Ubuntu 13.04 'Raring Ringtail' released

By +Frank B.
in Linux

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Grand Master

n_K

Posted
Posted

IMO, the *buntu's are still very buggy and slow compared to other distros of Linux. However, when I used the 13.04 daily builds, is was a LOT better than previous versions. I too had the NVIDIA driver issues and had to reboot into text mode and delete my xorg.conf or something like that to fix it.

Ubuntu is a generic OS that will run on all kinds of PC hardware from old to new and has drivers for literally everything built in. It's not meant to be a fast OS, it's meant to be a compatible OS, if you want a fast linux, look at arch or slackware or if you want to run with minimal overhead and have a huge experience of GNU/linux and how to configure it, look at gentoo.

boot speed has never been a linux forte.

Really? After bios has loaded it takes about 3 seconds to get to my SLIM login screen here on arch...

Grand Master

HawkMan

Posted
Posted

Ubuntu is a generic OS that will run on all kinds of PC hardware from old to new a

Really? After bios has loaded it takes about 3 seconds to get to my SLIM login screen here on arch...

and a custom arch with no graphical eye candy or user friendly tools or anything but the bare essentials loaded is relevant how ?

Grand Master

ichi

Posted
Posted

I've been running 13.04 for a few weeks already (although with Gnome Shell instead of Unity) and so far it's being a nice release.

A bit OT but even though I don't like some (or lots) of Gnome's design decisions, 3.8 is definitely a lot more smooth and polished than previous versions.

Mentor

Karl L.

Posted
Posted

The above, and Ubuntu is quite slow relative to other *nix systems.

It's got a lot more user friendly stuff, and this tends to take up CPU time and memory >.<

Besides having more services running by default than many other distros, I think that Ubuntu's use of Upstart in lieu of the venerable SysVInit or the (relatively) new Systemd somewhat limits its boot speed. Canonical had the best of intentions with Upstart - which ironically focused on increasing boot speed - but (upstream) Debian tends to boot significantly faster with SysVInit, not to mention the additional speed it gains using the Systemd packages currently in Sid.

Grand Master

Yorak

Posted
Posted

Okay, so I am one of those that absolutely requires hiding the launcher as I feel it wastes real estate (especially on a laptop). However, the auto-hide function in Unity Tweak Tool does not seem to work well. For instance, if I minimize an application, then I will be able to reveal the launcher when I mouse-over it. But if I have an application like Firefox open fullscreen, it will not reveal the launcher if I hover over the left side. Is there some better option than this?

Thanks in advance.

Grand Master

ViperAFK

Posted
Posted

Kubuntu is very nice! It's alot snappier and polished than Unity, IMO. Just be prepared to go thru the settings and tweak it to your needs. :)

Yeah, the latest KDE releases have been very good. I was surprised how snappy it is these days. I'm waiting on this to be fixed before I really consider switching to KDE though: https://bugs.kde.org...g.cgi?id=307965

Nothing more annoying than seeing tearing when watching fullscreen video. I thought I might be able to get around it by setting a window rule in kwin to totally suspend compositing when smplayer was open (which is an awesome feature BTW :D) and using opengl output in mplayer. it worked for some videos but still got tearing in others. Oh well, at least the next KDE release will finally have a fix :)

Grand Master

f0rk_b0mb

Posted
Posted

Yeah, the latest KDE releases have been very good. I was surprised how snappy it is these days. I'm waiting on this to be fixed before I really consider switching to KDE though: https://bugs.kde.org...g.cgi?id=307965

Nothing more annoying than seeing tearing when watching fullscreen video. I thought I might be able to get around it by setting a window rule in kwin to totally suspend compositing when smplayer was open (which is an awesome feature BTW :D) and using opengl output in mplayer. it worked for some videos but still got tearing in others. Oh well, at least the next KDE release will finally have a fix :)

I experienced the tearing you are talking about on OpenSUSE. I hope they fix that soon too. :)

Grand Master

Knife Party

Posted
Posted

installed this when it hit beta, dash is a lot faster and things are waay more polished. Drivers are still iffy for my 5870, and if I can find anything comparable to MSI afterburner, that would be even better! Best release in my opinion to date from the ubuntu team.

Grand Master

fusi0n

Posted
Posted

I'm getting better performance with my Radeon HD6870.

That is awesome!! That seems to be where I am hearing most..

I never had any issues with my 12.10? apart from a usb transfering issue ...

Consider yourself very lucky sir ;)

Mentor

Karl L.

