Review: Ubuntu 8.10 'Intrepid Ibex' Alpha 4 - 15/08/2008 by Andrew
Distro Review
Gaming on the Cutting Edge – Part 3
I've previously looked at Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 2 and Mandriva 2009 Beta 1 (KDE4.1) to see what we should expect once the final versions have been released. After finding that Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 2 was just a bit too alpha for gaming, I've decided to have another look to see if things are starting to become a bit more stable. Sure, there will be a few bugs here and there (that's to be expected in an alpha) and the artwork may not be finished – but is it ready for gaming? Time to blow away 8.04 and crank Enemy Territory: Quake Wars on 8.10? Read on to find out...
Ubuntu 8.10 'Intrepid Ibex' Alpha 4
Hot off the press, I raced to download Alpha 4. Unlike Alpha 2 (released on the 10th of July), this release allowed for a 'Live CD' to be used to test out your system prior to installation. Personally, I prefer using the Alternate CD's, but I thought I'll mix it up and give the Live CD a go.
First up, I'd like to say that there are still quite a few bugs within Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 4 - do not think that this is ready for your main gaming system or a production environment. You no doubt will (as I did) run into quite a few applications crashes, incorrect labeling, strange behavior and general 'alphaness'. This is to be expected at this stage, there's still 2 more alpha releases, a beta and a release candidate to go before it's got the stamp of approval. That being said, if you're happy with the occasional crash (knowing that with daily updates these should slowly reduce) just so you can have easy access to the latest repositories, now is the time to jump in. Luckily for you, I'll be the guinea pig.
My humble test rig (hey, I'm not going to blow away my main machine without testing it out on something more expendable):
AMD Athlon 3200+ (2.0Ghz)
Gigabyte 939 Motherboard (GA-K8NSC-939)
2x512MB Geil DDR400 Dual Channel
Gigabyte 6600GT 256MB AGP 8x
LG DVD Burner (GSA-4163B)
Seagate 40GB 2MB cache ATA100
Onboard AC97
Logitech G15 keyboard + G5 mouse
Installation
Using the Live CD, this is a very simple process. From start to finish this should take you around 30 minutes, depending on your hardware. The only complaint here is the country/city picker, this is really buggy and it's much easier just to use the drop down list. After the very first boot I had 36 updates to suck down, which I kicked off without issue. Ahh, a fresh, slightly unstable, 8.10 Alpha 4.
Desktop, Graphics and Games
Artwork wise, nothing has changed from 8.04. In fact, the Firefox homepage is still 8.04 and the 'About Ubuntu' pulls up an error. Considering the first artwork freeze is on the 28th of August, this is to be expected. It looks like we'll have to wait for the Beta before we have a true indication of what the final version will look and feel like.
One of the problems I had with Alpha 2 was with the restricted drivers, and the fact that these didn't install in the usual easy way we've grown to like with Ubuntu. You were forced to manually sort things out to get hardware acceleration going (with Nvidia anyway, ATI may have been fine). With Alpha 4, this is no longer an issue – so long as you can get past the slightly confusing nvidia (again, ATI it will be a different story) driver options. There's no explanation why, though there are four separate drivers to choose from. I'll give you a quick rundown on what the differences are:
Version 71: Legacy GPU version (1.0-71xx series) – GeFroce 4 and older
Version 96: Legacy GPU version (1.0-96xx series) – GeFroce 4 and older
Version 173: Latest stable version – GeForce 5xxx series and newer, though doesn't support GT200 cards like the GTX260 and GTX280.
Version 177: Latest beta version – hey, you're using an Alpha, may as well go the whole way and use beta Nvidia drivers right?
Choosing the biggest number (version 177) I clicked enable and after a download and configure, I was up and running with hardware acceleration.
Ok, now that the very latest (beta!) Nvidia drivers have been loaded, lets check out the game situation. Well, nothing much has changed since Alpha 2, so I'll repeat that Nexuiz 2.4.2, OpenArena 0.7.7 (unfortunately not 0.8.0, which was recently released), Warsow 0.42, Glest 3.1.2, SuperTuxKart 0.5, Alien-arena 7.0, warzone2100 2.1.0~1.beta2 and Freedroidrpg 0.10.3 turn up, as well as a host of other games. There's also a few new games (such as Secret Maryo Chronicles) that didn't appear in the 8.04 repositories so this is definitely a good reason to upgrade.
On the application front, you have OpenOffice 2.4.1, Firefox 3.0.1, Gimp 2.4.6, Gnome 2.23.6 and version 2.6.26.2 of the kernel (well, the Ubuntu version of that kernel). I could go on and on, though I won't – pretty much everything is the latest version with only a few exceptions (because they've only been recently released or because they'll cause napalm to pour out of your PC if they're included).
Bottom Line
Honestly, if you're like me and will put up with a few application crashes here and there if it means getting your hands on the latest repositories, then the time to upgrade is now. I had no major crashes and no major issues that stopped me from downloading and playing the very latest games from the 8.10 repositories.