Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn

For people wanting simplicity from their Linux distribution, Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) may well be the best release ever from any Linux company. While using Feisty Fawn from the late beta stage and right on up to upgrading to the final version, I kept thinking “Feisty is so easy, my mom could use this!” Not to say you can’t get more obtuse with command line syntaxes in Feisty, but for the folks that wants their Linux distro to work with a minimal amount of fuss, Feisty Fawn is a smashing success. The installation is really as easy as 1-2-3 and from there you can set up your desktop with a minimal (and I mean minimal) amount of fuss. In fact, I found setting up Feisty Fawn to be far easier than Windows Vista or XP in that department. There’s no need to hunt down drivers and software from the internet and things just work out of the box. Furthermore, if you don’t want to use the command line just about everything in Feisty can be done via gui apps.

If you have been following the Ubuntu releases, you probably know that Ubuntu’s previous release “Edgy Eft” was somewhat lackluster when compared to the their prior “Dapper” release. Improvements were so slight that it was often difficult to differentiate between the two releases. Well with Feisty Fawn you will notice improvements from the Ubuntu installer all the way to how restricted drivers are now installed via a simple gui app and the easy manner in which proprietary codecs are installed. Visually the default look of Ubuntu and its KDE counterpart, Kubuntu, hasn’t changed from “Edgy” but the modifications made under the hood sure has simplified Feisty Fawn. fiesty.jpgfeisty-1.jpgfeisty-2.jpgfeisty-3.jpgfeisty-4.jpgfeisty-5.jpgfeisty-7.jpgfeisty-8.jpgfeisty-9.jpgfeisty-12.jpgfeisty-13.jpgfeisty-14.jpg

The installation has seen some nice streamlined improvements from past installations, which made the seem like it took 15 minutes to finish. The most significant new feature during the installation would have been the “Migration Assistant.” If you have a dual boot setup, the Migration wizard will ask you if you would like to import desktop settings from Windows or any other Linux installation on your computer. I chose to migrate settings from a Edgy Eft partition. I then got a window giving me the option to import settings for Firefox, Evolution, and Gaim. I don’t use Evolution so I imported Firefox and Gaim. After the installation and upon starting up Firefox for the first time, all my bookmarks from the Edgy partition were perfectly imported into Feisty. Saved passwords for websites were not imported, which is good for security reasons I guess. Furthermore, Feisty Fawn had successfully imported all my various Gaim account settings. When launching Gaim for the first time, it was awesome having my AIM/Google Talk/MSN/ICQ accounts ready to be launched from the get go. Very good job Ubuntu! I would hope in future releases they could expand the Migration Assistant even more by adding more programs (Thunderbird/Amarok comes immediately to mind).

As stated earlier, the default desktop in Ubuntu has not changed much. Most notable decision would be that Gnome’s new Control Center is not enable by default. Personally, I think users should have a choice between the two different systems so I’m happy that Ubuntu allowed the Control Center to be enabled or disabled. With the default setting in System–>Preferences and System–>Administration the menu has a cascading structure which is highly efficient. For users that would prefer the control panel ala Windows XP you can enable it by right clicking on the system menu (top left where the Ubuntu logo sits) and then select “Edit Menus.” Once “Main Menu” is opened, select System–>Preferences on the left window pane and then check the “Control Center” box on the right window pane. Then hit the close button and you will see the control center option the next time you click System–>Preferences–>Control Center. I did find Control Center to open slowly and preferred the cascading menu system a lot more.

Read more about the Gnome Control Center : New Gnome Control Center for Ubuntu’s Feisty Fawn system-preferences-cascadingmenu.jpgcontrol-center-00.jpgcontrol-center-01.jpg

Installing proprietary drivers (hint Nvidia) was easy! Easy I say! Did I mention that it was easy? So easy. The steps needed to install Nvidia drivers required simply selecting System–>Preferences–>Restricted Drivers Manager. Then check the box that says “Enabled” for Nvidia accelerated graphics driver and it’s installed. Way easier than installing Nvidia drivers in Windows. system-administration-restricteddriversmanagement.jpgsystem-administration-restricteddriversmanagement-01.jpgsystem-administration-restricteddriversmanagement-02.jpgsystem-administration-restricteddriversmanagement-03.jpgsystem-administration-restricteddriversmanagement-04.jpgsystem-administration-restricteddriversmanagement-05.jpg

