The first thing you want is probably to download a CD image of Feisty Fawn.

Before installing however, you should read the release notes to avoid or be prepared for certain problems. If you already run Ubuntu and just want to upgrade, be sure to also read the notes on upgrading.

With Feisty released, a new development cycle will start soon. The next Ubuntu version is codenamed “Guty Gibbon” and is set for release on October 18th.

There seems to be no official announcement what exactly causes the delay, but I have some ideas, because there are some problems I’m currently experiencing myself:

1. The newest Kernel is broken
   I’m currently running the 2.6.20-13 Linux kernel since the newer ones fail to boot. They spit out some error about the superblock and when I press Ctrl+D (which is what I’m told to do) my PC boots but fails to mount my /home, which leaves the system essentially unusable.
2. My DVD drive doesn’t work
   At some point my DVD drive stopped working. I say at some point because I haven’t used it for weeks, but I wanted to yesterday and it didn’t work. When I insert a disk it doesn’t automatically mount and clicking on the drive only gives me “Unable to mount media. There is probably no media in the drive.”
3. The Nvidia drivers don’t work
   Maybe this isn’t a bug of it’s own and related to the Kernel problem, but my X doesn’t start with the (restricted) Nvidia drivers.
4. The Totem video plugin doesn’t play anything
   Totem is a great Media Player both interface-wise and using the Xine backend also with regards to format support. The standalone player works fine for me (except that it used to support the sound in Real videos), but the Firefox plugin doesn’t work at all anymore. It loads but doesn’t play the video or audio file.

I don’t know what the Ubuntu developers’ current plan is, but I really hope that they focus on the quality of Ubuntu and don’t rush out a release.

What do you think about this? Is Feisty working fine for you or are you also experiencing bugs? Leave a comment or write a blog post of your own.

Open up the file /etc/hosts with root privileges, e.g. by typing

sudo gedit /etc/hosts

The file will look like this (instead of hostname it will include your host name):
127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 hostname

Now add you host name to the first line after ‘localhost’.

So if your host name is ubuntu, the file should look like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost ubuntu
127.0.1.1 ubuntu

You should now notice faster startup times of your applications.

Thanks for this tip goes to psyke83 who posted it in this thread on the Ubuntu Forums.

Some popular distributions, for example Fedora and openSUSE decided to boycott proprietary drivers by not shipping them at all.

Starting with Feisty, Ubuntu trys to strive a middle way between the merits to the user and free software ethics by excluding propietary drivers by default but providing an easy way to enable them.

As of today, the Ubuntu development branch includes a tool called “Proprietary Drivers manager” that trys to accomplish this task.

Once started, the software presents a list of available proprietary drivers:

Drivers can then easily be enabled by checking the box or selecting the desired hardware and clicking ‘Enable’ and is then presented by this dialog:

After the confirmation the particular driver is enabled and as in my case I can enjoy the Desktop Effects without any command line voodoo.

Please note that this is by no means final software and it will probably look different when feisty is released.

However, the ease of use is dependent on the internet connection. If no connection is available, package management can become a pain.

Luckily there’s a new project called APTonCD to solve this problem and open up new possibilities.

The software allows you to create backups of all the packages available on your system. It will automatically scan your computer and present a list with all found packages. This list can be easily customized by deselecting entries or by adding more packages, which can be seen in this screenshot:

Once a disc is created it can be used to restore your computer after a reinstall or to install the software on another computer without the need of an internet connection.

The restore options look like this:

The software is not ground-breaking because there are ways to achieve the functionality with command line tools, but it is nice to see that Ubuntu offers more and more tools that allow even non-technical users to master advanced tasks with graphical tools.

APTonCD is in Ubuntu Feisty right now to test it. For more information, visit the APTonCD website.

It now uses an icon from the current theme (Tango in my case) and features subtle changes in the general appearance.

In short: It doesn’t look like the one from Mac OS anymore.

Of course I prepared a little preview again:

And another one with the volume muted:

The cause for this decision is obviously the declining number of PowerPC based computer systems after Apple switched to Intel processors.

Older releases will still be supported within their whole life cycle, which ends as late as 2011 in the case of Ubuntu Dapper.

Read the full reasoning in this announcment.

This decision has been made since Feisty won’t include either Compiz or Beryl by default and therefore the drivers aren’t necessary.

Practically this means that the reasoning is not ideological but pragmatic and proprietary drivers are probably integrated into future releases.

Read more in the initial announcement and a clarifying blog entry from Mark Shuttleworth.

Here is a little preview:

The press release confirms that Ubuntu will be the first distribution to be supported by the previously announced CNR service. This service will provide an easy and convenient way to install software, including proprietary products like support for DVD playback.

Right now there is no information about what the CNR repository will offer, neither is known which piece of software will be available for free and for which Linspire will charge a fee, but in my opinion it is a step forward that there will be an option for users who want certain features and are willing to pay.

The CNR service will be optionally available for Feisty users (to be released in April) and might be available in the following Ubuntu release by default.

Additionally the announcement states that future versions of Linspire will be based on Kubuntu, the version of Ubuntu with KDE as desktop environment.

Read more in Linspire’s FAQ and the press release.

See how the system works in the following screenshots.

The user clicks on a multimedia file that needs a proprietary codec, in the example a simple MP3 file

A status message pops up informing the user that “applications” are being searched (it’s still alpha, maybe they change the wording)

After a few seconds a dialog pops up that presents a list of software that supports the playback of the file format he clicked on

I think this is a great feature and again the Ubuntu developers managed to improve the out-of-the-box experience. Codec installation won’t be a thing that will be problematic even for people new to Ubuntu.

Let’s all hope a similar feature will be implemented for DVD playback.