(Review) - Hardy Heron, a new version of Ubuntu, was announced a little while ago, and the features for this release of Ubuntu are actually rather compelling to me. Because Gutsy only wowed me on two levels - a better wireless stack and the inclusion of tracker by default, here’s some of what I would like to see with Heron.
Fix Evolution Or Provide An Older Non-Broken Release. As you can see here, the POP server bug will not very likely be fixed anytime soon. Granted, the program works, be it in a 'craptastic' fashion, but send/receive does work at some level. Now, here is the really sad thing, it looks like the next release will likely be dependent on this work-a-round."Move all your mails from the inbox to another folder. Then close Evolution. Goto ~/.evolution/mail/local/ and remove all files beginning with Inbox (in my case there were six files). Now you can start Evolution again and move the mails back to the inbox. The bug disappeared."
Ubuntu Stealing Linux Thunder?
Nothing says "enterprise-ready" like having to use a failing default e-mail program. At the same time, big thanks to the person who figured out a solid workaround!
Working Wireless Anyone? Before flaming me, let me be clear. There is a working wireless chipset with RaLink and Intel options already; however, everything else (including Atheros, in some cases) is a crapshoot with the Ubuntu distro. So it will be interesting to see Canonical grow enough commonsense to partner with various vendors.
I doubt it will happen, since they are already in a partnership with Dell, among others, but it would be a good idea.
Improved Power Management. Suspend and hibernate has generally been laughable with Linux in general. Unlike the wireless issues, power management issues with Linux are not something that can be easily avoided by simply dropping $20-$50 on a replacement product. Hopefully, we will see improvements with this in the near future, but I doubt it considering how it is not seen as "critical."
Firestarter By Default? Despite news on bringing some sort of GUI for iptables, I seriously question whether or not this will happen in the next Ubuntu release. As of right now, it has not been started. But if this does actually happen, I believe that it will give Ubuntu a competitive edge as other beginner-friendly distributions already provide this functionality by default. Last time I checked, Simply Mepis, using the KDE desktop, had a firewall running on the Live CD. Unlike other security tools, using a firewall is just commonsense for any platform.
Ubuntu Stealing Linux Thunder?
Ubuntu's Priorities Continue to "Unimpress." Settle on supporting a couple of ready-to-go Linux-ready wireless vendors (they do exist), repair the mess that is power management and for the love of Pete, start thinking like the end user - not like a bunch of developers. I realize that statement may sound a bit foreign, but I would point out that unlike its closed source counterparts, beginner-friendly Linux distributions are seriously hurting in giving the casual user what they want. What is even more unfortunate, with the exception of power management, is providing some kind of consistency with wireless capabilities on Linux.
Support Broadcom and other problem chipsets if you must, but stop putting so much wasted emphasis on it as natively supported chipsets are considered as next best alternatives, and unfairly so. If people want to use Linux wirelessly, fine, stop supporting Made for Windows hardware.
Provide the user a choice - have at it with NDISWrapper and Broadcom, or really pour your development time into native wireless drivers and the few vendors that sell them.
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