What’s even more amazing is how easy it is to setup Beryl or Compiz. These two different programs enable the 3d rotating desktop and other bling effects for the Linux Desktop. Generally If you want to install Beryl (which I would recommend) open up Synaptic via System–>Administration–>Synaptic Package Manager, search for “Beryl” and then check the boxes for “Beryl,” “Beryl-Manager,” & “Emerald-Themes.” Click the apply button and your finished! An even easier way to install Beryl, is to open up the terminal via Applications–>Accessories–>Terminal and type this in :

Once you reboot you can launch Beryl via Applications–>System Tools–>Beryl Manager. If you would rather use Compiz you can enable the program via System–>Preferences–>Desktop Effects. These screenshots are taken with Beryl running KDE (Kubuntu 7.04). beryl-01.jpgberyl-10.jpgberyl-03.jpgberyl-11.jpgberyl-02.jpgberyl-05.jpgberyl-04.jpgberyl-application-window-switcher.jpgberyl-12.jpg

Mounting NTFS partitions is now a 1-2-3 process in Ubuntu. All that is required is to install ntfs-3g and ntfs-config via Synaptic or via the command line:

After that I just selected Applications–>System Tools–>NTFS Configuration and checked two boxes for enabling write support for internal and external devices. Once that was done my Windows NTFS partition was automagically mounted and available as an icon from my desktop. I was really impressed how simple this was. ntfs-3g-01.jpgntfs-3g-02.jpgntfs-3g-03.jpg

Personally I hate a cluttered desktop and would rather have no icons shown on my desktop. Also, the mounted drives can be accessed via the terminal or a file browser so I like to turn off icons appearing on my desktop. In Ubuntu the manner in which you would do this is by opening the terminal program and then typing in gconf-editor. Once the Configuration Editor opens up click on down to / –> apps –> nautilus –> desktop and uncheck the boxes on the right. If you want the trach icon on your desktop then leave “trash_icon_visible” checked. gconf-editor.jpg

When I went to set up shared folders via NFS & Samba, Feisty Fawn was smart enough to give me a pop up window saying I needed to install the proper apps (samba and nfs-server) to enable these feature. Once those two options were clicked it was pretty darn easy to setup shared folders via Samba. sharedfolders-01.jpgsharedfolders-02.jpgsharedfolders-03.jpg

A great example of how Ubuntu is making Linux more accessible for non-Linux folks is the manner in which proprietary codecs like mp3 are installed. Because of licensing issues mp3 codecs are not installed by default in most Linux distributions. For the end user, sometimes this creates confusion, but not in Feisty Fawn. As soon as you click on a mp3 file in Nautilus or Konqueror file browers, a pop window appears asking you if you would like to install the proprietary codecs necessary to play the file. Very well done Ubuntu. mp3-codec.jpgmp3-codec-02.jpg

Ubuntu comes with a basic set of applications. This is necessary to have Ubuntu fit on only 1 cd. Personally I prefer Ubuntu’s method, rather than downloading multiple cd’s or dvd’s. Extra applications are easy to install after the initial installation and, most likely, you will have to upgrade a significant portion of the default software anyways. These are the default applications that comes with Feisty Fawn. applications-accessories.jpgapplications-games.jpgapplications-graphics.jpgapplications-internet.jpgapplications-office.jpgapplications-soundmultimedia.jpg

The fun part I always have is with installing additional applications in Ubuntu. The process is a easy as well, using either Synaptic or the command line apt-get program. For people that want to browse for software visually, Synaptic works great. System–>Preferences–>Synaptic Package Manager will launch Synaptic. No need to go to various websites and download programs like in Windows. Just click the program and Synaptic will downloadl the applications from the Ubuntu repositories. synaptic.jpg

Furthermore there are third party applications like Automatix2 which can automate the installation process for third party apps. Automatix2 can be downloaded here. Personally I prefer to open up the terminal and just do it myself. This time around, typing this in the terminal installed all the additional applications I wanted (as well as KDE/Kubuntu & XFCE/Xubuntu) :

sudo apt-get install mozilla-thunderbird gftp kftpgrabber nfs-common vlc par2 unrar xmms xmms-mad xmms-skins sun-java5-plugin sun-java5-bin ubuntu-restricted-extras libk3b2-mp3 ntfs-config libxine-extracodecs xine-ui mplayer mplayer-skins kubuntu-desktop xubuntu-desktop opera gftp kftpgrabber azureus klibido

After that pretty much every application I wanted was installed in one swoop. I should note that in Feisty, Ubuntu has concentrated on making things just work for the first time Linux users. For things like mp3 codecs if you click on a particular mp3 file or open Amarok and try to play an mp3 file a pop-up window will appear, asking you if you want to install the mp3 codecs. This was very sweet.

