Hi All,

Still very much a newbie to Linux. I have two distros and XP, and using Ubuntu 6.10 the most. So far doing OK, managing most of what I want to do. One issue I have is automounting USB devices. I have my music files on an external NTFS HHD. I can read it fine, but to use with one program (SlimServer) I have to unmount it, and remount with a command line given to me every time I start up Ubuntu. This command line changes the umask. I was told that Ubuntu 7.04 has automounting built in.

Firstly, would V7.04 take care of automounting issues?

Second, would someone explain to a newbie the advantages and disadvantages to upgrading?

I read that V6.10 has longer support. I don't exactly know what that means regarding Linux distros, but to a newbie, longer support would seem to be better.

I have tried three or four threads here and elsewhere on how to set automount options with Ubuntu 6.10, but have had no answers. One poster had links to something called autofs (if I remember the name correctly), but I could not figure out as a NOOB if it would do what I needed. I could not understand all the instructions.

Any advice on upgrading?

Thanks for all help.

I think you'll get quicker and more complete answers for this on the ubuntu forums...

Personally, except for the default implementation of Compiz, I haven't noticed a lot of change.
(This may be due to the fact that I upgraded to Feisty beta almost immediately after switching to Ubuntu. Right now, I'm already running Gutsy. ^^)

It seems that Wifi support has been improved.

Unless you have some important work to do right now and don't want to run the risk of something not working, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't upgrade.

Eventually, you can free a small 5GB partition and install Feisty on it to see if there are any problems.

The only drawback I had experienced when I switched to Feisty beta was that I couldn't get Beryl to work anymore (not really a critical issue ^^).
However, now that the final version is out, I can use Compiz without any problems.
And all I had to do was enable it in the settings through a GUI.
(I haven't tried to reinstall Beryl since then.)

A couple issues I ran it are video drivers and audio problems. If you're using the restricted video driver you should go back to the default drivers before upgrading. It's, generally, an easy matter to reinstall them after the upgrade. Feisty makes it easy with it's restricted driver applet.

I've had continuing audio problems I didn't have in Edgy. First I upgraded to Feisty then did a clean install and still had problems. Next I clean installed Ubuntu Studio and still had problems. This is a major issue for me since recording live music is a major use for this computer. I even made some room and clean installed Edgy (so both US and Edgy are on the system) and the problems were gone when in Edgy. YMMV.

As for default Feisty Compiz install, what is it suppose to do. All it does on my system is wiggle the edges of the windows. Not very impressive, to say the least.

You can configure it to do more.
By default you can at least enable the cube.
If you add the gnome-compiz-manager, compiz-plugins, compiz-extra packages, you should get a GUI to configure even more options.
It especially allows you to configure the very useful Scale plugin (same as expose from MacOSX).

After having tried both Beryl and Compiz, I agree however that Compiz is not impressive at all. ^^
Beryl is a lot more fun!
(Windows don't just wiggle. You can change the friction and spring constants to create a lot of fun effects. And there are of course a lot of other effects available.)

As with most Debian based distros you are much better off to stay current with the releases unless you're running a server. There are several improvements in Feisty over Dapper and other previous releases. I didn't like Ubuntu until Feisty was released. It's my main distro on my laptop now.

There are a number of under the hood improvements with 7.04 which make it more desktop friendly for newbies. I also saw some performance improvements starting up applications and booting. Ubuntu 7.04 is the version Dell is pre-loading on some of their systems. Other advantages are newer versions of all the applications. Personally I always upgrade when a new Ubuntu release comes out. My practice is to install the new release in a separate partition so that I have the old one for a fallback which I almost never use.

I have upgraded to V7.04. The upgrade did not go well, and I was advised to do a clean install from an ISO of 7.04. I eventually deleted all the partitions and started over, using manual mode and installing fresh.

So far so good. The new version did take care of one of the biggest issues I had.

I am impressed with how easy Ubuntu is for a newbie to use. For a newbie the difficulty comes if there is some funny issue. Then folks are trying to help with command lines that are pretty tough for a new guy.

I am dual booting, so need to be patient and fall back to XP if it is necessary.

Thanks

As a Linux beginner you are better off using the GUI than the command line. The GUI will help you to learn Linux and at the same time keep you from doing serious damage to your installation. Use the GUI to make all changes and use the command line to examine things. The wonder of the CLI is you can do anything. Unfortunately that includes messing things up so your system won't run. All CLI help you're offered may not work. It's not unusual for a set of otherwise unrelated commands are required to accomplish a particular task. In the GUI you may have to navigate a few steps to get where you need to be but one there, you are protected from making most mistakes including forgetting a command in the CLI sequence. Placing a single check in a box can install multiple packages, change multiple configuration files and integrate execution into the menu system.