Review of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
Prologue
It’s been a while but I’m back with review of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. First off, I have had my eye on Ubuntu since 4.10 (the very first release) and I have seen the development of the distribution from the beginning. There has been good releases and bad releases. Last release, 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon was bad, really bad. I wrote a short review about my experience with Gutsy last year and mainly I complained about bad 64 bit support (broken Nvidia drivers, no virtual consoles on boot) and very buggy 32 bit desktop (networkmanager could not handle torrents and died after 30 minutes each time I tried to download something, applications like gEdit and Terminal crashed often and with them the whole Gnome desktop died, so I had to press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace). So as you can imagine, I wasn’t thrilled about last version of Ubuntu. But this time, the things look slightly different.
Installation
There’s not much to say about installation, if you have installed Ubuntu before (if you’re still running 4.10, then we have graphical installer now). Installer hasn’t really changed with last few releases. It’s still simple and easy to use, but slightly minimal when it comes to configuration options. On live CD side, there’s an option to boot directly into installation without loading the whole live Gnome desktop, which is useful for multiple installations.
But on the flip side, there’s a major new feature: now, you can install Ubuntu on your Windows machine as an application. Yes, that’s right. With the introduction of Wubi installer, you can install Ubuntu as a application and later remove it through Add/Remove Programs. And I personally think that it’s a very useful feature for new users, because they can try Linux without resizing or partitioning their disks. I’m going to install Ubuntu on my friends Vista laptop this week, so I’ll’ cover this on separate post later this week. And because I don’t run Windows myself, the pictures of Wubi below are from Linux Format. I hope they don’t mind.
Look & Feel
There has been talks about the new Ubuntu look for a year now. There were some rumors going around, that Hardy will ship with brand new look, but unfortunately it was dropped in the last minute. So if you first boot into your new Ubuntu installation, you’ll be greeted with the same old brown and orange look. The first thing I always do after installation Ubuntu, is change the default theme, because I really think that heavy brown and orange is not the color of a usable desktop. I really hope that in 8.10 the thing will move forward. Even though the logo is brown and orange, it doesn’t mean that the whole desktop has to be.
I also recently discovered that there’s a great replacement for default theme, when you don’t like the brown but want to preserve the human touch. You can find the Murrine flavor of the theme at gnome-look.org with links to GDM and Usplash themes and wallpapers.
Also Ubuntu has Compiz-Fusion installed by default, so if you’re running Intel grahpis card, you should have Compiz already running on the first boot. I have Nvidia M8400GS on my Vostro, so after installing Nvidia drivers from Restricted Drivers Manager I had Compiz running in no time. You should also install Advanced Desktop Effects Manager from Add/Remove Programs to really trick out you Linux desktop.
Features
Because Hardy is a Long Term Support (LTS) release, it’s clear that it doesn’t really live on the cutting edge. But there’s still some interesting new features in 8.04. PulseAudio is installed by default and replaces Alsa as the default sound architecture. Ubuntu ships with kernel 2.6.24-16 and latest Gnome 2.22.1 with brings some new features to the table. There has been a lot of buzz about Ubuntu shipping Firefox 3 beta 5 installed by default. Being a long term release, it is an interesting decision, but so far the Firefox beta has been relatively stable for me, but most of the people will find that their favorite add ons might not work with newest Firefox (I personally don’t use add ons as much, only FireBug at work and the latest alpha release runs quite well on FF 3). Apart of some new default applications like Transmission and Brasero there’s not much changed since Gutsy.
Hardware Support & Configuration
Hardware support under Hardy is better than ever. With my Dell Vostro, everything just works out of the box except my built in microphone that I never use, but I’m sure I could get them working with a little hustle. There’s one other interesting thing to mention is that throughout the different releases of Ubuntu, the number drivers in Restricted Drivers Manager is decreasing. Now, the Intel wireless driver is built into the Linux kernel and you don’t have to install separate driver for it. Also it seems that the broken Usplash issue under 64 bit Ubuntu is repaired this time and everything is working nicely under 64 bit. So I’m really seeing the improvement with hardware support with every new release.
When it comes to configuration, except the theme change, there weren’t much to change in the configuration, because everything was already configured the way I like (no icons on the desktop etc). After installing some applications from Add/Remove programs and slight change in the menu layout I was ready to go.
Conclusion
After bashing the last 7.10 release of Ubuntu, I’m really happy to see that Ubuntu developers have done a great job repairing the mistakes of Gutsy and improving the user experience. I’ve always been an Arch Linux lover, but because of some hardware issues (I have no 3D acceleration under Arch and I haven’t found a work around) I decided to switch my main desktop to Ubuntu Hardy. I’m still going to use Arch, but being busy with work, I just don’t have the time to play with OS, rather I would like to get some work done. So if you need a simple but yet full featured Linux desktop to get some work done, Ubuntu is for you.
To sum it up, Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron is awesome.
If you have any comments regarding my take on Hardy, feel free to comment this review below.
