Today I upgraded my machine from Ubuntu 7.04 to Ubuntu 7.10. Overall the upgrade process went smoothly but as with previous upgrades I had display problems afterwards. I’m sure this is just my graphics card but it was disappointing to see no improvement in this area. I’ll cover this in more detail later in this article.
PC Specs
Here is a quick rundown of the machine I used for the upgrade,
- Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 32 bit
- AMD 3200+ 64 bit Processor
- Nvidia 6600GT Graphics Card
- 1Gb RAM
- Dell 1907FP LCD Monitor
Installation Process
I followed the recommended upgrade route, which is to go to the System -> Administration -> Update Manager menu option and follow the prompts. You see a dialog like this:
Start the upgrade process and then wait for the files to download.
There are well over 900 package updates so the whole download process will take some time, depending on the download speed of your network connection. I had no issues during the download process.
During the download it mentioned that it would overwrite a couple of configuration files I had modified, namely /etc/default/cdrecord and /etc/default/rscsi, but I don’t remember ever modifying those files, so I let the installer overwrite these files with the new versions. You do have the option to review these modified files at this point, and you can choose to keep the original files if you wish.
The following dialog also appeared during installation. I just clicked the Forward button and the installation continued.
First Impressions
Once the install had finished I was glad to see my desktop looked just as it did before the upgrade. The first thing to appear after the upgrade was the following message.
I was bit surprised to see this dialog appear. I would have thought the installation process would have taken care of this automatically. At first I wondered whether it was necessary to follow these instructions, but after discovering my PC had no sound I decided to go ahead. I opened a terminal window and typed the following.
The first command will list the available sound cards. The second command then sets the default sound card.
Network
My network setup is very simple. I use a pair of Solwise Homeplugs for internet access and didn’t expect to run into any issues. All existing network connections worked fine, including internet access. I also use SSH to connect to several remote servers and these all worked fine following the upgrade.
Existing Applications
I was also glad to see that all my existing applications installed in Feisty continued to work, like Google Earth and Skype. Firefox and Evolution mail both worked following the upgrade. My only complaint was that the fonts used in Firefox had changed and didn’t look as nice as in Feisty. This could have been related to display issues which I’ll cover later. All my existing Ubuntu themes worked as before.
Display
Next up, I wanted to see if anything had changed with my display resolution or screen refresh rate. I’ve got a Dell 1907FP LCD monitor. Thankfully I had the same selection of screen resolutions and refresh rates to choose from following the upgrade. I’ve got a Nvidia 6600GT graphics card and I have run into problems with refresh rates before in Ubuntu, so I was glad to see this part of the upgrade had gone smoothly.
Desktop 3D Effects
One of the new features that has been touted quite a lot in Ubuntu 7.10 is Compiz Desktop effects out of the box. I tried enabling desktop effects with Feisty back in April and things went badly, and once again in Gutsy I’ve ended up getting my fingers burnt. I’ve got an Nvidia 6600GT graphics card which has always been a difficult shrew to tame on Ubuntu.
The first step was to enable the Nvidia graphics driver from the Restricted Drivers Manager.
Once the driver is enabled you need to restart Ubuntu. During the reboot, before the login window appeared, a message was displayed on the command line saying “kinit no resume image, doing normal boot“. I don’t know if that was related to enabling the Nvidia drivers or something else, but the bootup process froze for about 10 seconds before continuing to the login window.
Once I logged onto Ubuntu the available screen resolutions and refresh rates were far from desirable. I only had displays sizes of 800×600 and 600×480 and the refresh rate was stuck at 73Hz rather than the normal 60Hz.
I went back to the Restricted Drivers Manager screen and disabled the Nvidia driver and rebooted my PC. Unfortunately that didn’t restore my display back to its original state so I decided to rebuild my xorg.conf file.
The first thing to do before rebuilding xorg.conf is to close X. The first time I tried rebuilding xorg.conf I did it with X still running and it didn’t fully work. Closing X is the safest option. To close X do the following from a command line.
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
Then type this to rebuild xorg.conf
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
You will then see a series of on screen prompts which will guide you through the rebuild process. Once complete you need to restart X.
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start
This finally did the trick and got me back to my original screen display size and refresh rate.
NTFS Write Support
In previous versions of Ubuntu you have been able to read a Windows NTFS partition. Ubuntu 7.10 now offers write support too. I tested this feature out and it worked fine.
The NTFS partition will automatically appear in the left hand pane whilst browsing. In the example above it is listed as “disk”. If you open this folder you can then read and write to the NTFS partition. Those people who regularly share data between Ubuntu and Windows will welcome this feature.
