Ubuntu Karmic Beta
Oct 6th, 2009 by admin
When I’m writing, I mostly use my laptop. I use the desktop (faster, etc.) for any actual 3D work, and for editing so I can have Blender up in one monitor and the manuscript in another. Lately, the desktop box hasn’t been much use so I decided to install the beta of Ubuntu’s next release: Karmic Koala 9.10. The real release is at the end of October, so I figured it must be pretty close to finished. And really, I’m a developer myself so I’m both fault tolerant and probably able to get things working even if there are glitches.
Egad. Karmic broke my wifi. It’s an Atheros card (AR2413), and there is a long list of gripes on teh Internets about Atheros not playing nicely with Linux. There is a set of open drivers (ath5k) for the cards, but after finally getting Ubuntu to use them, I got really really horrible connection. Oh well. That’s why they say not install the beta on a production machine! The solution I came up with? Order a different card. Edimax makes cards that play very well with Linux, and for $20 I not only get a card I don’t have to fight with every time I do a system upgrade, I get one with an extensible antenna with a cable. Hopefully I’ll be able to position it more freely than a card with the antenna attached directly and nab some extra signal.
So from a Blender perspective, just remember that beta really means beta. Don’t use it for production unless you are either extremely fault tolerant or can fix problems yourself. When 2.5 rolls out (hopefully) at the end of the month, by all means grab it and pound on it. It’ll help the development process. But don’t think you’re going to be doing end-to-end production with it.
Blender 2.49 is still where it’s at, and really, I don’t think I’d roll 2.5 into my production pipeline until after Durian is over and the gold release (or 2.60 or whatever it will be called) happens next summer. That in mind, if you’re foggy on the higher order aspects of using Blender in a real production, it wouldn’t kill you to check out my book in the sidebar (turn your ad blocker off for a second!) It’s been called both “the best software book I’ve ever read” and “a replacement for Inspired Short 3D Film Production“, and not just by my mom!
So, what are your impressions of Karmic so far? (Apart from the problems!)
Any noticeable improvements?
As I spent most of the evening trying to get the wireless working, I didn’t fiddle around too much. I tried a few things out. For example, IrfanView (the best fast slideshow viewer, win32) still works just fine under my WINE installation. It didn’t mess anything up in that respect. When I got too annoyed with the wireless problem, I played a round of PokerTH (Texas Hold’em prog), and found that mine had been updated to the newest version, which hadn’t been available as a package for Jaunty.
I loooove the new boot screens. The glowing white is very classy, almost Apple-like. I like the cosmetics on the shutdown/suspend/etc. toolbar widget. Other than that, I didn’t do much with it along the lines of production testing. Once I get my new wireless card and move on to a production phase with my book, I’ll do a mini-review of Karmic.