Michael Harper’s Tech & Art Blog

I have written a few posts recently that have reviewed the latest version of Ubuntu. At first, it seemed, I wouldn’t be able to use Ubuntu 9.04 because of extreme graphical issues. My main issued was caused by Ubuntu Studio. Now, I have finally found the method of installation that proves to be the stablest and hassle-free.

I tried a clean install of Ubuntu Studio 9.04 only to have major issues. Nothing worked. Then I tried upgrading from Ubuntu 8.10 to Ubuntu Studio 9.04. Same problems. After much dismay and trying other distros, I made the decision to do a clean install of Ubuntu 9.04 and what do you know - amazing results. The latest Ubuntu is amazing. Very stable and I’ve had several issues fixed permanetly including working wifi and certain graphical issues.

This last week has been extremely frustrating and all because of wifi. I really need to stretch the cable modem 5 feet closer in my general direction. I first upgraded from Ubuntu 8.10 to 9.04 without error. Everything worked perfectly fine. Then I installed Ubuntu Studio 9.04 with an eagerness to get a clean install on my computer and wipe off some of the junk from residual upgrades and package installs. I installed Ubuntu Studio 9.04 onto my nVidia desktop (because my ATI laptop obviously won’t cut it). The wifi didn’t work immediately. I’ve installed openSUSE, Fedora and several versions of Ubuntu and my Linksys WUSB54G wireless adapter worked everytime. For some reason, Studio 9.04 wouldn’t see it. I tried a few things and got no where. I’m going to have to have a few drinks with the makers of ndiswrapper and MadWifi to try and get a better grip on how exactly wifi works in Linux. So I have a DD-WRT router that I use as a repeater and I tried to configure it through Studio’s copy of Firefox. Studio froze time after time while trying to configure it and I gave up on it. Apparently the real-time kernel is very unstable. I’ll have to look into it.

I’ve tried to do this multiple times with Ubuntu yet never suceeded for some reason. I purchased a full Skype package the other day and I’ve been stuck on Vista as I could never get the audio to work on Ubuntu. I tried a few new distros the other day after the ATI incident with Ubuntu 9.04. Ubuntu Studio 8.04 and Linux Mint 6. Ubuntu Studio 8.04 failed due to a few random issues such as the Linux headers error. I was unable to compile the madwifi modules against the kernel and I dropped it. I grew tired of this wifi issue and decided to move on. I read many reviews about Linux Mint - an unofficial variant of Ubuntu that has a few additional packages and supposedly wifi readiness. My wifi didn’t work off the bat but at least I was able to compile it easily. I use Linux Mint because it is Ubuntu made easy - essentially. The latest version is based off of Ubuntu 8.10. They are working on the Linux Mint 7 version that is based on 9.04.

Lately I’ve been interested in seeing what some of the other flavors of Ubuntu might be available and I stumbled across this “official” variant of Ubuntu known as Ubuntu Studio. Very interesting - seems that it has a real-time kernel that cuts latency down tremendously in a lot of applications, espcially audio apps. I found this interesting due to the fact that I had attempted to use my M-Audio Keystation 49e keyboard with Vista and I was let down to see a full second or two delay in MIDI processing. I haven’t had a chance to test latency yet but I do know that Ubuntu readily recognizes my keyboard in many applications. Though this probably isn’t completely accurate, I equate this real-time kernel to the high-priority settings found in Windows Task Manager. I believe that in Windows, it is a per-application basis whereas Ubuntu Studio has real-time access for all apps.

I can’t believe I’m in the situation I’m in. It’s 2:13 am and I’m copying all of my important files from my Toshiba A215 to an external hard drive so that I can format what is left of my latest 9.04 install. I’ve been waiting patiently since its release a few days ago to try and install Jaunty Jackalope, the latest release of Ubuntu. I hadn’t read any reviews about it yet and I wanted to give it a go as soon as possible to experience the greatest Ubuntu to date. During install, a warning popped up and basically said, “WARNING: The FGLRX driver you’re using for your ATI/Radeon graphics card is no longer compatible with the latest version of X Server. The only way graphics will operate is to use the free and open-source driver available with Ubuntu.” I said sure, no problem. I’m using several other restricted drivers anyways, let’s see how it works. I install it using the “alternate” ISO file available from ubuntu.com and give it a half-hour or so. It reboots and finally finishes the install.