A Gutsy MacBook Take 1
2007.09.26
Since I'll be getting a new 250GB hard drive for the MacBook this week anyway, I decided to try the development version of Ubuntu 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon, on the MacBook. While still a work-in-progress, it was neat to see where Ubuntu is headed. Here's what I found:
- Sleep and resume still work, though an applet reports "quirks", so there seems to be some niggling problem
- The MacBook gets better battery life. 3hrs+ as opposed to 2:30+ in Feisty
- It runs hotter. Not sure why, maybe it doesn't throttle the CPU as much, maybe because the graphics card does more work
- Desktop eye candy! This is the first release that has worked for me with compiz and beryl. Nifty useless 3D effects! Fun to play with, fun to show off to friends, easy to disable. ;-)
- Volume control is funky. It turns out that it was/is in Feisty too. Adjusting the volume actually changes bass/treble levels. Odd, odd, odd.
Overall, it worked quite well and looks great. I look forward to the new release, though I'll be putting Feisty back on when I get the new hard drive.