Ubuntu 10.10 first impressions and expectations

I've been using Ubuntu 10.10 for few weeks already, so it's time to tell my first impressions about it.
The is not much new as primary focus of GNOME developers is GNOME 3.0. The notable differences between this and previous releases are:

• Changed default font. A bit unusual at the beginning, but I quickly got used to it, so I don't feel much difference.


• Keyboard indicator. This one is what I'm not pleased at all. First of all the icon does not look like a keyboard to me. Also, now I can not see which is my current layout. Also, I don't think that using menu is good. Since there are only two layouts on my system, the older versions was better, as a single click switched layout, while now two clicks must be done. Hopefully I use Alt+Shift to switch layout. Having in mind that this is Ubuntu custom modification, it's disappointing, because doing nothing would be better.


• Some games no longer work. Swell Foop, Lights Off and Nibbles doesn't work anymore. Seems like a problem with GIR, but I don't know if this is Ubuntu specific, or more general bug.


• Metacity issues with menus. Few times it happened to me, that menu widget does not close properly and remains visible on screen (but is not repainted properly). A work around for the problem is to press Alt+F2, open gconf-editor and disable and enable again compositing for metacity.

To summarize: this release is not as good as 10.04 was. Problems are minor so the release is rather good.


Look forward

There are a lot of dispute about Ubuntu's decision to switch to Unity as default desktop for next release. That doesn't please me, as I like GNOME. I tries GNOME Shell in the past and I quite liked it. I haven't tried the most recent version yet, but I'm thinking of sticking with GNOME. For this reason this might be my last version of Ubuntu. I'm really thinking about switching to other distribution as I dislike current Ubuntu's direction.

Ubuntu 10.04 final feelings

I have upgraded my system to Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. So it's the end for Lucid on my machine. Quite a time to express my thought on it.

Stability

Probably the most stable release of all I used. I can note only a couple of problems I had. First, I had few cases when system didn't boot when machine is turned on, hopefully it did after first hard reboot in all cases. I think this is related to Plymouth, though I'm not sure. Second is the X server, which somehow moved to other virtual terminal somehow. I needed to press Ctrl+Alt+F8 to get it (I remember one case, when I needed even F9). In all cases this happenned when system was at GDM login screen waiting for someone to log in. Everything else worked really well.

The rest

Mostly it worked well. There were few cases, when Totem YouTube plugin didn't work, but I think this was due to changes in YouTube itself, as in all cases this problem went away after system updates. Another disappointing thing was that Epiphany plugin HTML5Tube didn't work at all. I don't remember any other issues, so I proudly say that this is the best Ubuntu release I've used.

Look forward

I'm now using Ubuntu 10.10 for 2 days, maybe let's wait about 2 weeks for first feelings about it :)

Gnome Shell review

What I like

• Workspaces

Really nice thing. First of all, new workspace can be added when needed and removed when no longer useful. Application can be started in any workspace using drag&drop, windows can be very intuitively moved between workspaces as well.

• Alt+Tab

Finally Alt+Tab done right. It's amazing, how little was needed: support for arrow keys and mouse. Grouping by application first seemed unusual, but became loved feature after discovering Alt+` hot-key (switch between same application windows).

• Overview mode

Generally nice idea. All applications, recent documents and places in one place. The only disadvantage I see is windows in workspaces, which are a little to small to identify on my screen. You have to get used to look at applications list for running applications, rather then looking at workspaces. Unfortunately, I was somehow intuitively looking at workspaces and trying to identify things there.

• Search

It's always nice to have search feature. Looks very promising, if it will be well integrated into entire desktop.

• Notifications

New notification system is really great. Not everything worked well on my system, but it all looks really great. I wait for the stable release.



Needs improvement

• Launching applications

Launchers in Gnome-panel are very useful. I miss something like that in Gnome-shell. What about hot bottom left corner, something like notifications?

• Application menu

Favourites are great, but the list of all applications not very. Categorised view is better for my taste and I hope to see it, when final version ships.

Ubuntu 10.04 first impressions

I've upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and am using it for some time already. Here are my impressions.

