Ubuntu 11.04

Bloke dressed as a narwhalCongratulations to everyone in the Ubuntu community on the successful release of Ubuntu 11.04!

Here’s to the next six months of oneiric fun.

Photo by Sharon Terry. Licence: CC-BY-ND 2.0.

6 Responses to “Ubuntu 11.04”

  1. Jonah Says:

    I am sure many have fallen in love with the new Ubuntu 11.04. And I will be the first to admit it, I was in awe of what I saw at first. It was slick, semitransparent and just down right cool looking. But as I used it I noticed it took a great deal more effort to get things done and it isn’t as well organized as the original. In the original setup you had everything in groups under the applications, places and system where with one click you could go straight to a subcategory to get what you were looking for. Now you have to click on the applications icon to get all programs listed, then you have to use a drop down to refine the selection or go through all of the programs you have (which I have 117 of them), then you have to expand the refined selection if the program you want isn’t listed in the first six choices. Now some may argue that I could add whatever program I wanted to the menu for faster access. But this isn’t the point. The point is you use to have sections, these sections had subcategories that you could quickly navigate without refining results, doing a search or opening a minimized list to find what you are looking for. And to add to it, a third of the pop-up screen is used to show programs you don’t have and might be interested in. Which to be honestly blunt, if I want a program or want to see what is new, I will go to the software center and would rather be left alone until then. Plus this third that is used for what I consider ads takes away space that could be used more constructively, like perhaps, oh I don’t know, your search results you have to do now for your programs that are installed on the computer instead having to expand the results if it isn’t in the first six choices.

    Another thing people will notice that they might like is how the programs fill the screen and use the maximum amount of space. I again thought this was wonderful at the start. Yet now I don’t, buttons that I am use to are gone, hidden and it is like playing hide and seek to either find them or find out they are completely gone. Added into that dreadfully annoying factor is that the new menu is tied into this.
    I am a multitasking person like many people are and can have two to four programs going at a time. With this setup I have to continually go through the new menu that is hidden to switch between what I want. This after a few moments gets very annoying. And some may ask why am I jumping around like that, just do one thing at a time. But picture this. You are listening to your favorite music, you are writing a letter and you need another program. Now do you just want to do one at a time? With that said, that is three programs you are using that you have to access now from the left, not at the bottom pan. After a while I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t be annoyed with waiting for a menu to float in to switch from one program to another and back again instead of just going quickly down to the pan, clicking on the program and going on with things.

    The worst part in all this is the fact you truly can’t tweak the menu bar, can’t remove the ads for the programs or change any of the annoying features to add some of the functionality back, can’t add a simple pan at the bottom or anything. You are stuck with what was designed and that is it.

    In closing could list several more things I noticed within the first five hours of use that makes the new OS a flop in my book and has taken it from one that was a sincere pleasure to use to one that I find clumsy, annoying and just down and out a dreaded OS to use now. I am sure others will point this out as time goes on and the other huge faults the OS has. All in all the new OS gets a huge thumbs up for how flashy it is, and that is all. And I give kudos to the people that have really put in a lot of hard work into making it this way to blow people away. But with that said, it has lost sight of practical use, ease of use, true customization, being unobtrusive and there to help make things flow faster for the glitz, flash and awe affect that it now has. Which I honestly and regretfully have to say it fails miserably at what it should excel at and use to excel at wonderfully.

  2. Trevor Barnes Says:

    I have desktop computer with motherboard GeForce6100PM-M2.
    I run Ubuntu 10.10 which drives my Medion monitor perfectly and has the correct version NVIDIA Driver version 173.14.28.
    When I try to load Ubuntu 11.04 I get an error message on the screen:

  3. Trevor Barnes Says:

    sorry about that:
    It transmitted the message before I wanted it to:

  4. Trevor Barnes Says:

    it is the tab key!
    the error message is :
    horizontal frequency is 92.4 KHZ out of spec
    vertical frequency is 58.1 HZ probably ok.
    then at some the screen crashes with lines??

  5. Martin Pool Says:

    @Trevor if you’re having trouble using Ubuntu, you’re better off asking a question at

  6. Martin Pool Says:

    That should have been, at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+addquestion

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