Fast User Switching
Another new feature of Ubuntu 7.10 is fast user switching. The idea is to switch between user sessions without the inconvenience of entering your username or password numerous times. To enable this feature you need to right-mouse click on the Ubuntu status bar at the top of the screen and select “Add to panel”.
You then need to select “User Switcher”.
You can then switch between users.
Even with this feature switched on though I still had to enter a password when switching users so there could be some more bugs to iron out in this area.
Deskbar Search
Ubuntu 7.10 brings with it a new search facility allowing you to easily search for items on your desktop or the internet. This feature worked fine for me and will certainly come in useful.
Other Features
A couple of other items I noticed.
When entering passwords Ubuntu will now remind you if the caps lock key is on. Quite handy considering Linux is case sensitive.
Management of external hard drives has also been tweaked. In previous releases there was an “Eject” option from the menu which never worked for me in Feisty, it used to hang forcing me to close the disk manually. You now use the “Unmount Volume” option within Gutsy and this seems to work better than previous versions of Ubuntu. It successfully unmounts the device without user intervention.
The GAIM Instant messenger has been replaced with Pidgin.
Finally I wanted to make sure all my existing devices work. I checked the following devices and they all worked as before:
Scanner
No problems with my ageing Epson Perfection scanner. I was able to start the xsane image scanner application and scan documents OK.
Sound card
Didn’t expect to find any issues here. No problems found.
Apple iPod
I was able to connect my Apple iPod 30Gb without any issues, and was able to use the Rhythmbox music player to manage my iPod files.
Summary
Gutsy is a definite step in the right direction with some welcome new features. It’s just a shame my upgrade didn’t go as smoothly as I wanted. Will I ever get my Nvidia 6600 GT working with desktop effects?
Maybe I have slightly borked system so now represents an opportunity to try out a clean install. I’ve already downloaded the AMD 64 bit ISO which I’m going to install soon. I tried 64 bit Ubuntu back in version 6.06 and it lacked 3rd party support so I will be interested to see if any improvements have been made in this area. If 3rd party support is still lacking then I will revert back to the 32 bit ISO.
I will write a future article on how well the AMD 64 bit Ubuntu installation performs.
How has your upgrade gone? Any Nvidia 6600 GT owners out there with some advice on the desktop effects? I’d love to hear.
Update
I’ve now done a clean install of AMD 64 bit Ubuntu and it has been a success. Compiz desktop effects now work first time 
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38 responses so far ↓
1 thor // Oct 20, 2007 at 8:53 am
Hey i have nvidia 6600gt card and i works fine in ubuntu 7.04 32bit/386 distro
2 Michael // Oct 21, 2007 at 8:49 am
Hi, I have an Nvidia 6200 card (older version) and to get desktop effects working I had to install nvidia-glx-new and the appropriate kernel modification. It works beautifully now.
3 Merlyn Albery-Speyer // Oct 22, 2007 at 4:12 am
I too mistrust the apt upgrade procedure. Thanks to your post I’ll be trying out the feature rather than a using the installation CD. If I don’t post another comment it means that all went well.
4 Dean // Oct 22, 2007 at 8:40 am
Michael - what kernel modifications did you need to make? Do you think I would need to do the same thing with my Nvidia 6600 GT?
5 Joseph // Oct 23, 2007 at 12:43 am
Hello!
I, too, have many problems with my 6600GT on MANY distros, not just Ubuntu. It’s a problem with the nv driver of some sort, and it always happens. I get the “screen out of sync” thing or something like that.
I’ve found no cure other than switching to vesa or installing the binary nvidia drivers. =/
Sincerely,
Joseph
6 Joseph // Oct 23, 2007 at 12:49 am
Oh, and, the effects work fine on my computer as long as I have the nvidia drivers installed. =P
Something must’ve gone wrong, I’d suggest manally editing xorg.conf, or just reinstalling and seeing if that fixed it. =P
7 floogy // Oct 23, 2007 at 11:30 am
Here you may find a working xorg.conf:
http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/124173/#1001373
gutsy wasn’t able to figure that out automatically, it’s just a backup of the nvidia-settings generated xorg.conf of feisty, which works fine with the gutsy nvidia drivers.
Then use system GL Desktop, to adjust the dektop effects.
This is a german thread on how I solved the issues I ran into with compiz-fusion:
http://forum.ubuntuusers.de/topic/123410
I hope that helps.
8 floogy // Oct 23, 2007 at 11:34 am
To use the themes in emerald I had to do this in a terminal:
svn ls https://svn.generation.no/emerald-themes
p
9 Luis // Oct 23, 2007 at 11:35 am
The “kinit no resume image, doing normal boot” is a standard message. It only means you didn’t hibernate your computer, so it will boot normally (when you hibernate it, it creates a resume image in the swap partition and restores it at boot).
