Just installed Ubuntu 7.04 on two different Dell laptops. So far, I’m impressed:

• It’s the first Linux distro ever where desktop effects (compiz) works out of the box and without major problems.
• It was helpful enough to point me out how to enable mp3 support when I tried to double-click a song on Sofie’s desktop.

However, none of the two new features were problem free. The problem with compiz happened because during the Live CD session, a notification area icon asked me to install a restricted driver for the graphics card, which I happily did. For some reason, though, the downloaded driver didn’t end up in the installed system, but the xorg.conf changes to use “nvidia” did. The result was that the gdm wouldn’t start and I was left with a horrible error message about a missing driver. Thankfully, I’m a bit of a geek (no shit?) so I just changed xorg.conf to use the “nv” driver, started gdm, and then installed the restricted driver using the notification icon again. Ubuntu devs, you might want to fix this bug!

The other problem I had was when totem asked me about mp3 support. I selected the corresponding option to enable mp3, but for some reason I had to check the very same checkbox three times in order for it to stick. Don’t know what happened there and I’d rather not install Ubuntu again to find out.

All in all, I’m very happy with the new release. It looks very polished with the desktop effects, and after making my own modification of the default desktop background (changed it to a blue shade instead of brown) and then changing the theme to Glossy, it looks really slick.

Here’s a new instant messenger application for Linux worth taking a closer look at. It looks like a Linux version of Google Talk, which means sleek, simple, and beautiful.

More information on Kenneth Christiansen’s blog.

“It just works.”

- Slackware creator Patrick Volkerding