Ubuntu 8.04

I've been running Ubuntu (version 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon") since the start of the year. As I've mentioned before, I'm extremely satisfied with the Ubuntu distribution. It's getting closer in appearance and usability to Windows and Mac OS X, while someone like me still gets to enjoy the flexibility that comes with a Linux system. Best of all, everything is free!

The beta version of a new release of Ubuntu, version 8.04 LTS "Hardy Heron," came out last month. Yesterday, after hesitating for a few minutes, I decided to go ahead and upgrade. The downloading took over four hours -- ouch! The upgrading another hour or so. The good news is afterwards, my system rebooted successfully, and at least superficially, everything looked to be in order. An immediate improvement showed up when I issued the command to shut down the system: my PC turned off automatically. You may ask, What's so special about that? Well, this power management feature is taken for granted by Windows and Mac users. Once upon a time, it also worked on my PC with an older distribution of Linux. Unfortunately, since Fedora Core 2, my computer would go through all the steps of the shut-down process except the very last one, which is turning off the power; I had to manually push the power button. It was not a big deal, just a minor pain. With this new Ubuntu distribution, I no longer need to push the button. Hooray!

My happiness was short-lived. Today, I tried to take advantage of the newly functional power management feature by configuring the computer to enter power saver mode after a certain idle period. The machine did go into the saver mode, however, it would not wake up no matter how much I screamed and yelled, and I was forced to do a hard reboot. Dreadful. I had to disable the power saver function.

Two other problems surfaced also.

One involved swapping the Ctrl and Caps Lock keys. Being a UNIX devotee, every time I come upon a new environment, I swap the left Ctrl key and the Caps Lock key. It was easily accomplished in Ubuntu Gutsy by going through the Gnome system configuration. In Hardy, the same steps swap the functionality of the keys, but every time the Caps Lock key is pressed, the Caps Lock LED light on the keyboard is turned on even though the Caps Lock key now acts as the Ctrl key. Some may say this is not a big deal, but it is. Aside from the annoyance of sensing the light going on from the corner of my eye each time I press Ctrl, I don't want to be confused by the LED light into thinking that I've got my caps locked. A search on the web shows many angry users in the same boat as me. A few workarounds were proposed. My own solution came from Ubuntu bug173350: I must combine the suggestions of MountainX and Jay Finger, but ignore those offered by Taylor Venable and Robert Lange.

The second problem is more serious; I've yet to figure out the condition under which it occurs. Yesterday, after my initial upgrade to Hardy and a reboot, my wireless connection was established automatically without a hitch. This morning, after turning on my computer, the wireless connection couldn't be established by NetworkManager. I know my wireless modem firmware is up-to-date, so I rebooted the system. This time, the wireless connection came up without a problem. Later, when my machine entered power saver mode, but had to be unplugged and restarted, the wireless connection failed to establish yet again. Once more, a reboot led to success. What does this mean? That I have to boot up twice each time? Nobody else seems to have run into this problem yet. I'll have to try a few more times to see exactly when this behaviour occurs.