Jaunty FAQ

In the tradition of the FAQs I did the last few releases...

1. Where can I get the Jaunty torrent?
   • Ubuntu Tutorials has compiled a list of all of them together.
2. Why should I use a torrent?
   • It takes a load off of the servers so you'll get your ISO faster
3. Anything Kubuntu users should know?
   • If you upgrade or use the DVD, you'll get PulseAudio. Don't worry, just sudo aptitude purge pulseaudio if you don't want it. I use it with Kubuntu because I've got Ubuntu too, and PulseAudio can do neat things, but anyway…
   • Quassel is the new default IRC client
   • Amarok 2 doesn't do CDs, iPod Touch, or iPhone
4. I don't like these new black bubbles. How do I get rid of them?
   • Install sudo aptitude install gnome-stracciatella-session (or click on the package name). Log out, and on GDM, open the Options menu and go to Session (menu names may vary by theme) choose the Stracciatella option instead of just choosing GNOME. Log back in.
5. What happened to the little orange update notifier icon?
   • The update manager window will open on its own within a day of when security updates become available. As for regular updates, the update manager will open a week after the last time you updated.
   • If you want the old way back, run this: gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false
6. How do I re-enable Ctrl+Alt+Backspace?
   • Check out Alberto Milone's instructions
7. Anything I can experiment with?
   • If you've got Intel graphics, there's a disabled-by-default acceleration method called UXA that uses DRI2. I think this means it's supposed to be all whiz-bang like higher-end graphics cards. It certainly gives me smoother animations. Warning: it's disabled by default because there are some graphics cards that misbehave horribly when it's enabled. For example, with i965, X will crash if you suspend while compositing is enabled and you're using UXA. The workaround would be to drop out of Compiz to Metacity or disabled Kwin's compositing before suspending. Instructions and card-specific warnings are on the wiki. By the way, if you have a totally blank xorg.conf and can't figure out how to fill it out, run sudo dexconf -o /etc/X11/xorg.conf
8. What changed in PulseAudio?
   • It's now using autospawn, which means that if it crashes at some point, you're not left with silence. It'll start back up next time you try to play music or listen to a podcast or whatever it is you're doing that requires sound.
9. How do I get rid of PulseAudio?
   • This has changed, since it's using autospawn. You need to disable that by editing /etc/pulse/client.conf and changing "autospawn = yes" on line 26 to "autospawn = no". Additionally, if this is a clean install, not an upgrade, you'll need to add your user to the audio group with sudo adduser USER audio replacing USER with your username.
10. Where are the release notes?
    • Glad you asked! Release notes are right here This blog post is just the highlights of things I see asked a lot.

I can't think of anything else. If you've got another question to add, post it in the comments.

I'm also pleased to say that the Intel 965 wireless and graphics are working extremely well in Jaunty. Yay! My computer's happy. X doesn't lock, VT switching works, no more kernel panics (I attribute the panics I had to Intel 965 wireless since my brother and I have matching laptops, except for that wireless card, and his doesn't crash, and mine did). So, thank you to the people who work on making Intel drivers be lovely.

ext3 & 4 and data=guarded

Valerie Aurora over at Red Hat has just posted on her blog about ext3 and ext4 and fsync() issues we've all heard so much about. As she says there, rename in ext4 now implies fsync() so that issue should calm down.

However, 2.6.30 is defaulting to data=writeback, which means it only writes the metadata to the journal—not the actual data. This is how XFS, ReiserFS, and a few others work, and it's much faster than ext3's default data=ordered. It's also somewhat less awesome at ensuring your data doesn't get lost. She's asking that people test patches (linked from her blog) for a new journal mode called "guarded" (created by Chris Mason) which she says will be faster than "ordered" but still have its data consistency guarantees.