Review: Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger (Linux.com) [LWN.net]

Linux.com reviews the Ubuntu (and Kubuntu) 5.10 release, also known as Breezy Badger. "The default set of applications includes Firefox, Evolution, OpenOffice 2, Gaim, a BitTorrent client, Gnomemeeting, the GIMP, and a number of other productivity and entertainment applications for desktop use. The odds are good that this set of applications will be sufficient for many users -- and if not, it's easy enough to add new ones. Ubuntu includes two GUI package management tools, Synaptic and Gnome App Install. Synaptic is a front end for the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT), and is somewhat complex. It's simpler than using apt-get for many users, but it still may be a bit arcane for users who aren't familiar with Linux package management."

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Review: Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger (Linux.com)

Posted Oct 11, 2005 21:45 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (4 responses)

The apt 'front end' that I like personally is wajig. It's a python script that takes all the little dpkg-*, dpkg, apt-get and other Debian package commands and puts them into a single easy-to-use command setup.

Plus what makes it great is that if you have 'advanced' bash completetion enabled you can tab thru 'apt' commands then tab thru the aviable package names.

The only tricky part is when you do something like 'wajig install <tab><tab>' then you have to wait a bit as the system builds a list of the 22,000+ package names aviable. But they seem to have improved that with newer versions.

It's nice because I can never remember all the switches and the various command names and what they are for. The autocompletion stuff rocks. Plus it's well thought out.. for example if your a regular user then it'll prompt you for your password via sudo command.

Found out about it thru the "debian desktop survival guide" http://www.togaware.com/linux/survivor/

Never liked synaptic so much personally. The nice thing is that the GUI is friendly to new users.

I don't know if it's aviable on ubuntu.. been a Debian user for a while now. I would expect it to be.

Review: Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger (Linux.com)

Posted Oct 12, 2005 0:04 UTC (Wed) by darthmdh (guest, #8032) [Link] (2 responses)

wajig not only exploits the entire apt functionality (ie, not just apt-get but apt-cache etc) but also exploits related external applications also such as deborphan, invoke-rc.d, and others. Yes, its available in Ubuntu.

It's nice to be able to use the one tool to search for packages, install, uninstall, place on hold, get sources, check changelogs, cleanup old junk, stop and start services, ... and its a tiny package too.

Back on topic though, I'm interested in people's experiences with Breezy on amd64. I have a Warty install on a dual-core amd64 and I really can't use it (don't laugh ;) because there appears to be absolutely zero driver support for my MSI board (ATI chipset) in the kernel it comes with.

Review: Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger (Linux.com)

Posted Oct 12, 2005 3:30 UTC (Wed) by busterb (subscriber, #560) [Link]

I tried it on an MSI board with a VIA chipset, and a Gigabyte with an nForce3 chipset. The MSI/VIA really didn't work well; driver support, instability. The nForce3-based board worked perfectly and completely. Windows x64 also installed without requiring any problems on the nForce board, but I had to find the correct 64-bit SATA driver and put it on a floppy for some reason to install on the MSI board.

Review: Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger (Linux.com)

Posted Oct 12, 2005 17:13 UTC (Wed) by jwb (guest, #15467) [Link]

Hoary and Breezy both work great on my Shuttle machines, one having nForce3 and one having nForce4 chipset. Both use AGP video cards.

Review: Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger (Linux.com)

Posted Oct 12, 2005 12:24 UTC (Wed) by richo123 (guest, #24309) [Link]

wajig 2.0.29 is in Ubuntu Breezy universe repository.

Update in the background

Posted Oct 12, 2005 1:46 UTC (Wed) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (7 responses)

I personally use my own script to upgrade my Kubuntu: a script creates a list of requested packages, posts it to my server.
Then my (Slackware) server detects that there is work to do and downloads the stuff for me (same script, different command).
When the script runs again on the client, it finds that some packages are there and adds them to the apt cache (I check the MD5SUM everytime to be safe). The apt-get dist-upgrade is still up to me to do when I ready, but then does not take long!

It supports multiple 'clients', of course, the idea being to maximise the cache of all clients.
I am still working on the 'cleaning' part, and I also want to be able to use the same system to install new packages.
Ah, and I want my clients to share whatever packages they have locally too. Pfew!

