Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' on HP nc4200

It's been a couple of years already since i posted my notebook's hardware specifications and my experience installing Ubuntu 7.10 'Gutsy', since then i have loyally upgraded to every new Ubuntu release, Ubuntu has been my distro of choice because HP's original concept was to actually market the nc4200 with Ubuntu so they made sure that all the hardware was 100% Linux compatible  (and believe me, it still is!!)

A few months ago i upgraded the ram to 2 Gb and got a 100 Gb hard drive before upgrading to 10.10 'Maverick' and just a couple of weeks ago i upgraded the same notebook to Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' which is running perfect.

One thing i don't like from the latest Ubuntu releases is the Unity interface, it feels like a huge smart phone and i just couldn't work comfortably with it, so i kept using Gnome 2 and waited (un)patiently for Gnome 3 to be released.

When i upgraded to 11.04 i read with great pleasure that Gnome 3 was released so i happily made the necessary arrangements to upgrade to this long awaited release.
Gnome 3 is great, it's interface is a bit like Unity but you find your way around much faster... at least i do.  Coming to think of it, if Gnome 3 looks and works as good or even better than Unity, why didn't Canonical stick with Gnome and saved themselves the whole work of developing Unity? 

Well, there are a lot of happy Unity users too so kudos Canonical for developing another way to customize our desktop :-)

While running on 11.04 Gnome 3 was lacking a bit of performance but after upgrading to 11.10 it's performance improved a lot and G3's interface is very pleasant and user friendly, if you still want to customize Gnome 3 beyond what configuration editor allows you'll need the Gnome Tweak Tool to do so.
To sum it all up, the Oneiric Ocelot / Gnome 3 combo is great, and my notebook is a perfect example that you don't need the latest, most expensive and fastest hardware to run the latest Linux releases efficiently, so you can keep your hard-earned cash for more important things :-)

Maverick Meerkat upgrade.

Ubuntu 10.10 codename 'Maverick' is finally being given to us, among other goodies is the new KDE 4.5 release on board, there are by the way no packages planned for Kubuntu 10.04 LTS, so is recommended to upgrade to 10.10 (normal release) if you want to try the newest KDE release software.

Upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to 10.10 on a desktop system couldn't be any easier, first press Alt+F2 and type in "update-manager -d" (without the quotes) into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '10.10' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

As i'm writing this, the upgrade process is happening, will let you know more when i do :-) 

Ubuntu 9.04- the Jaunty Jackalope, report.

It's been more than 2 months since i upgraded my laptop to 9.04 'Jaunty Jackalope', and about time to share the results with the rest of the world, the whole upgrading process took about 2 hours (8.04 LTS to 8.10 and then 8.10 to 9.04) but it was completelly painless and there wasn't much i had to do, i even went to the gym for the last hour of the process and when i came back the whole process was almost finished, hurray!!

Warning!! don't hold me responsible if after following my notes your system is messed up, my laptop is 100% Linux compatible and your hardware may not be, do this at your own risk.

First thing i did was update my 8.04 LTS, once my system was up to date i started the upgrading process to 8.10 (you can only upgrade to 9.04 from 8.10). Note that upgrades from 8.04 LTS to 8.10 are not enable by default because 8.04 is a long-term-support release and 8.10 is a regular release, but upgrade is 100% supported and easy to enable, if you are not sure which version you are currently running type on a terminal 'lsb_release -a' to find out.

Now go to System/Administration/Software Sources, then click on the "Updates" tab and change "Show new distribution release" to "Normal releases", now get outta there.

Again start System/Administration/Update Manager, click the Check button to check for new updates. If there are any updates to install, use the Install Updates button to install them, and press Check again after that is complete, make sure you have all the updates for your current version installed before upgrading, a message will appear informing you of the availability of the new release, click upgrade and follow the instructions on screen, the upgrade manager will then start downloading the necesary packages.

Depending on the speed of your Internet connection this can take just a few minutes to a few hours, once the necesary files are fetched you can sit back and watch it work, this may take a while too depending on your hardware speed.

Once this is done and you have restarted your system you can check again with 'sudo lbs_release-a' if the upgrade was succesful, then you should see the following on your terminal:

Distributor ID: Ubuntu

Description: Ubuntu intrepid

Release 8.10

Codename Intrepid

Not as colorful as 'The most incredible and really unbelievable dream has become true: You compiled e17 successfully!' (Enlightenment fan here) but if you see this then you have succesfully upgraded to 8.10.

To upgrade to 9.04 the steps are pretty much the same, update your 8.10 and then proceed with the upgrade, it should be as easy (or even easier) than the previous upgrade.

Was it worth the upgrade? Hell yeah!! For example hibernating did't work that good with 8.04, now it works without a problem, from switching on until login screen takes about 20 sec, the overall impresion is very good and the new release works faster and efficient.

Before you attemp to do an upgrade, don't forget to backup your system and get as much information and feedback about other people's experiences about upgrading their systems, best place for this is of course the Ubuntu Forum, good luck!! :-)