Welcome to Intrepid

This would not be an Ubuntu blog if I didn't make a post about the most recent release, Intrepid Ibex. It was released not too long ago, but I usually give these things a few days before I test it out.

So upgrading was a little tricky, but not really. Hardy, being a LTS release, by default only upgrades if the new release is also a LTS release. Intrepid is not LTS, so you don't get any options to automatically update, or even update using apt-get dist-upgrade. Fortunately it is easily fixed by going to System->Administration->Software Sources, choose the Updates tab, and go to "Show new distribution releases" and set it to "Normal releases". After that, you should be able to auto-update. I was scared for a sec because I thought I would have to download the ISO and install from that. However, then I remembered that I've had to do that for every other version of Ubuntu that I've used, so it wouldn't be any different.

Another good thing to do is switch your download location to one of the mirrors, that way you aren't hitting the regular Ubuntu servers which are completely overloaded. You can do this in the same Software Sources dialog from the Ubuntu Software tab. Just go to "Download from", click "Other" and then you can pick a server near you. Makes it much smoother, and for me, much faster since USherbrooke (the mirror I'm using) has a fat pipe.

This was the first install that actually went smoothly. The upgrader didn't crap out and corrupt my install like it did with Gutsy and Hardy, it actually did all its stuff properly and left me with a usable system. There are a few differences with menus and what-not, the fonts are slightly changed and the arrows for menus are freakin' huge.

I did notice the tabbed browsing for Nautilus, it will probably take a little while to get used to but it will probably be handy. However if you're using the console a lot, you probably won't notice. Also I'm sure the fact that it doesn't really use xorg.conf anymore will be huge when my video card dies. Whether it is huge in a good or a bad way is yet to be seen.

The only really problem I'm having now is that I get a bunch of errors during boot which apparently mean nothing, because I'm not having any problems with hardware. The Ubuntu splash screen is gone, but I'm sure I can find a way to fix it up.

All-in-all this release is pretty good, although I'm thinking they put more focus on the server edition. I'm hoping that this is not the start of a trend, I would like to see more focus put on the desktop edition as that is where Linux needs the most work.