[ubuntu-za] Precisely

[Charl Wentzel]

I though I'll tell you about my current 'adventure'...

Until last week I was happily running Ubuntu 11.10... until my file 
system started giving problems.  After several attempts to resolve the 
issue I decided that the best way forward was to reinstall.  So I backed 
up and prepared for install, unfortunately loosing some precious family 
photos (please don't tell my wife) :-)

Then I decided to take the road less travelled.  Instead of reinstalling 
11.04 I considered that I'll have to reinstall/upgrade with a months 
time again when 12.04 comes out.  So I decided to jump straight to 10.04 
beta 1, very daring!

So far it has been a great experience.  I have long since given up the 
fight against Unity and come to accept it.  After discovering tools like 
Ubuntu Tweak and MyUnity a while ago, customisation of Unity is now very 
easy!  If you don't know them, try them!  With Unity customised the way 
I like it I really do think that it has made my life easier, although 
the initial change was very hard.

There was a few issues with Compiz and Unity, but these are improving 
rapidly.  Judging by the huge amount of updates coming through on a 
daily basis, there a lot of people working very hard to get it "polished 
precisely".

I've also decided to make the jump from Evolution to Thunderbird, which 
turned out to be quite easy.  Clearly a lot of work has been done to 
ensure a smooth transition from Evolution to Thunderbird.

Boot time has improved slightly and I can see slight changes to the boot 
up and login process every now and then.

It seems as if some changes were made to the default theme, although I 
can't quite put my finger on it.  Although a lot of this might have to 
do with the difference between Evolution & Thunderbird, which is the 
applications I use most next to developer tools.

The HUD is still missing, but I believe it will be added soon.  You can 
download it from the PPA, but I want to wait for official inclusion.

This is far from a detailed review, but the idea is only to share my 
experience.  Despite that this is still a development version, the 
experience has been great so far.  I take my hat off to the developers 
and guys that work had to get Precise out.  I have logged a few bugs 
myself in an attempt to assist.  It is really exciting to be part of 
Ubuntu at this level.  I have always waited a couple of months for a 
release to "stabilise" before upgrading, but this is way more fun.

I dare some of you to join me on this adventure.

Regards
Charl