Got a new server a couple of days ago and I just completed upgrading iwojima to a new version of Ubuntu. I’m now running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on the desktop and all I can say is that it’s a step forward for Linux on the desktop. I still can’t wrap my head around the reason for making Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5 the default browser on an LTS (Long-term Support) release. But it looks like it was a good decision to do so. The only thing missing are some key extensions that I use a lot, such as Firebug and the Del.icio.us extension.

For a Beta release, Firefox 3 is pretty solid and feels really fast. I haven’t had nspluginwrapper crash on me yet, as opposed to the previous version which would crash from time to time especially when viewing sites with multiple Flash movies. Hopefully, Evolution mail client crashes have been fixed in this LTS release. It’s caused me a lot of grief before when it would crash randomly and then keep crashing when I restart it.

Desktop effects still suck though. When I enabled it, I still get that ugly black screen flash whenever I start Firefox. The new clock applet finally supports multiple timezones, very useful since I deal with clients in different timezones.

Two apps the I use a lot, Wine and Cinelerra, both have repositories for 8.04 so it looks like I have everything I need. Overall it feels like a solid release worth of the “LTS” designation.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 26th, 2008 at 11:57 am and is filed under System Administration, Ubuntu Linux. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.