The good:

It seems to be faster.

Rhythmbox doesn't crash anymore when switching songs fast.

Video drivers have improbed and I'm now able to use GNOME Shell (and will do so for some time).

The bad:

I didn't like the new stile and button layout. So I still prefer using ClearLooks and the old window button layout.

The boot splash still does not look good to me. Now I see an empty console for most of boot time, only then I see splash for very short time.

Swell Foop game doesn't seem to be very stable and is much slower.

Over all for now is positive.

How to improve Firefox

Firefox is a great browser, but it's defaults may seem to have few disadvantages:

• Page rendering not fast enaugh (not fastest browser),


• Toolbars take to much space (less is left for page content),


• All dowloads go to desktop.

Simple improvements:

View -> Toolbars -> Adress bar

When unchecked, adress bar is hidden. If you rarely use adress bar, it is not necessairy, and is occupying space. Adress bar can always be accessed via menu 'Adress' or just typing its item names to adress bar.

Edit -> Preferences (On Windows: Tools -> Options)

• First tab

In download section chose 'Ask where to save every...'. When you do this, firefox will ask you every time where to save the downloaded file.

• Tab 'Tabs'

Checkbox 'Always show tabs' specifies, whether tabs are shown when there is only one tab. New tab can always be openned by pressing Ctrl+T or by selecting File -> New tab. The only disadvantage of hiding tabs is moving tabs between windows, available since Firefox 3.6 (when there is no tabs bar, you can't drag tab).

• Tab 'Other', inside it tab 'General'

Check the 'Browse with cursor'. With it enabled, you will see keyboard position indicator blinking in websites, which you can control using arrow keys. This makes it easy to select text (by holding Shift key), even when you want to select a link or part of it, but not click on it. You can also use arrow keys to move the cursor and press links (enter key).

Customize toolbars

Right click on toolbar ant select 'customize'. A new window will open aditional buttons for toolbars, and any button can be moved using mouse. To remove button from toolbar, drag & drop it on this new window.


Use addons to extend posibilities

Firefox is a very extensible browser. You can install a lot of various addons, that give you extra features. Here are some addons, worth your attention:

• Adblock Plus

An addon to block ads on websites. Since there are a lot of sites on the web, that have a clear bloat of ads (which is a cost for us, as we need to download more data and use more CPU power), we need to fight back.
This addon detects and removes ads from web pages. In context menu (obtained via right click) you'll see an item 'block image...', wich will add a filter, when selected. Use '*' (means any text) to set a filter for all ads from one origin. This addon also has a predefined collection of filters.

• Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper

An additional addon to use with Adblock Plus. This one allows to select an element with a mouse and creates a filter for it.

• Flashblock

Replaces all Adobe Flash object with an image, wich, when clicked, is replaced back with a real object. A nice way to remove all unwanted heavyweight animations.

• NoScript

A script blocker for advanced users. This addon may cause some issues, but it increases browsing security. With this addon you can define a white list of sites, allowed to execute scripts. All other scripts are blocked, so all sites are greatly limited to what they can do on your machine.

Advanced improvements

Before trying the tweaks below, backup your firefox settings. Just make a backup of your prefs.js file. This file can be found in:

GNU/Linux: ~/.mozilla/firefox/<profile>/prefs.js

Windows: <Application Data>\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile>\prefs.js

Replace <profile> with profile name. Usually there is only one profile, hence only one directory for a choice.

Type about:config into address bar. Firefox will give you a warning about possible dangers. Agree and you'll see a full list of settings.

• Open search results in new tab

browser.search.openintab=true

When this setting is set, typing into search bar and pressing enter will open new tab with results. When set to false, search results are openned in current tab.

• Faster page rendering

These settings may be not present in the list (in this case add them):

content.notify.ontimer=true

content.notify.interval=500000

The first one is necessairy for the second to work. The second defines the amount of time between screen refreshes equal to half a second. Increasing it the screen is less often refreshed while downloading page. With less refreshes, the overall time need to display a page becomes smaller.

Nice browsing!