Posted
Posted

No HDMI audio (nVidia) since upgrading from 12.10, not sure if its an OS or nVidia issue.

If I had to suspect something, it would definitely be the NVIDIA graphics driver. Unfortunately proprietary graphics drivers tend to have nasty kludges because they can't use some of the kernel's internal interfaces like their open-source counterparts due to licensing restrictions (of GPLv2). Upgrade procedures between versions of these drivers tend to be poorly tested and often break during distribution upgrades. That is one of the reasons why I prefer to use open-source graphics drivers.

Unfortunately the AMD and NVIDIA open-source graphics drivers currently lag behind their proprietary counterparts (although the AMD open-source drivers are rapidly improving). Although I try to avoid anything other than AMD and Intel graphics cards because their open-source drivers are very good, my current laptop has an NVIDIA graphics card. Nouveau is definitely serviceable, but I would really like to use HDMI audio (and maybe get better framerates in Minecraft, TF2, and Xonotic). I feel your pain.

Did you perform an in-place upgrade from 12.10 or did you upgrade by reinstalling with 13.04? If your answer is the former, then it's possible that your Pulse Audio configuration didn't get migrated properly. You could try rebuilding it or purging and reinstalling the NVIDIA driver. If you chose the latter route, then you might need to install the proprietary NVIDIA graphics driver. Unfortunately Nouveau doesn't support HDMI audio yet (among a great many other things), so going proprietary is the only way to get that functionality.

Community Regular

Corvid19

Posted
Posted

Thanks for the advice, I did an in place upgrade from 12.10. But as my Ubuntu is on a separate drive and I only use it as a backup OS I might do a clean install, install the latest Nvidia driver and see if that sorts it out.

Grand Master

Original Poster

Posted
Posted

boot speed has never been a linux forte.

really? i dont get why people say this lol my ubuntu loads fast as hell! (intel pentium and 6gbs ram) it had booted into login before I could even open the disc tray to put in a boot CD... then loging in only takes a few seconds

Mentor

Karl L.

Posted
Posted

Yeah, distros that use systemd or upstart can boot quite fast. Boot speed for modern distros has been excellent for me.

The experimental Debian packages for Systemd (in Sid) delivered a significant boot speed improvement on my test system. However, Debian Wheezy still boots faster using SysVInit than Ubuntu 12.04 does using Upstart on the same system. I know that Upstart is supposed to be an improvement over SysVInit, but in retrospect I don't think it actually succeeded. It's certainly usable, but it also doesn't seem to deliver the purported boot speed improvements like Systemd does.

Grand Master

ViperAFK

Posted
Posted

The experimental Debian packages for Systemd (in Sid) delivered a significant boot speed improvement on my test system. However, Debian Wheezy still boots faster using SysVInit than Ubuntu 12.04 does using Upstart on the same system. I know that Upstart is supposed to be an improvement over SysVInit, but in retrospect I don't think it actually succeeded. It's certainly usable, but it also doesn't seem to deliver the purported boot speed improvements like Systemd does.

Thats probably more to do with debian being lighter-weight than ubuntu than sysvinit vs upstart. Ubuntu starts a lot more services and such, whereas debian has a more minimalistic approach.

I would agree that systemd improves boot speeds better than upstart though, its got a more modern design and better parallelization (socket based vs event based). But I'd also say upstart > sysvinit too.

Mentor

Karl L.

Posted
Posted

Thats probably more to do with debian being lighter-weight than ubuntu than sysvinit vs upstart. Ubuntu starts a lot more services and such, whereas debian has a more minimalistic approach.

I kinda suspected that. I haven't tried removing services or building out a minimal install because I have no interest in running Ubuntu full time; I just like to keep up with its development and try new releases because it is very popular and closely related to the distro I contribute to most heavily.

I would agree that systemd improves boot speeds better than upstart though, its got a more modern design and better parallelization (socket based vs event based). But I'd also say upstart > sysvinit too.

That's interesting. Why would you say that? All throughout the SysVInit vs. Systemd debate in Debian and elsewhere I have not heard anyone offer an argument (not to mention a convincing argument) that Upstart is superior to Systemd. The best justification of Upstart I have heard yet is that it preceded Systemd, so Upstart is justified being in a less advanced state. Even then I have not heard an argument for its adoption outside of Ubuntu, although some argue that it is acceptable for Ubuntu to stick with it by virtue of the fact that it is already in place and migration would be an unnecessary hassle.

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