Adjective Animal

ubuntuYesterday, I decided to upgrade my Ubuntu installation from Intrepid Impatient Ibex (8.10) to Jaunty Jackalope (9.04). I recklessly went update-manager -d and just let it run. Backups are for wimps, real men save their data the moment the shit hits the fan. Even when there’s still 12 days of public beta in the can ;)

Remarks behind the cut.

My only grief is that the updater still presents the user with dialogs like “what would you like to do with /boot/grub/menu.lst” and then a list of options (install package version, keep local version, …). After my ventures into GRUB, I know what this file is for and what the consequences of every option are, but your average Joe would not.

My remarks about the new release:

  • At a first glance, nothing terribly new. There’s a new notification system which is very slick, but ships without any options to configure it. Older applets and programs might work with the new system, or switch back to the old system.
  • Some things that borked: VLC integrated video (switches back to old seperate X-window now), System tester (fix is being released now)
  • Boot time has improved significantly. From well over a minute to 30 seconds flat. It seems like they ditched the filesystem check.