Ubuntu 7.10 Redux

I recently flamed Ubuntu 7.10 for its inadequacies. I wanted to revisit this topic a few days later to update a few points. When things in Linux are broken, I feel compelled to research and fix them. As a result, we now have the following:

1. The issue with my sound ended up being the ALSA project dropping support for several models of soundcards. I am not completely sure why this is the case, but fixing it was as simple as installing a package intended for Feisty:

sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-generic

2. The Intel graphics driver (X3100 Media Accelerator) was chosen to be blacklisted from Compiz due to a decision by the Ubuntu team concerned because of unresolved bugs in the driver. As updates address these problems, this restriction will be removed. In the mean time, this check can be overridden with this command:

mkdir -p ~/.config/compiz/ && echo SKIP_CHECKS=yes >> ~/.config/compiz/compiz-manager

3. I got my resolutions back up to 1920×1200 using the tried and true method below (and manually selecting them):

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

4. I have had no other issues with suspend or hibernate outside of the first incident. I will retract my statement, as this seemed to be a first-run only problem.
5. As for the keyring password issue, some modifications were indeed done. The end goal was to make this transparent to the user by never prompting to lock / unlock the keyring to get/set information. I actually support this implementation – just without the bug I ran into. (I often set my keyring password to ‘1’, the shortest value allowed). I suspect this was a race condition, after the machine resumed from suspend-to-ram.
6. Printing remains the only real pain. I stand by my rants about Gnome’s horrible printer management system, but efforts are being made to ease some of this. I can’t fully place this blame on Ubuntu, as its Nautilus browser is stock from the Gnome team. Gnome, are you listening?!

My installation of Ubuntu now is certainly better than it was a few days ago. I am willing to tinker with a system until it works, something most users are unwilling to do. As long as issues blacken an otherwise polished distribution, it will never succeed in the mainstream.

Congratulations to the Ubuntu team for improvements this release, and maybe next time the release will be better for myself and others.