LiveCD:

The LiveCD works flawlessly and you can even turn on desktop effects (an older Compiz) to get fancy transparencies and fading. There will be slight tearing on windows if you move them around too much. The video resolution will default to 1280×800, higher resolutions will be enabled by default in the next version of Ubuntu.

Installation:

Installation is straightforward and all the drivers necessary are already included on the Ubuntu CD. There is only Restricted Driver needed, for the Intel PRO 3945 Wireless Card. All other hardware is recognised out of the box. After installation you might want to change the names of the other partitions in grub or you might end up trying to boot your recovery partition when getting into windows.

Usage:

Touchpad:

The touchpad works fine and scroll and click work without any problem. For further configuration you might want to install the gsynaptics package. There is a bug where switching users will cause the touchpad to stop working for the new user. To work around this, either Lock Screen on the first user before switching users (use the Switch User… button in the locked screen dialog) or switch back to the first user and then back again to the new user using Ctrl+Alt+F7 and Ctrl+Alt+F9.

Desktop Effects:

The default effects are nice, but not nearly nice enough and there isn’t a nice application to manage all the settings. Besides, on this computer Compiz doesn’t work as well as Compiz Fusion does, though Compiz Fusion does sometimes fail to start. Compiz Fusion also works better and there is no tearing of windows or slight redrawing that happens sometimes. However, if you’re prepared to wait till October, you might as well do that, because Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon will use Compiz Fusion instead. However, if you do want to go ahead, follow this simple HowTo and then at the end, also install the emerald package.

To make Compiz Fusion run automatically, add it to your Sessions list (System » Preferences » Sessions). Here’s an image of how to add the two programs. Now that Compiz starts as soon as the session begins you can no longer log on to this user on anything but the first display since X.org only provides direct rendering on the first display. Also, since Compiz Fusion is still in development and not stable, it may crash as soon as you logon to the session. In this case, just Ctrl-Alt-Backspace and login again.

If that doesn’t solve the problem and you can’t login to your GUI, press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to reach a virtual terminal, login there and then execute killall compiz followed by killall compiz.real Now login and disable Compiz in your Sessions manager.

Bluetooth:

To make Bluetooth much easier to use install the bluez-gnome package.

That’s about it. Enjoy.