I tried the 64bit edition and everything worked well except the Sun Java plugin (no 64 bit version). Flash worked well and I could watch any video with the gstreamer plugins (I assume w32codecs won’t work well, but you don’t need them anymore).
No clue about the NVIDIA problem.
Regards.
10 Jussi // Oct 23, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Nvidia driver doesn’t necessarily show right refresh rate on screen resolution preferences. I have 50hz selected and actual signal coming to monitor is 85hz.
11 davemc // Oct 23, 2007 at 1:55 pm
I just upgraded my Xubuntu Gutsy machines card to an Nvidia 6600GT yesturday with some trepidation. Upon reboot I had to reenable the restricted drivers, which forced a reboot. Upon reboot I too had no Xserver, so I did the xorg rebuild thing and all was well. I went with 1600×1200@75 and my screen is very nice now. Much better than with the old Nvidia Ti 4200 card. Anyway, Xubuntu does not come with Desktop Effects other than the xfce Compositor (which worked just fine). I wanted to try out Compiz so I had to do it all manually, which surprisingly was very easy to do, and I suspect you will have to do the same. Simply use Synaptic to grab the version of Compiz you need (gnome-compiz in your case), along with the compiz-fusion plugins and emerald. Emerald-themes does not work with Gutsy for some reason, so you will have to manually grab and install those from svn. Once thats done, simply do a compiz –replace, and then emerald –replace, and your off and running in 3D! Use the terminal for those in case you need to debug. In my case I had to grab and install glx and then it all worked fine (that is something to do with Xubuntu though). One thing I can say with certainty is that Compiz runs FAST in Xubuntu. Much faster than in Ubuntu (I have both, and the Ubuntu machine is much more powerful than my old Xubuntu machine). Its extremely responsive and seems to be rock stable so far. I have not been able to get the cube working yet (just a 2D plane so far with cube and rotate enabled in ccsm). There has been no performance hit on the system yet that I can tell because all my apps continue to open instantly as before. All total, I think it took me about 10-15 minutes to get Compiz working and configured to its fullest with all the bells and whistles humming along (5 minutes of forum searching, and 5-10 minutes of installing/configuring).
12 Dean // Oct 23, 2007 at 7:23 pm
floogy - thanks for the link to a working xorg.conf file. That almost worked!
I tried replacing my xorg.conf file with the one you suggested. I was able to enable desktop effects and things looked great
Unfortunately, as soon as I restart Ubuntu the settings are lost and Ubuntu reverts back to running in a low-res graphics mode.
At least we now know it is definitely a problem with my xorg.conf file.
Any idea what modifications I should make to my existing xorg.conf file? I’d like to try and pick out just the relevant parts from your xorg.conf file and apply them to my version.
Thanks.
13 nohope // Oct 25, 2007 at 6:00 am
I have nvidia 6600gt card and i works fine in ubuntu 7.10 - AMD 64bit distro. Try it, You will use it..
14 Dean // Oct 25, 2007 at 7:42 am
Sounds good. I will be doing a clean install with AMD 64bit distro in the next couple of days. I will report back with how it went.
15 floogy // Oct 25, 2007 at 11:03 am
@Dean
It’s funny, that your edited and working xorg.conf disappeared after reboot. I don’t have any clue how that worked
16 Dean // Oct 25, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions so far.
I’ve done a clean install of AMD 64bit Ubuntu and desktop effects worked first time!
I’ll write up a full report in a few days
17 tensuns // Oct 25, 2007 at 11:39 pm
I also have a 6600gt and have noticed when I use the nvidia driver the gutsy screen resolution dialog displays weird refresh rates. But if I use “sudo nvidia-settings” to set resolution and refresh rate everything is golden. I think you need to make sure to press the “Save to xorg” button after you make changes so that everything will stick. Don’t forget to set AA and AF in nvidia-settings also.
18 RoobZ // Oct 26, 2007 at 12:15 am
Hi, I have a 6600GT and desktop effects are working just fine since Ubuntu 7.04 (the first I tried). Oh, and I’m with AMD64 computer.
19 FRIS // Oct 26, 2007 at 8:41 am
Nice review for Gutsy. Keep on this!
20 All2Way // Oct 26, 2007 at 8:44 am
I have just installed Gutsy on my machine. And, as you said, bro, almost all my hardware can run well!
21 Ubuntu 7.10 Clean Install First Impressions // Oct 26, 2007 at 6:42 pm
[...] Ubuntu 7.10 Upgrade First Impressions [...]
