Tomorrow the beta of Ubuntu 9.04 should be released. The alphas have been great, so I’m really looking forward to the beta. I wonder if they got the last little hickups out of the alpha and will deliver the usual quality that we’re used to.
Actually I’ve had very little problems with the alpha so far. I run it as a dual boot next to my stable 8.10 and start it every now and then to play with it. I found so little bugs that I’m wondering if anything has changed since 8.10. But obviously it has, it’s much faster and runs so much smoother then 8.10.
The only real problem I’ve encountered was a total freeze at random moments. That sounds severe, but I’m sure this will be fixed in the final release. The hardware support is great, I didn’t have to tweak anything to make it work on my Sony Vaio TZ21MN.
There are a few challenges that are not directly linked to the 9.04 release. Compiz still doesn’t support a desktop larger then 2048×2048, annoying since I usually connect a second monitor to my machine which brings my desktop to a width of 3414 px. Too bad, but I can live with Metacity and it’s composite settings.
Entourage finally supports the MAPI connect to Exchange. A challenge is that at our company we’re using a SSL connection to get to Exchange, this makes sense but the latest release of the MAPI connector doesn’t support it. Shame, I would have loved to drop my Windows XP in a VirtualBox that only runs Outlook.
Ah well, I’ll wait a bit more until these issues are also fixed. Until then I’ll keep using the most stable, fast and feature rich operating system there is.
Ubuntu
There is a repository that contains the daily build of Chromium. It’s easy to add: no building required! For details you can look at the PPA page.
The only thing that took me some time was the PGP file. I’ve created a file for your convenience.
Open Software Sources and add the key in the authentication tab. Then add the following to the Third Party Software tab. Click close and reload.
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
The browser is FAST, but it’s not 100% stable. You can play with it, but at this moment it won’t replace Firefox.
Ubuntu
The people from Gnome Global Menu have made their installation more convenient then it was before. No more compilation required, just add the repo to your software sources.
Gnome Global Menu gives you a menu bar for the active application in a gnome panel like Mac OS X has it. This saves you some vertical screen space since the menu is removed from the application window.
It works fine, but only for GTK applications. That doesn’t sound so bad, but my main applications, firefox and openoffice, are not genuine GTK applications. This means that their menu is still shown in the application window itself. Too bad.
A clear description of the installation is on the project install page. The only flaw on there is that you need to import the GPG key before you reload the repository list.
After the installation you need to add the global menu applet toyour gnome panel and right click it to open the preferences. There you can enable the global menu.
GUI, Ubuntu
Gnome global menu
I’ve been having problems with the wifi reception in my apartment for a long time. As usual I started looking for solutions in the software direction: installing some linux on the router and pushing up the wifi signal with that. However, I never thought about a hardware solution. There is a very easy solution that is so simple I would never think of it: create a parabolic mirror.
After some searching I found a little movie on Youtube that explains how to make one with aluminum foil and some cardboard. The mentioned diagram can be found here.
[Update March 10, 2009]
I’ve done some work with cardboard, aluminum foil and scissors. My wifi is still working and it appears a bit stronger. There is not a huge difference, but there is a difference. Now I can only wait to see if it’s more stable then it used to be.
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