Ubuntu 8.04

Hardy Heron or just Hardy if you will.  This is the best Linux release this far.  I was using Fedora 8 before because it was more cutting edge than Ubuntu Gutsy.  In many ways Fedora and Ubuntu are very similar in spirit.  Built on different foundations both try to be on the cutting edge, both are experimental and a little unstable.  But Hardy was released ahead of Fedora 9 and so my choice was made in favor of Ubuntu.

Compared to the previous version, Gutsy, Hardy has much better hardware support.  I have Dell D630 laptop which I bought last year in June.  Gutsy couldn't be easily installed on it.  It had problems with the graphics card (and I'm sure other problems as well, I just didn't go beyond that).  Hardy on the other hand recognized and supported all D630 components: graphics, sound, monitor brightness, suspend, hibernate - everything appears to work just fine.

Although Hardy installed without a hitch, post-installation configuration wasn't that smooth.  The first thing that always annoys me in any Linux distribution is the fact that X server tries to read and use Edid monitor configuration which is nice except that it completely screws the resolution of fonts and key UI elements.  Usually they become much larger that they should be.  The resolution of my monitor is identified as 121dpi.  Normal resolution is 96dpi and my first task was to reset it to normal.  The way to do it is through xorg.conf file.  I've done it before, however this time I made a mistake and added configuration options to a wrong section in xorg.conf file.  After ctrl-alt-backspace and logging in X server locked up in a blank screen.  Mouse pointer was moving, but I couldn't do anything else.  I couldn't even go to the console with ctrl-alt-f1 to fix the mistake.  I had to shut down the machine and boot it in a single user mode.  I had to modify xorg.conf several times since then and once in a while I ended up with an incorrect configuration which required a reboot into the single user mode again.  Is it a bug in Xorg?  Don't know, but it sure is annoying.

Next thing I always do is fixing fonts.  To be continued...