22 More Ubuntu 7.10 Reviews « dreaming spires // Oct 28, 2007 at 1:12 am
[...] More Ubuntu 7.10 Reviews October 28th, 2007 More Ubuntu 7.10 reviews are here, here, and here. A sample from the last of these: While I did experience a few glitches, the new [...]
23 okkie // Nov 2, 2007 at 10:16 am
i enjoyed reading.My upgrade went with only one hitch and i came accross you trying to fix it.Evolution has no longer got an outbox and doesn’
t send mail.
if you will be so kind.
24 Dean // Nov 4, 2007 at 7:06 pm
What happens when you try to send mail?
Do you get any error messages? Please post any error messages here so I can help further.
25 okkie // Nov 5, 2007 at 7:15 am
thanks for replying Dean.On clicking send/receive i get a small error message ‘noRSS feeds configured’
I also noticed now that i haven’t got the name of any open program displayed in the bottom tray
26 Dean // Nov 5, 2007 at 8:52 am
Are you using a RSS plugin such as the Evolution RSS Reader Plugin?
http://mips.edu.ms/evo/index.php/Evolution_RSS_Reader_Plugin
27 okkie // Nov 5, 2007 at 9:57 am
i only use what is available in the synaptic manager.
the only plugin available there is Evolution-exchange and it is not installed.
there is no reference to rss plugin anywhere.
28 okkie // Nov 5, 2007 at 10:05 am
sorry Dean,what is referred to as’ standard plugins for evolution’ is installed
29 okkie // Nov 5, 2007 at 2:54 pm
more info.if i go to evolution >edit>plugins it show all evolution plugins in the sub menu with individual configure option .configure button does however not give config. options
30 okkie // Nov 5, 2007 at 6:04 pm
maybe this will take us even closer to the problem:
i made tests with firefox and evolution…..both open and running my system monitor says they are sleeping.
31 lalit nagrath // Nov 12, 2007 at 4:58 am
i have AMD 4000+ and Ubuntu 7.10 has problem with mine graphic card
trying hard to make beryl working with 7.04
32 bionnaki // Nov 29, 2007 at 5:58 am
so, I have a 6600GT card as well and I’m having trouble (800×600 resolution etc) - with Gutsy installed. How exactly do you guys get the card to work? Sorry for being redundant - there didnt seem to be a clear method. What exactly should I do to get this card to work (and work with desktop effects)?
Thanks for your help.
33 Dean // Nov 29, 2007 at 8:24 am
bionnaki - I had to do a clean install of Ubuntu in the end before I could use desktop effects.
I backed up any important documents first, and then using the Ubuntu live CD I got the installer to reformat my hard drive and do a clean install.
Only then could I use the desktop effects. There must be something strange about the upgrade whereby it doesn’t detect the Nvidia card properly, but the clean install seems to detect the settings better.
34 bionnaki // Nov 29, 2007 at 9:56 am
I have done twice fresh installs with gutsy…and still have problems with this card.
35 Dean // Nov 29, 2007 at 5:52 pm
It’s a shame it is not recognising your 6600GT card properly. I find this area of Ubuntu really frustrating.
I presume you’ve tried rebuilding the xorg.conf file like I mentioned in this article?
Another option, albeit a real pain, is to revert back to a fresh install of Ubuntu 7.04. That way we can figure out if the problem is just specific to gutsy or occurs in earlier versions too.
Not much help I know. But let me know how you get on.
36 n/a // Nov 29, 2007 at 8:09 pm
the kinit is okay it’s just checking to see if u hibernated and such, i started at end of alpha-beta and i didn’t go thru the whole upgrad thing, i just changed sources and upgraded packes one by one - during the alpha
until I finally had the Gutsy wholly and I also upgraded from Feisty 7.04 
also I was thinking if one keeps a certain version of ubuntu and when in synaptic locks all installed packes once End of life comes, and again changes the sources to the next version and reload and update from there, one would be able to sort of mix and match but keep the ability to have some updates at least without updating fully.. 
or being able to download newer versions of programs or new ones, etc.. just wondering.. 
37 Daniel // Mar 7, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I just upgraded yesterday to 7.04 and now I want to upgrade to 7.10, but there is no message or icon in System > Administrator > Update Manager …
I have the cd, but I’m quite afraid to loose all my data when partitioning my hard disc.
any tips? Will the upgrade icon appear later, after some days of use?
Thanks!
38 Dean // Mar 7, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Hi Daniel,
It’s possible there are some outstanding updates to 7.04 that you need to apply before being allowed to upgrade to 7.10.
When you go to System > Administrator > Update Manager and click the “Check” box does it list any updates at all? I know it doesn’t list an update to 7.10, just wondered if it lists any updates to your existing 7.04 installation.
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