So the latest version of Ubuntu was released over the weekend, and being the Linux fanboy that I am I thought I would download the Netbook flavour and install the it on my Acer Aspire Revo. See if it was any better than previous versions.
At least, that was the plan. Unfortunately though, the Revo uses an Nvidia Ion graphics card which seems to be becoming quite commonplace among alot of these lower powered devices. I say that it is unfortunate because it appears that 10.10 netbook does not work correctly with this hardware.
The cause of this seems to be that 10.10 netbook uses 3d acceleration to power some of the UI and the Ion requires the instalalation of Nvidia's drivers in order to get 3d acceleration working on the Ion.
You may think "Ok, well then just install the drivers and get to using 10,10", but alas, life is not that simple! Once installed 10.10 simply refuses to boot into Ubuntu Netbook. Instead I just get a stock Ubuntu desktop.
All seems quite a shame, so for the moment I have returned to using 10.04 netbook, which is smooth, seamless and lightning fast to boot. Even plays HD videos!
It seems odd that Canonical chose a .10 version to release such a dramatic overhaul of the software, in the past it has seemed that the .04 version has been the version with most dramatic changes and the .10 release has largely been responsible for clearing out the bugs. I guess I will try again with the 11.04 release. Either that or try out 10.10 on my Aspire One, maybe I will get more luck there!