Yesterday marked the release of Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope". I've been using Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" since it came out and I've been very happy with it. Historically, I follow the .04 releases, so I figured I'd give 'Jack a whirl.
Being a happy Ubuntu user since the Edgy Eft days, I have to say this is the best Ubuntu release to date. Every release has had a history of having little quirks that I had to work out. For example, it was common place for a new Ubuntu installation to require me fix my display, font and wireless settings to get things working properly. Historically, an Ubuntu install would take me almost two hours; 30 minutes to install and 90 minutes to get the quirks ironed out. This is the first release where I didn't have to do any of that.
My resolution is at its native resolution of 1680x1050.
My font size is perfect. The days of ballooned or microscopic fonts appear to be behind me.
My wireless card works and connects to my network out of the box.
Hell, the little green antenna light on my Lenovo T61 to indicate wireless activity is blinking again. It hasn't been on since I uninstalled Windows XP.
I've been able to play with my most commonly used applications (pidgin, firefox, open office, songbird, thunderbird, etc) and they all work great. I've only played with this for 30 minutes so far, but first impressions mean a lot. I don't plan to write another blog post about 'Jack unless something goes horribly wrong and I need to rant. I do not foresee this happening though.
Congratulations Ubuntu team on an excellent release.
I am a 
Ubuntu
I should try this version :)
It's been a while since I use Ubuntu :p
Wireless kill switch?
Hell, the little green antenna light on my Lenovo T61 to indicate wireless activity is blinking again. It hasn't been on since I uninstalled Windows XP.
I have the same laptop. Does the radio killswitch work reliably with this version of Ubuntu? (wifi and bluetooth are consistently disabled when switch is off, enabled when switch is on; further, they do not cease to work, with not even a cold boot reactivating them, if switch goes from off to on while laptop is in suspend to RAM).
RE: Wireless Kill Switch
Yeah, it works great. I slide the switch to OFF, the light goes out and within 10 seconds network manager says I am disconnected. I slide the switch back to ON, the light comes back on and within 10 seconds network manager begins to reconnect to my wireless network. Quite honestly though, I never had a problem with the functionality of the kill switch in Ubuntu 8.04. It was the light that never worked.
FYI, my wifi worked right from the live cd, which never happened before Ubuntu 9.04. You could test the kill switch out using the live cd without having to reinstall your system.
Cheers!
RE: Wireless Kill Switch
Thanks. It doesn't work in bleeding edge Debian, so probably there are some patches in the Ubuntu kernel or acpi-support that need to get pushed upstream.