Okay, unfortunately this quick review is only for 7.04 and specifically for Kubuntu. Since my last upgrade process was a disaster, I decided to hold off on 7.10 and in fact upgrading in general until the next full release. I mean, outside of merely having the latest/greatest packages, there really wasn't much incentive to upgrade at this point.
I think I mentioned that I held off on debian based systems for a while since my disaster a few years ago of having to deal with debian. However, this time I gave it another try on the basis that the ubuntu distribution looked quite handsomely put together and having a nice community. Tired of Fedora and the bloat, I wanted to try something new with a bit of hype.
As a desktop, it's not based. I always liked the synaptic package manager, especially over yum/yumex. This helped simplify adding some of my favorite software quickly. I mostly prefer KDE over Gnome, but there are a few Gnome packages that I enjoy such as multi-gnome-terminal (although it hasn't been upgraded in ages). Also, gthumb is a very nice picture viewer.
Since I've been using this cruddy, old Fedora Core 5 system, I didn't have a chance to see some of the newer packages or hood ornaments from some of my favorite pieces of software like xmms. Man, xmms has come quite a way! I use ubuntu 7.04 also at work, but I don't use the multimedia stuff as much on the basis that I prefer utilizing my ipod.
One of the biggest things I decided to move towards ubuntu was that my little laptop exhibited issues trying to handle DVDs. It simply would lock up. I noticed this for Fedora since 3. And it wasn't just on my laptop but my old desktop. Naturally, one of the big test was to try playing a DVD. So far it read one of my burned DVDs. I haven't tried putting in a regular DVD in yet, but that's coming up!
Right now, things seem to be moving smoothly. I was able to quickly find some packages like ffmpeg, mencoder through the synaptic interface. I think with Fedora you have to add the non-standard distribution repositories manually. At least, you did the last time I checked. I did a simple search and grabbed those packages without blinking. Also, I didn't have to jump through too many hoops when getting mp3s to work on my system. I'm certain there are a few media formats that'll have issues, but I'll get to those eventually.
Overall, my home Kubuntu system has more functionality than my work's system and I'm starting to taste the delight of working with a better performing system. Now, if I can just add a better video card and another 1gb of ram, I think this thing will seriously kick rear!
If I do have a few disappointments, it's that the upgrade process doesn't seem as smooth as I'd like. I'm a bit timid now of moving off 7.04 since my last disaster. Also, I dislike the fact that despite coming on only one CD, you pretty much have to download all the updates almost immediately after installation. My router is really flaky so I get nervous whenever I have to run upgrades or massive installs via a network. Although Fedora's size has become disputably huge in the last few releases with many unnecessary packages, one thing I do like is that once you have the system, you just need to grab updates through the network; in other words, you're not necessarily forced to grab updates immediately because you'll have most of the packages on disk. Another complaint is that I really want these distributions to have base installations contain all the most recent updates. I don't know if this is necessarily the case, but I'm certain that once a release gets made, there's bound to be large bugs. Instead of having workarounds, just post another bug fix type of release. For me, I just want a fresh install to be 100% reliable. I heavily dislike wasting valuable time re-installing a system.
Anyway, at least with 7.04, I heavily recommend giving this a try. Maybe I might try to switch my laptop to 7.10 and see how that goes.
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