After testing the 9.04 release cd using the live session, I decided to install
Ubuntu 9.04. The installation is very smooth on my Acer desktop, just
like the 8.10 version. The only thing I need to do is to use the Nvidia
proprietary driver instead of the open-source Xorg driver in order to
get the full resolution since the open source driver does not support
my NForce620i/GeForce7100 well enough.

The first improvement is that the bootup time is quite fast. The second
thing is that Compiz is automatically enabled. I disabled it after a
one minute.

Then I installed various packages I use (cvs, svn, git, various development
related packages) and thanks to the fast mirror in Singapore and my
8MB cable modem connection, the process is painless.

I was having problem accessing a share folder from the other XP
notebook with my Ubuntu 8.10 installation. 9.04 has no problems
accessing that. Unfortunately I still had the performance problem
when copying big file under Gnome. I had the same problem
with my Arch installation. It is about 2-2.2MB/sec. I was getting
about 7MB/sec with Fedora 10 under Gnome. Strange.

Overall the first impression is positive even though there are
not really any excitement to mention about. I was already
using the notify-osd feature under Ubuntu 8.10.

The next thing is to try out KDE, XFCE and LXDE. I guess
I would not see much improvement there as well since I
was already running KDE 4.2.2, XFCE 4.6 under 8.10.

-- 
Xiaofan http://mcuee.blogspot.com
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