I think Feisty Fawn will be of particular interest to first time Linux users, so for the people getting their first taste of open source software, these are some of the best Linux applications for Linux desktop users. All of these applications were installed from that one long command pasted into the terminal, if they were not available from the default installation.

Music Players : There are a lots of digital music players for the Linux platform. The best in my opinion would be Amarok, Banshee, and XMMS. Amarok and Banshee are similar to Apple iTunes where they excel at organizing and playing large digital music collections. Out of those two Amarok would be the preferred application simply because it feels lighter than Banshee and has more features. XMMS is similar to WinAMP where it excels at quickly playing a song or an album, but not as well suited for large collections. Read more about Amarok and an interview with the Mark Kretschmann (lead developer of Amarok) : Amarok 1.4.5 Overview. amarok.jpgbanshee.jpgxmms.jpg

Video Players : Similar to music players for Linux, there are tons of video players for Linux. The best of the bunch would be Mplayer, VLC, and Xine-Ui. It’s a close call on which of these are better. VLC works great with just about every format and does not require the installation of extra codecs. Mplayer works great from the commnad line and works pretty good wrapped around a gui. Xine-Ui is similar in features with Mplayer. VLC plays ripped DVD’s in ISO format with menu’s, so thats my player of choice. mplayer.jpgvlc.jpgxine.jpg

Digital Photo Organizers : Best of the Photo Organizers for Linux are Digikam, F-Spot, and Picassa. Digikam would get the slight nod because it is a native Linux application and runs much faster than F-Spot. Picassa works great as well and interesting enough runs off of Wine. Also, Picassa is not available in the Ubuntu repositories so you have to download it from here. Open the .deb file rather than saving the file and Picassa gets installed automatically. digikam.jpgf-spot.jpgpicassa.jpg

Digital Image Editor : On Linux, the best digital image editor is Gimp by a country mile. gimp.jpg

Web Browsers : For Linux there are Firefox, Konqueor, and Opera. Epiphany is another Linux web browser that’s pretty good, but since Firefox, Opera, and Konqueror are great, there’s really no need to use Epiphany at the moment. firefox.jpgkonqueror.jpgopera.jpg

Internet Utilities : For ftp clients there Gftp and Kftpgrabber. Gftp is a basic ftp program that is simple and works relatively well. Kftpgrabber has a lot more features but can be confusing for first time users. Kftpgrabber is similar to the Windows program “Flashfxp” where you can actually send files from one site directly to another remote site. For your torrent needs Azureus is the best program for Linux at the moment. For Usenet Klibido would be the program to use. Internet Relay chat Xchat and for an external email reader, Thunderbird of course. Finally for Internet Relay Chat, Xchat rules. gftp.jpgkftpgrabber.jpgazureus.jpgklibido.jpgxchat.jpgthunderbird.jpg

Office Applications : OpenOffice suite is what you need for Word Processing, Database, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. I user OpenOffice Writer daily and absolutely love it! openoffice-base.jpgopenoffice-calc.jpgopenofficewriter.jpg

There’s actually very little to complain about in Feisty Fawn and a whole lot to get excited about. Some minor grievances I had with Ubuntu would be with the default brown color scheme in Ubuntu (definitely could use a refresh or upgrade). Even with that stated, it’s very easy to change the default look so it’s not a huge issue. Also, I would have preferred if Feisty did not use UUID in /etc/fstab. For most normal users they probably won’t even notice this change so, again, it’s not a huge issue. If you do have to manually mount a drive, typing in “sudo mount UUID=3ac3eb4b-e1f4-4de9-90a1-076a7ae1e725″ is needlessly difficult. Finally, since Feisty is all about guification, I would have preferred to have a NFS gui manager to mount remote drives from the local network. Besides those minor complaints, I was just impressed with how well everything else in Feisty Fawn worked.

