This is going to be a fairly long review however I will also like to mention you can find another review for Ubuntu 11.10 at here. The reason this review will be one of the longest ones is because currently Ubuntu is reluctantly my distro of choice. I will explain why reluctantly later. In this review I’ll explain the main points of Ubuntu 11.10 but will also show a comparison to Ubuntu 11.04.
The slides below are of the 11.04 installation procedure and some of the slides that you have to watch while the installation procedure does its thing.
Below are the images of the 11.10 installation procedure and slides you have to sit through.
The Ubuntu installation and partitioning system, is probably the most straight forward of all distros you could test so definitely is new user friendly. The installation is not the quickest of all the distros I’ve tested. I doubt you could complain though especially if you have ever had to sit through a windows installation, this might come as a fairly refreshing change.
Anyway enough of that onto the desktop environments.
Below are Images of 11.04
As you can see they are fundamentally the same but in 11.10 the interface has been polished to give a cleaner and more intergraded look. When 11.04 was release the biggest complaint was it didn’t feel finished.
The DASH
Below are images of the Dash (almost but not quite the equivalent of Windows Start Menu) from both 11.04
And 11.10
As you can see like the desktop 11.04 was Ubuntu putting their ideas forward and 11.10 was when the idea was fully realised. Many users are very vocal in their dislike of this new interface. Personally I find though I don’t love it, it doesn’t get in my way. It is (almost) like a halfway point between Gnome 2 (or MATE) and Gnome 3 (see image below)
Software Centre
Below is an image from 11.04
And again below is 11.10 software centre.
As you can see the differences didn’t stop with the desktop. The software centre in Ubuntu 11.10 is the best you will find from any of the Linux distros (apart from maybe Linux Deepin ). I don’t feel like we sing the praises of the Ubuntu (or any other Linux distros version) software centre enough. When you’re a windows user you can browse through websites like Download.com etc looking for whatever program takes your fancy. Chances are you might find one or two bits of freeware that you install and use and turns out it was riddled with Spyware / Adware / Viruses / browser bars etc. Or it will work for 3 goes then you have to register. Finding what you’re looking for is at best a bit of a wild goose chase at worst dangerous for your computer and your privacy. As Linux users we take for granted we have upwards of 10,000 programs / extensions we can install play with get bored and install something else. The majority of our programs don’t take 10GB to install (Adobe I’m looking at you) and they don’t spy on us (Adobe again). Want a paint program? We have hundreds. Often the downfall of choice is which one do you choose but if that’s the only downfall I think we can live with it. And what’s more 99% of our software is free to use and free to alter. Another aspect of Linux we take for granted (although we argue about it all the time) is the user interface. If you don’t like Unity install Gnome 3 or Mate or LXDE or KDE or even XFCE and god knows what else. If you don’t like the windows interface tough luck. Our choices are numerous.
The Ubuntu experience
Ubuntu isn’t the quickest operating system to load on my computer. And the loading time is getting increasingly slower with each new release. This really is to be expected as advancements on the operating system and the Kernel and new programs make their way onto our systems as default programs change 6monthly whilst the hardware we use is not updated as often as this there will be a speed difference. Though I am counting it as seconds rather than minutes. Anecdotally 10.04 took 30 seconds to load 11.04 40 seconds not 11.10 is 50 seconds. But once loaded its ready to use. Windows seven on my system took about 2 minutes to start then probably another 2 minutes for it to finish loading god knows what before its ready to use. I found OpenSUSE a little quicker probably 40 seconds using 12.1 and Fedora 16 about the same again. Once loaded all the systems performed almost exactly the same except OpenSUSE which I installed and used the Btrfs file system for root and /home and found the system worked that little bit quicker. If this was down to Btrfs or if it was OpenSUSE itself I couldn’t say.
In terms of memory usage please see below image
As you can see with Thunderbird, Firefox, Microsoft Word open the memory usage is actually very good. In terms of stability Ubuntu is solid. I have never had an update that has broken my system. I don’t get system crashes. I do find transferring files to and from an external hard drive do slow the system down. But it doesn’t prevent me from doing any work on my computer. In comparison Windows 7 was unusable in the times when I was transferring files with programs graying out for the duration of the transfers.
Most of my drivers worked out of the box with Ubuntu the only exception is my Broadcom drivers but Ubuntu lost no time in getting the ‘Additional Drivers’ loaded and running ready for the installation. I also have Ubuntu installed on my girlfriend’s laptop. This was half a test to see how someone who isn’t interested in technology in the slightest would cope with a non Windows Operating system, but also because I was getting fed up with the issues that kept cropping up. The most annoying (except for the Spyware and viruses and also the need for defragging) was a Mcafee anti-virus shortcut that kept appearing on the desktop that if you clicked it would install a trial (I had already installed Avast anti-virus) I did a check and there was no Mcafee products installed on the computer so this must have come from the internet. Finally the risk to her online privacy started to concern me to the point where it seemed silly to keep windows as her main OS. I had kept Windows 7 on the computer in case the experiment was unsuccessful but also as she wants to keep using iTunes for her iPod. Ubuntu had no problems at all with her laptop and found the Atheros wifi straight away. And she has encountered no issues so far with the usability. It did take a very quick explanation of the Unity interface where perhaps if she was using Gnome 2 it might not have been needed, as that is closer to the windows interface style. I could have chosen Gnome 3 but this really would have confused her as she doesn’t use more than one desktop for all her programs. I could have also used KDE but from personal experience this is actually one of the harder to use interfaces though it does appear more similar to the windows taskbar interface and I want to keep her away from MATE until I’m certain its 100% stable. The reason I also chose Ubuntu above all the other distros is because I’m fairly confident any issues she does encounter or if she does somehow break the system I am capable of fixing it and also Ubuntu I have found has the friendliest online help system (launchpad and Ask Ubuntu ) . The reason I talk about this is because for someone who is used to using Linux saying it’s easy to use Ubuntu shouldn’t be taken at face value. To find out how easy to use Ubuntu is, give it to someone who isn’t good at technology and see how they cope. I will be honest if I had installed it on my girlfriends computer and didn’t give her any help, she would have wanted to return to Windows immediately as it’s just not what she is used to. I had a quick look on the Ubuntu website to see if there was any really obvious (to us) advice on how to use Ubuntu like you got with Windows 95 but it appears to be missing. They do have a tour of Ubuntu (which is a great start) but perhaps something for the true technophobic user to look at might mean more people moving to Ubuntu which means more people moving to Linux which would be great for the community.
The reason why I said I reluctantly use Ubuntu is because I find it just so easy to use nothing goes wrong or breaks unexpectedly. This might be a good thing perhaps. But if you ask a Arch Linux user or a Slackware or even a Gentoo Linux user you get the enthusiasm that is born from creating your own system, they have decided what software they installed they quite literally made they’re system from the ground up. I don’t feel that enthusiasm with Ubuntu. With Sabayon I have problems I have encountered and found ways to get them fixed or work around them in the majority of cases. Ubuntu to me has no real personality it just works. Which is bloody annoying.
BTW to install MATE follow the instructions on the following website here
danslinux 