Posted on March 25, 2008 - by jono
Hardy Beta: Ooh La La
For a while now I have been running hardy in VMWare and on my secondary laptop, and I generally migrate my main work machine to a new Ubuntu when the beta comes out. An Ubuntu beta is a great opportunity to really test Ubuntu and ensure it is as bug free as possible, so go and check it out. Think of it like building a huge wall, if we each put in one brick, together we can make something pretty darn solid. 
I just wanted to highlight a couple of my fave features in the new release that I am digging:
- Evolution – despite the common trend of pouring derision on Evolution, I really like having my email, calendar and TODO together in one application, and I think Evolution does a pretty good job, and importantly, integrates with the desktop. So far I have been using Google Calendar for my calendar, but the new Evolution includes support for Google Calendar. This means you can use Evolution as a UI for adding/removing and viewing events. This solves the calendar side for me, and for Tasks, I am just looking for a nifty way of syncing up my TODO lists now with something like rememberthemilk. I keep fleeting between different TODO methods – I was using a wiki, then TomBoy, but I like the idea of having it all in Evolution so I can do things like highlight a sentence in an Email, right-click it and select Convert to Task. It is integration that I am looking for, both inside the application and with the desktop, and Evolution takes a pretty good shot at it – keep up the good work Evolution bods.
- International Clock – click the time and you can add a bunch of international clocks that appear just under your calendar. This is rather convenient as I spend a lot of time working with people across timezones. It even shades the clocks based on which parts of the world are in daytime and which are in nighttime. Oh, and it also rather nicely shows weather reports in that region – slightly pointless, but nice nonetheless.
- Compiz works – On this Dell M1330 with the Intel graphics, compiz was blacklisted due to some video issues. Well, now it works.
- Fingerprint scanner works – My fingerprint scanner is working great too on this laptop now. There is something rather cool about scanning your finger – next up I want an iris scanner that makes a red line go up and down my eye.
- CD burning – we now have a much nicer solution for burning discs with Brasero. Very cool.
- Firefox integrates much more nicely – Blizzard wasn’t wrong, Firefox 3 feels much nicer. Good work there, folks.
- Pulseaudio – its in there, and it offers a lot more functionality for musicians. Good to see it land in Ubuntu.
- Projector support – I haven’t tested it yet, but it seems Hardy is going to rock a lot harder with regards to projector support, which has traditionally been a royal pain in the ass before.
- More… – there is clearly lots more in there that is rocking and a rolling, but these are the main things I picked up on in the first few days.
We are getting there people, kicking one arse after another. Now…get out there, upgrade to the beta and when it doesn’t work quite right report bugs. Together we can really make a difference.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Ubuntu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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March 25, 2008
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It would be so good if you could send another post with the new features of Kubuntu. I know that you don’t use it, but it could be great as evidence that Ubuntu provides the same kind of support to both versions.
Anyway, great work! Thanks.
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March 25, 2008
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Do you know the status of Parallels and Hardy (as a host, not a guest)? Since they are now partners. I will be interested in when Parallels officially becomes part of the Hardy repositoy. I am waiting for this before I upgrade, since I need to run XP this way for work. It currently works well under Gutsy.
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March 25, 2008
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1, 2, 3, …8! You like the basic smileys, don’t you?
Javier, why would Ubuntu provide as much support for Kubuntu as it does for Ubuntu, but not for Xubuntu and Edubuntu?
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March 25, 2008
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Hey, I see that you mention that the fingerprint reader words fine, how do you do that exactly? Is it all integrated with the desktop (like, can I sudo with it, can I log in with it)? ROCK ON JONO!!!
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March 25, 2008
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Jono, good choice on your laptop
.
Hardy beta definitely improves the m1330, wireless is much more solid and it feels like the disk spins up less. Is suspend/hiberante & resume working for you? I’ve had mixed results with sound following a suspend. Alex.
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March 26, 2008
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i know what you mean about evolution – there is nothing comparable in gnome at the moment. kmail is very nice and thunderbird just isn’t there yet. how is the touchpad performing? i find it’s too sensitive on my hp, even when i tweak it
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March 26, 2008
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There is a new gnome app called Tasque (formerly Task) that sits in your tray and syncs with Remember The Milk.
I only signed up to RTM today but it works great for me in Hardy 64bit
http://live.gnome.org/Tasque
Screenshots: http://live.gnome.org/Tasque/Screenshots
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March 26, 2008
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BTW I had to solve a dependency for Tasque because it came in a tarball:
sudo apt-get install mono-gmcs
Then just normal ./configure make etc
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March 26, 2008
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“upgrade to the beta and when it doesn’t work quite right report bugs. Together we can really make a difference.”
Everyone says that, but all the bugs I reported a while ago (or subscribed to) are marked as new, confirmed, triaged or incomplete (like https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/91890 )
What’s the point of submitting new issues when all the previous ones don’t get enough attention?
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March 26, 2008
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While the calendar applet has gotten a lot of bling, it’s still impossible to get it to realize that in Sweden, the week always starts on a Monday, no matter what language I speak…
Can’t even find the bug in launchpad anymore, it’s been open for ages, but maybe someone silently closed it even though there was lots of subscribers. Sad, sad.
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March 27, 2008
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The bug that Average user links to in comment 9 also annoys me a lot — but it is marked for expiration! The bug report is clear, everybody has the problem — and it gets thrown out! I feel like I’ve been wasting my time reporting bugs in ubuntu if that’s how you guys handle bug reports.
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March 29, 2008
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My mistake, the bug I was thinking of is this one: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/langpack-locales/+bug/2098
“Fixed” by sweeping the big problem that the whole situation is broken under the rug, I guess. But I’ll file a separate bug, I guess.