Everything I could have possibly wanted for everyday computing tasks were readily available and easily configurable. From Feisty’s new migration assistant in their installer, to the new Restricted Drivers Manager, to the ease of setting up Beryl or Compiz things went so smoothly that I was amazed. This would be the first Linux distro that I have encountered where I would think even my mother could use! Compared to Windows, Feisty’s installation was on par with XP or Vista. The minimal amount of steps needed to configure Feisty after installation was a whole lot easier than in Windows. Once the configuration is done, Feisty Fawn is just a pleasure to use. Very well done Ubuntu!

Great Review! So much so that when this is combined with some of the good things freepers have been telling me I just might play around with Ubuntu later this week.

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2 posted on 04/19/2007 3:00:52 PM PDT by N3WBI3 (Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak....)

I use 6.10 Christian Edition and so far so good. Just some learning curves. I still trying to get a Virtual OS going. I tried QEMU since that is kind of the default, but that has problems. So I am trying to get VMware to work.

I just might play around with Ubuntu later this week.

I have a new 80Gb drive ready to go that will be a WinXP/Linux dual boot drive.
I had decided on SimplyMepis but after reading this review I am now going to use Ubuntu FF. No doubt.
By end of next week I should be Freeping via Ubuntu.

Evidently you haven’t heard (but I am sure you will soon): linux is the Debil......;-)

Ubuntu was just okay in my book....nothing spectacular, but by far the easiest Linux install I’ve ever done. I’m hooked on Knoppix, but Sabayon with the Beryl desktop will knock your socks off, and therefore is really starting to grab my attention.

Very cool!
Ive been fooling around with edgy eft and knoppix.
I cant wait to load up beryl on fiesty fawn!

Bookmarking to see if I can figure out how to download & install on my computer.

With this release I finally decide I’ll take a look at desktop Linux again. I go to the site to download, really slow.

Then I search for a BitTorrent version, 4,655 seeders and 4,799 leechers! I’ve never seen that much. I’m currently downloading from over 120 users at up to 600 KB per second so I’ll be checking it out in a VM soon.

12 posted on 04/19/2007 10:56:23 PM PDT by TChris (The Democrat Party: A sewer into which is emptied treason, inhumanity and barbarism - O. Morton)

Down load a free prog called “Active ISO burner”
Then download Fiesty Fawn and use ISO Burner to burn the ISO image of fiesty fawn to a cd.

Then just pop FF cd into you computer and set it to boot off the cdrom in your BIOS.

Restart the conputer and voila!

Ok I’m on feisty fawn now..
Good news. It booted in less than 2 min, the sound controls work and the screen resolution default is much improved.
Bad news. the screen isn’t sized correctly and My internet feed to Rush Limbaugh didn’t launch.

There is spell check running as I post this too. thats nice.

\
Took me about an hour to get downloaded

So far my mileage with this linux stuff hasnt been so good, but I like the fact that it does allow you to “function” without paying out the big bucks.

The Linux “Live Cds” boot right off the cdrom and dont need to be installed to get your system up and running. This is great! it allows easy recovery from harddrive crashes.

Its fun to fool around with.
I havent gotten Beyrl up and running yet, but Im just putzing around.

Good luck

I love the newest Ubuntu, too. My laptop’s DVD burner hasn’t been burning DVDs well lately on Windows or Xandros, but DVDs burn perfectly on Ubuntu for some reason, especially when I use Ubuntu’s built-in DVD burner (the one integrated into the Nautilus file browser). Plus, Linuxant has excellent support on Ubuntu for the Conexant HSF/HCF chipsets for dial-up modems. I just hope I can get my AVerTV PCI FM/TV tuner card to work on my desktop once I install Feisty on there.

19 posted on 04/29/2007 9:49:07 AM PDT by bigdcaldavis ("I'm not some candy-assed white liberal looking to turn you into better citizens." - Martin Querns)

The reason your El Rushbo feed didn’t launch is because you still need to use the Synaptics Package Manager in order to download and install the proper codec...but in Feisty, those codecs are readily available. Once you install the proper codec (something like gstreamer-plugins), you’ll be able to hear the “King of the Golden EIB Microphone”. If I ever listen to Rush on the internet (he comes on the local radio station WCHS in Charleston), I listen to KSYL (Alexandria, Louisiana) or KLBJ (Austin, Texas).

Oh, and there’s also Automatix.

20 posted on 04/29/2007 9:53:21 AM PDT by bigdcaldavis ("I'm not some candy-assed white liberal looking to turn you into better citizens." - Martin Querns)

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