Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot Wallpapers

It appears that I got a bunch of new wall papers with today's update of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot in the Beta.  I like the train station wallpaper the best, as it seems to blend in with the Unity panel and Ambiance theme quite well.

Here is a screen shot of the new Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot wallpaper with the Dybbоlsbro Station featured.

There looks to be  about 15 new wall papers to choose from in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot. Now that they are getting closer to release, I have been seeing very few crashes of desktop applications on my Dell Precision 360 workstation.

Ubuntu 11.10 Finds Fix for Nvidia issues from Ubuntu 11.04

I just ran the update to Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot on an Dell Precision 360 workstation.  I found much to my pleasant surprise that the closed source Nvidia driver now seems to be working properly.  With the previous version of Ubuntu (11.04) the Jockey-GTK program was not recognizing the availability of the closed source Nvidia drivers.  But now they are installed and working well.


Ubuntu 11.10 includes a 2D version of the Unity desktop, and I have been test driving it on my desktop system.  The Compiz version is a little slower, so I have been sticking to the 2D version for now.  Since this is still a beta release, I get an occasionally program crash. Since there are still many updates coming down the pike, this is to be expected.  Overall, I have been please with this latest version of Ubuntu!

Another Quick Review of Ubuntu 11.04 on my Acer Aspire 532H-2326 Netbook.

I wanted to provide a quick update on how Ubuntu 11.04 runs on my Acer Aspire One 532H-2326 Netbook.  I downloaded the Beta version of Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal.

Of course, by now, we all know about the new Unity interface that has been introduced for all flavors of Ubuntu desktop, and the strife that has been going on amongst traditional Gnome desktop users.  I dare not comment on that one.  But, I will say one thing about the new Unity desktop to is that it is leaps and bounds better then 10.10 in terms of looks and usability for a netbook.  The main improvement that is present is that now there is an auto-hide feature enabled for the sidebar.

Mouse touchpad fixed in Ubuntu 11.04 on Acer Aspire One 532H??
I used a daily download version of Ubuntu 11.04, and use the USB disk to run the software.  The first thing I checked to see is if there was a 'touchpad' tab under 'mouse preferences.'  Lo and behold, there was a tab available!  Upon clicking the pad I found the treasure that I was looking for, the checkbox to 'Disable touch pad while typing.'  And the feature works!  Having the 'Disable touchpad while typing' feature working in 11.04 will be more than enough perform the upgrade on this Acer Aspire One netbook.  I just hope that it carries through upon completion of the installation process.

Once Ubuntu 11.04 hits the streets next week, I will take the plunge and upgrade once my files are backed up.

Ubuntu 11.04 Test Run On Acer Aspire One 532H Netbook

Today, I downloaded the daily build of Ubuntu 11.04 and decided to take it on a test drive of an Acer Aspire One 532H Netbook.  The latest daily build of Ubuntu 11.04 has seen a dramatic improvement  in functionality when compared to the previous Alpha Release.

The main thing that I like is that the application side-bar dock now auto-hides!  This is a huge improvement over the previous version of the Unity desktop.

The desktop still seems to be a bit slow, but I think this may just because I was running the OS off of a USB thumb drive.  It is also very buggy, in that you are quite sure if the menus or applications are going to come up when when you click on them.  But that is expected in a daily build.

The other change I noted was that Open Office has been replaced, and the main browser is a beta version of Firefox 4, which came up with an annoying "Test Pilot Study" pop-up.  Ugh.

Will there ever be an Angry Birds Game for Ubuntu?

My daughter got herself an iTunes gift card for Christmas this year, and one of the first things she bought from the iPod App store was the full blown version of Angry Birds.  Apparently, Angry Birds is one of the hottest games for smart phones, and little handheld devices like iPods and iPhones. Would Angry Birds make for a good game with Ubuntu Linux?

I got to play around with angry Birds on her iPod, and I must admit, it is a fun little game. The music is catchy, and the sound effect the birds make when the crash into the pigs are what make the game interesting.  Sooner or later, I will get through all of the different levels of Angry Birds.

I assume Angry Birds could be ported over to Ubuntu.  Perhaps, the developer could add Angry Birds to the Ubuntu Software Development Center and offer it for a small  payment. Since much of Ubuntu is still mouse based, some modifications to Angry Birds may be needed.  Since it is already running on Android, the port should not be too difficult.

According to this blog post, an Ubuntu version of Angry Birds may be in the offing. The  developers of the Angry Birds game may be open to the idea of Angry Birds running on Ubuntu sometime in the future.  So, all you Angry Bird Phanatics better stay tuned!

Ubuntu based Tablet PC Coming in 2011?

I saw some reports that an Ubuntu based tablet is in the works from a Taiwanese manufacturer.  PCWorld is reporting that the P07, built by Teng, is a 10 inch tablet with a multi-touch display.  This new Ubuntu tablet will be initially be released running Ubuntu 10.10.  The tablet will have a 1.66 GHz CPU and a couple of Gigs of ram, along with an SSD hard drive.  There are some pictures floating around the internet that indicate that this Ubuntu Tablet PC will be a sharp toy.

The addition of an Ubuntu tablet adds another software player in the tablet wars. The dominance by Apple's iPad may still remain in place due to savvy marketing practices.  However, it seems to me that Samsung's Android based tablet is starting to pick up steam.

The one major software player that seems to be falling far behind in the tablet wars is Microsoft.  Windows 7 is a much improved operating system, but it does not seem modular enough to have a version that runs smoothly on light operating systems.  Perhaps that is the one advantage that Linux and BSD based operating systems have over Microsoft Windows is that they can easily be slimmed down to work well on lighter devices.

Look for the new Ubuntu Tablet to be release sometime in early 2011.  I have a little money stored up, and just may take the plunge and get a new Ubuntu based toy.

Source: PC World