If that looks interesting to somebody, give me a shout!

Update in the background

Posted Oct 12, 2005 14:09 UTC (Wed) by pj (subscriber, #4506) [Link] (6 responses)

I do something similar with the -d (download-only) flag to apt-get. Supporting multiple clients and such can I think be done by using apt-move to move packages from your apt cache to a local mirror (which is what your script is essentially making, right?)

Update in the background

Posted Oct 12, 2005 14:34 UTC (Wed) by magi (subscriber, #4051) [Link] (5 responses)

just use apt-proxy

Update in the background

Posted Oct 12, 2005 17:21 UTC (Wed) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]

I should have thought the problem had been fixed already, as always in GNU/Linux! It is a bit frustrating though.

But thanks a lot for the info: I shall start reading about those two commands.

Update in the background

Posted Oct 12, 2005 19:23 UTC (Wed) by szoth (guest, #14825) [Link] (3 responses)

I got good results by tweaking a squid configuration so that it would agressivly cache large files, then configuring apt to use that squid as its http proxy.

Update in the background

Posted Oct 13, 2005 4:07 UTC (Thu) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link] (2 responses)

Don't suppose you'd care to share that bit of the config for those of us
who are only average with Squid please ? :-)

Update in the background

Posted Oct 13, 2005 15:00 UTC (Thu) by maney (subscriber, #12630) [Link]

Set maximum_object_size large enough that it will cache, oh, the biggest chunk of OOo, and restart squid. Works well enough for my home/office setup that I've never gotten around to addng Ubuntu sources to the existing apt-cache setup (which I'm now using with only a single Sarge server box... well, and the other one that I'm fiddling with). You can get this working right from the start with a kernel option to the installer along the lines of http_proxy=http://cache.two14.net:3128/, though IIRC you'll need to add that to your user environment or add a parallel setting in /etc/apt/apt.conf for post-install use. AndOfCourse change the cache's address and port as needed for local conditions in both.

As best I recall (can't easily check it from here), the home/office's squid has a max size setting of 50 or 60 MB, and there's been no visible detriment to normal caching of web pages. It's got about 1G of disk space allocated, which might be a bit on the short side if you like to install all the desktops and everything you think you might ever need (viz., a Red Hat style install) you might want to allow more cache space...

Squid as a cache for APT

Posted Oct 13, 2005 17:43 UTC (Thu) by szoth (guest, #14825) [Link]

Set maximum object size in squid.conf to the size of the largest dpkg you wish to cache.

http://wiki.squid-cache.org/config/maximum_object_size

In my setup I had two gigs of RAM, so I also increased maximum object size
in memory.

http://wiki.squid-cache.org/config/maximum_object_size_in...

Then you probably want to use the LFUDA cache replacement policy to get a better byte hit rate.

http://squid.visolve.com/squid/squid24s1/cache_size.htm#c...

There's also a policy decision for memory replacement; I used LFUDA here too because of my large supply of RAM and willingness to suffer higher latency for some small files in return for better overall download speed.

http://squid.visolve.com/squid/squid24s1/cache_size.htm#m...

On your clients put a line like this in /etc/apt/apt.conf

Acquire::http::Proxy "http://proxy.mydomain.com:8080";

apt.conf usually doesn't exist yet, so you will have to create it, with just that line in it. Without editing apt.conf you can also use the http_proxy environment variable before running apt-get, e.g.:

export http_proxy="http://proxy.mydomain.com:8080"
apt-get update

Frame buffer

Posted Oct 12, 2005 19:02 UTC (Wed) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link]

I wonder if the initrd/vesafb problem is fixed in Breezy.

I have a laptop with an nVidia display driver ("GeForce4 440"). When Ubuntu boots, it sets up it initrd and loads the VESA frame buffer driver. However, after it does its (advanced substitute for now-vilified?) pivot-root to the on-disk file system, and starts X, that driver interferes somehow with the chip initialization and/or X's nv driver. In practice, it means I can't switch my laptop display to drive an external monitor. Loading the nvidia frame buffer driver at boot time, everything's OK.

(I solved it by compiling the nvidia driver (and the rest) into a new kernel, and bypassing initrd on boot, but that seems unnecessary. I seem to recall that unloading vesafb and then loading nvidiafb didn't help.)