Since Ubuntu’s Feisty Fawn doesn’t officially come out as “stable” for another few weeks, anything I write here is pretty much uncertain. Things I see in this pre-release version of Feisty may or may not apply to the final version that will be released in April. Nevertheless, since upgrading to Feisty I thought I’d share some of my thoughts.
Yay for restricted drivers support!
Feisty natively finds, installs, and configures any graphics driver you could need (theoretically). Using restricted drivers is a less-than-ideal solution. Obviously the ideal situation is one where the user can utilize open source drivers for his open source OS. Unfortunately sometimes this simply is not possible and in order to get the most out of a 3D accelerated graphics card one must install proprietary drivers. Ubuntu now helps users do that automatically. This is great news for folks like me who, in the past, have had a bear of a time figuring out what graphics drivers to install and then how to configure the xorg.conf file. It’s all automated now, ATI or Nvidia, it doesn’t matter. w00t!
Eye candy is just a click away
As was pointed out in a previous comment by Onno Zweers, Feisty ships with Compiz installed. It’s not enabled by default, but if you want “wobbly windows”, a “desktop on a cube” and transparent windows, then all that need be done is to go to System > Preferences > Desktop Effects and turn it on. I’ve tried it with my other computer which uses an Nvidia graphics card and it works great. Unfortunately my brand-new ATi Radeon X1300 graphics card which is on my home (main) computer is completely retarded and can’t handle Compiz or Beryl. Major bummer. At any rate, it’s not the fault of Compiz or Beryl, it’s ATI that’s mucking up the works. Thanks to the contribution of Mario in the comments of this post I’ve gotten Compiz to work beautifully on Feisty Fawn with my ATi Radeon X1300 graphics card by following these instructions. After installing Xgl I had to actually restart my computer and then select the “Xgl” session from the “options” menu on the login screen. Thanks Mario!
Banshee gets an face lift
A couple cool new features have been added to Banshee, my music player/manager of choice for gnome. When you begin playing a track, Banshee displays information in the footer such as Recommended Artists (if you like this artist then these others might appeal to you as well), Top Tracks by this artist and Top Albums by this artist. When you click on one of these “Recommended Artists” or “Top Albums” you’re taken to the corresponding Last.fm page for that track or album. And we all know how seriously Last.fm rocks. This face lift for Banshee is both figuratively and literally music to my ears.
New default theme options
Make fun of me all you want, but I like the way gnome looks. /me ducks and weaves, dodging the flying fruit. But seriously, even though I like it, doesn’t mean it couldn’t do with a little “polish.” A couple new options are added in to Feisty themes. First, is a readily-accessible GUI from which to customize your window colors. If something like this was included in Edgy Eft (as I’m sure it was) I didn’t spot it, but that probably says more about me than Edgy. There’s also a new theme to choose from called “glossy” which, redundantly is described as “a glossy looking theme.” I like the glossy theme, it’s fresh and … well … glossy. Fun for everyone.
Concluding thoughts
Again, this article simply reports what I have experienced since upgrading to Feisty Fawn. I’m a very “average” user and I don’t require anything specialized or intensive from my PC. I’ve not run any speed tests, or anything like that so your mileage may vary on those fronts. My overall impression, however, is more important than the details (in my mind) so here it is: Feisty Fawn is a good move for ubuntu. It’s not trying to move too far too fast, it’s safe, it’s stable, it’s secure. It does a much better job than Edgy of “just working” on my PC’s and I suspect many others will have similar experiences. That fact alone would be enough for me. But Feisty also comes pre installed with Compiz which can enable some fairly impressive visual effects very easily. I wish that my ATI card could handle it but alas… I think ubuntu is making steady, impressive progress on its Linux distro. I anticipate to see how far ubuntu advances in the next few years. Will it catch up to Windows? Will it catch up to Macs? Or will it surpass them? It’s anyone’s guess at this point, but judging by the enthusiasm surrounding ubuntu these days it’s evident that the developers would like to see ubuntu surpass the other major OS’s in the coming years.
