Is it soup yet?

[Frank616]

I have a desktop machine that is between installs at the moment. I put Mint on it a couple of years ago, but never liked it much. I then installed 12.04 as a dual boot, but have never put the time into setting that install up properly. I don't use the desktop machine a lot, but when I do, I need it to work.

My question #1: Is 14.04 64 bit currently stable enough to be 'mostly' usable? I have read several posts here, and it seems to be more or less ready.

My question #2: When 14.04 64 bit is officially released sometime in April, can any 64 bit beta version released now be upgraded to the same state? My current understanding is that this will work just fine. However, I don't want to install a beta now, and then have to start from scratch again to reinstall the 'proper' release in April if I am wrong.

I don't see wasting any more time on Mint, or on the 12.04 release that I installed as dual boot. Both of those are 32 bit, and it is time I move on.

Thanks.

Frank.

[GreyGeek]

It is! And, it tastes mighty good!

I would NOT HESITATE to use the 64 bit Kubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, because for me it has been very trusty, and I installed it when it first went alpha.

The kernel is: 3.13.0-17-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Mon Mar 10 21:44:01 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The desktop is currently at KDE 4.12.3, which is very fast and very feature rich! It looks beautiful as well. To answer your second question: installing now and setting it up for automatic updates will insure that your version at the moment when Tahr goes gold will be the same as if you had downloaded and installed it from the gold iso.

Keep in mind that my Acer V3-771G is only 3 years old. If your machine is in the 2nd or 3rd previous generation, or earlier, your mileage may vary. Regardless, burn a LiveCD or LiveUSB and give it a test run to see how it likes your wireless chip, your video chip, your USB ports, printer, etc. If everything is ok then do "sudo lsmod > lsmod_listing.txt" and print the listing in order to compare it after the install.

[Frank616]

GreyGeek:

Thanks for the prompt reply. I'll download and burn the iso today. This is an old Lenovo Core-2 Duo, but it is still useful to me. It doesn't have wireless, and I don't care about the sound (yet). It just needs to work for day to day stuff.

Thanks.

Frank.

[richb]

GreyGeek,

Would you suggest the daily build or Beta 1?

[whatthefunk]

Its mostly stable, but Ive had a few weird things pop up in the week that Ive been using it.

[oshunluvr]

Yes, 14.04 is extremely "stable" and has been since alpha stage. It the first pre-release I've ever tested that seemed actually usable - even better than some other distros full releases. It is still beta and there's no guaranty against breakage, of course, but it is a machine you're not using anyway so what do you have to lose? I think if you avoid propriety video drivers you'll be perfectly fine

An Alpha or Beta install will upgrade to the full release by simply doing dist-upgrade just like any other version.

[Frank616]

Well, so much for that idea.

Downloaded Beta 1, and tried the install. I chose manual, as I am installing as a dual boot on an SSD system drive, and I wanted it to use the free 40 GB on that SSD, and format using ext2. Therefore, I began by using the Kubuntu Partition editor in Mint 14 to delete the 40 GB partition, leaving free space. In the past, the Kubuntu installer has seen, and was willing to use that. Once I had deleted the partition, I ran update-grub to be sure that grub knew the second OS was gone. That may be what did me in.

In any case, I booted from the Beta-1 DVD, and tried to do a manual install. The screen is trashed to the point that I cannot see what is going on. I tried to select ext2, but could only seem to get either ext4 or btrfs. I backed out of the install, and rebooted. Now it only comes to the grub rescue console.

Any suggestion on how to use that to retrieve my Mint install?

Ooops. That may now be a moot point as well.... I put the 14.04 Beta 1 disk back into the DVD drive, and decided to just go ahead and take the default install using ext4. Then I decided, no, I want ext2 on that install. I did NOT finish going through the setup procedure. In fact, I only got to setting the time zone. I left it there while I wrote this. However, now I see that the installer has gone ahead without me. It is formatting something, and proceeding with the install anyway.

Not good.

Glad there was nothing of value on that disk.

Once it gets finished installing, I'll let you know what happened. But Mint 14 is more than likely completely gone....

Frank.

[oshunluvr]

Did you try the daily build instead of beta 1? Lots of fixes in the last three weeks.

[Frank616]

Nope. It be major seriously broke.

Mint is gone, and 14.04 Beta 1 really does not like my Dell 1600 x 1200 digital monitor. Graphics are trashed and unreadable. The wallpaper is nice, however! There is no 'kicker' and no Kmenu button. If I mouse over the area, some things pop into view, but not enough to be usable. I tried opening a console to try to use the command line to update packages from Beta 1 to see if that fixes it, but the Konsole window is trashed as well.

So, I guess I'll pop in an older system disk so that the machine is usable again (I have a hard drive caddy on this machine) and wait until more of the smoke clears on 14.04.

Frank.

[Frank616]

Oshunluvr:

No, I tried the Beta 1 disk. I may try again to download the daily build and see if it works any better.

Frank.

[oshunluvr]

Kicker is easy to add. Resolution can be fixed, but might fix itself eventually.

[Frank616]

Kicker is there. Just doesn't get drawn on screen properly. Some of it shows up when I mouse over it, but only parts of it.

Resolution may be an issue, but wallpaper is unaffected, and is indeed good looking!

I'm downloading the daily build now, and I'll try again before I put the old system drive back in and wait for 14.04 to be fully baked.

Frank.

[richb]

Did you try Live first? If not I would strongly suggest you do before installing. It can avoid issues if there are hardware incompatibilities. Your issue sounds graphics driver related.

[Frank616]

Nope. Just loaded the daily build. Still broke big time. Can't even see enough on screen to install it.

As to trying it Live - no issue. The disk is empty anyway -- now.

Guess I'll just have to wait.

Thanks anyway.

[dequire]

Hello. Your original post would lead me to believe that this machine might have a few years on it. Can I ask what graphics card you have on it? If you are not sure, you can launch KInfoCenter from the Kickoff Menu, and look under "Graphical Information".