It’s interesting, because my experience with 7.10 vs 8.04 is exactly the opposite of yours. On my hardware, with gutsy, I had a fault-free system where everything worked and the system virtually never crashed (only if i ran firefox with six open tabs, thunderbird, songbird and VMware at the same time). With hard, it’s a different story, though. I’ve had endless problems trying to make the sound work properly. The system crashed frequently, especially while running FF3beta5, and the system took forever to boot, and sometimes wouldn’t boot at all. I guess it’s down to how well the software gets on with the hardware, and that vary a lot from user to user, depending on their hardware combo. Personally, I’ve gone back to 7.10 while I’m waiting and hoping for 8.10.
Same here…My Gutsy machine worked flawlessly…as soon as i installed hardy problems started to come up…One of them is the inclusion of Pulse audio which brought alot of problems…Im not a big fan of PA as alsa was working very fine and perfectly acceptable…firefox 3 beta 5 is also a problem as i couldnt also install some of the plugins i need for my development…Its really a shame to see an LTS version with a beta program and not being tested thoroughly…
Also i heard some people are having problems opening the Login Windows from System > Admin…is that true ?
I would try Sidux instead!!
;)
Same for me. I did an upgrade from 7.10 to 8.04 with the manager. It crashed near the end and left me with a hosed system. Same thing happened with the upgrade from 7.04 to 7.10.
This time, just as before, I had to reinstall the whole system. But just to find out that Hardy let me down with crashing gnome applets just as Feisty did.
Hopefully the next version will be better.
Trying out Sidux now, so far so good…
Another thing. I actually rather like the brown/orange theme. I never change the theme when I install Ubuntu. What I’m sick and tired of is the blueis themes most distros, as well as XP and MacOS prefer. I’m fed up with blue.
Well, when it comes to hardware support, it’s always has been like that. When something works on mine, it might not work on yours. That’s even bigger problem with notebooks, cause different companies use different parts and technique to combine different components.
With FF beta, yes I totally agree, it’s not production ready yet, but I’m thinking that Ubuntu developers thought that they’ll update it in June, when final version comes out. The bonus for this is that business users who might use this version of Ubuntu for few years, don’t have to use FF 2, which would become outdated quite soon…
And the brown color, well of course it’s the matter of taste, and it’s quite polished and good-looking theme. But it’s brown.. (:
Ubuntu seems to be caught up in its own hype with this latest release. This newest release (Hardy) is a great disappointment. I expected a lot better from Ubuntu. I have since gone back to XP and Vista and am much more productive and happier. This is not saying that I don’t have a warm spot for Linux in general, but lets get real here. Even though I now have to run an anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, I have much more productive and stable platforms. Ubuntu these days seems to be plagued by the same mindset that gave us Windows ME.
spankings for all the malcontents. sure, Hardy isn’t perfect, but then again WindBlows is a nightmare, by comparison. Ubuntu Linux is pure, clean, healthy, exact, content, peace!
I’ve installed Hardy on two systems and both work perfectly. One system is a desktop the other a laptop. On the Inspiron 2200 3d graphics works out of the box with Hardy. I never got it working on Gusty. As as for themes I use the NoNameRetro theme and Avant Window Navigator for more cool effects. I feel sorry for Mike going back to Windows because on both computers I put it on it blows Windows away in looks (after some tweaking) and functionality.
Also for ff3 if you use the Nightly Tester Tools extension and click override all compatibility most of your favorite extensions will work, or at least mine did. Good review and a great distro. I tried to get away from Ubuntu (mostly the colors) but I keep coming back realizing finally that it is the best, for now (patiently waiting for Mepis 8).
Ubuntu 8.04 is the first one I have got to work properly for me.
Tried 7.04 and 7.10 and had trouble installing both of them,and had problems with things like Flash being unavailable ,, and after needing to re-install 7.10 - total failure.
Gave up , use MSXP until Hardy came out.
Downloaded it , installed it , configured it , messed about with it and found that it works very well for me.
Still a few things to work out but I think that I have finished with MS after 20 years of use.
God Bless its creator.
Everything worked out of the box in Ubuntu 7.10. With Ubuntu 8.04, I can’t even connect with my wireless network, i.e. no internet, no access to forae and help, etc. Then tried Kubuntu 8.04, same problem. At present using Windows XP, intend downloading Fedora 9 later this week …
Well this version of Ubuntu for the most part worked out of the box for me. I had a little trouble getting the video drivers working properly but was able to succeed. One good thing is instead of all the problems I’ve been having with MS I can now really do some work. I’ll keep XP around for some gaming but its not really needed anymore for serious computer work.
Hi There,
I am a huge ubuntu fan, and I am using this distro since 2006. But unhappily I have to agree with a few comments above.
Unfortunately, that is the worse ubuntu version release (well.. I can talk from 2006 till today).
I think Canonical made a terrible mistake launching a LTS release with FF3 Beta
Anyway, I am looking forward for ubuntu 8.10… till there, I am back I will keep my 7.10 version installed in my computer (maybe I will try Mint 5.0 when it is release).