This weekend I upgraded two Ubuntu systems from 11.04 to 11.10. I started with my daughter's system because it's smaller, simpler and uses pretty much entirely system defaults. It went smoothly so I tackled my system next. My system required more effort because I use it for development and it has some custom configuration.

What's New

You can read about the new stuff in Ubuntu 11.10 anywhere; here's what I've noticed or found useful:

For example, the app's main menu lives in the desktop titlebar, which becomes confusing if you have multiple apps on the screen (are not in full screen mode). The launcher can't be nested, so there is a limited number of apps you can put there. I could go on, but you can read more detailed reviews elsewhere.

But hey folks, we're talking about Linux here. If you don't like the desktop, there are several alternatives and it takes less than 5 minutes to install any of them.

I liked Gnome 2.X. I tried to use Gnome 3 but it was such a bad experience I gave up after 10 minutes. Up through 11.04, Ubuntu included Gnome 2.X - this is the first Ubuntu release that doesn't support it. Unfortunately, Gnome 3 is now the only alternative to Unity in the official Ubuntu distro. This can't be blamed on Canonical; they are still supporting Gnome. If you don't like Gnome 3, send your complaints (and suggestions & contributions) to the Gnome project.

This forced me to make a change. Fortunately, other folks in the Linux community have prepared an XFCE package for Ubuntu. Use "apt-get" or the Synaptic Package manager to install it. Once installed, it appears on the login screen as another available desktop. It installed quickly and works seamlessly. XFCE is a simple, utilitarian desktop that is highly functional, lightweight, and fast, using less RAM and CPU than Gnome or KDE.

The most noticeable improvement from 3.3 to 3.4 is performance. It's noticeable in both startup & usage. Reading the release notes, it seems much of the improvement is due to revamped font rendering. One example: I created a LibreCalc spreadsheet to measure the audio performance of an iPhone, iPad and Acer A100. It has several sheets with graphs, each graph having about 1,000 sample points. In the prior version of LibreCalc, these sheets took 30-60 seconds to display after you clicked on them. It was painfully slow, enough to wonder if the app had hung. In the new version, they render in about 5 seconds.

I already use DropBox so I had little use for Ubuntu One cloud storage. Or so I thought. One nice thing about Ubuntu One is it is more than twice the storage of DropBox, and it is seamlessly integrated with DejaDup, the new Ubuntu backup software. So now I use both.

It about 5 minutes to set this up for my daughter's computer. Once per week it backs up all her files to the cloud and keeps the last few backups. Simple and automatic, with no CDs or DVDs. Unfortunately, my system is more complex to back up and won't fit in 5 GB. But it's easy to select various directories to back up.

I like Evolution and stuck with it on 11.10. The upgrade installed Thunderbird and a new version of Evolution. It also migrated all the existing Evolution email folders to the new version and kept the originals around just in case. After validating it, I removed the old email folders and uninstalled Thunderbird. This was super easy using the Ubuntu Software Center.

Nothing much to add here. Boot and login are about the same, but the desktop and apps are more responsive. With so many other companies getting heavier and more bloated with every release, it's great to see Ubuntu getting lighter and leaner. The Ocelot is great on my dual core 3.2 GHz with 4 GB RAM, but that's as expected. It's also downright snappy on my daughter's 6 year old Dell Latitude D610 laptop!

The Upgrade Experience: Part 1

My daughter's upgrade was everything an upgrade should be: click the button, come back in about an hour (it's a big download) and it was done. It preserved all her apps, files, settings, and Unity desktop theme & configuration. The only thing I did afterward was change the background on the login screen. She didn't even notice it was upgraded, except that it was a bit snappier in performance.

I poked around to make sure everything was good: printers printing, email working, browser still there with all bookmarks, etc.

The Upgrade Experience: Part 2

My machine is a bit more complex to update: 5 hard drive partitions, dual boot with Windows XP using Grub, a plethora of installed software, some that are either complex or custom installed from TAR balls: Postgres, Ruby, Eclipse, Hadoop, etc. I was a bit anxious about how the upgrader would handle it. It turned out well, though there were a few speed bumps along the way.

The Upgrade

The upgrader stopped twice, each time to ask whether it could update a system file I had modified. When this happens, it would be nice to merge the changes, but that is not an option. The first was NetworkManager.conf, and I saw that I hadn't really done anything significant to it so I let the upgrader overwrite it. The second was a CUPS print file, and I have installed an R800 printer so I kept my original.

I installed XFCE before the upgrade and ran the upgrade from the XFCE desktop. The installer gave some kind of warning about XFCE but I ignored it and let it continue. Worst case, I could uninstall XFCE and reinstall it after the upgrade. I knew it worked on Ubuntu 11.10 because I tried it on my daughter's machine. In the end, it wasn't an issue.

First Post-Upgrade Login

After the upgrade, I logged into the Unity desktop and noticed that several of the icons were blank. After some Googling for ideas, I popped up one of the Desktop settings tools and changed the theme. When I changed it back, all the icons appeared.

PostgreSQL

I have PostgreSQL installed and use it with Ruby on Rails. The upgrade installed PostgreSQL version 9.1, but didn't touch my existing 8.4 install. I tried using the "pg_upgrade" utility to convert my 8.4 databases, but it just hung. So I started up 8.4 and backed up my databases. Then I stopped 8.4, started 9.1, and restored the databases. It worked. After that, I used the Synaptic Package Manager to remove 8.4, then updated the 8.4 login paths & env variables to 9.1.

XFCE

This is the first time I've used XFCE. It took me a few hours to get used to it - where things are in the menus, how to customize stuff, etc. It is not pretty but it is functional. It puts function over form and I like it. XFCE represents something I really like about the Linux community: it encourages the versatility to support just about any type of user. I'm keeping Unity installed in case my wife or daughter wants to use my computer.

Hadoop

I have a tiny (3-machine) Hadoop cluster at home I used for development. I run Cloudera CDH3 Hadoop & HBase using the Sun JDK (not the Open JDK that comes with Ubuntu). After updating my primary desktop to Ubuntu 11.10, it still worked with the other two machines on 11.04. I didn't expect Hadoop to require all machines to upgraded in lock step, pleased to see my expectations fulfilled.

Conclusion

Ubuntu 11.10 is not a huge leap from 11.04 but a solid release with some useful stuff. I've read a lot of blogs where people bitch about the Unity interface and lack of support for Gnome 2.X. This seems pointless to me. People who want a conventional desktop can install XFCE in less time than it takes to write complaining blog entries.

For years Linux has been more stable and at least as secure as Windows or MacOS. And the support from the community is as good or better than support from Microsoft or Apple. The biggest barriers to Linux adoption are ease of use and applications. People wonder: I've heard Linux is only for nerds - can I use it? Does it have the apps to do what I need?

Ubuntu's answer to these questions are the Unity interface and the Ubuntu Software Center. In both cases they have pinpointed the right issues and provided compelling solutions that should broaden Ubuntu's appeal and distribution.

The Unity interface is attractive and slick, intuitive, and simple to use for everything most normal people do with a computer. It makes the day to day tasks of using Linux as simple and easy as Windows or Mac.

The Ubuntu Software Center is like a cross between the Wii shop channel and Apple's app store. It is attractive, simple to use and well integrated with the rest of the system. It finds the apps you need, has user reviews and ratings to help you pick the best of the lot, shows you the apps you already have installed, extra options or dependencies of each, and offers single click installation (or removal) that virtually never requires a reboot. Most apps are free, and unlike the app store, very few of the free apps are ad supported.