mouse as mouse even:-) ). At least so far. In short, Ubuntu 8.10 is very good and almost ready to be used by non-technical users. I would say that if you have a machine that can be dedicated to Linux, Ubuntu may even be installed without great technical knowledge. In the 8.04 I installed using Wubi and it was very good, although I didn’t do the same with 8.10, it is also a great alternative. The best thing is that it’s free to test and corrections come out every day.