Sunday, April 27, 2008

64 bit Heron

I think Canonical is just about there...

http://www.ubuntu.com

I have been running 64 bit Heron for 2 days and have been able to successfully able to overcome the past issues.

  • Dual monitor support
  • Wireless
  • Codecs and multimedia
Now, not everything is on Ubuntu. The maturity of open-source software is astounding to me. In short periods of time (beyond even parallels of Moore's Law), technology can drive innovation to great levels.

Dual Monitor Support
Some quick searches got me to xrandr and the appropriate settings to actually satisfy my basic needs. Since I am on the Intel chipset, no fancy desktop settings for me. The cube effects are not available.

Wireless
The Broadcom and any other wireless chipsets I have tried out with Heron have been pretty good. Personal WEP and WPA have been stable. Enterprise WPA is, well, still in the need as far as I am concerned. The complexity around my work's Enterprise WPA is a pain. I can connect...and then...nothing...and then...connected. Whateve...

Codecs
Codecs in Ubuntu have been pretty good...always have. The advances around such players as VLC and Totem make the distro a good player in the multimedia field. MP3s, AVIs, and Quicktime work out of the box, with quick downloads and configs of course.



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