Vakkotaur

Last night I did a backup of the data on belgian in preparation for installing Kubuntu (7.04, "Feisty Fawn") on that machine. I didn't go farther than the backup last night, wanting to pause a while and be sure of things. This morning I figured it was time to actually do it.

Well, *ubuntu is not going on belgian. *ubuntu 7.04 ("Feisty Fawn"), is, as far as I am concerned too broken to bother with. Although I am running Xubuntu 7.04 on percheron right now, that matters not.

While 7.04 has a couple issues I am aware of, they are not show stoppers in themselves. GIMP relies on libexif for jpg files and the version that 7.04 uses is too old to work right for some image made by newer cameras, such as the one Jay now uses. I discovered that to get K3B to do normalizing of audio I'd need to compile normalize-audio myself. But the problem is not these nuisances. The problem is that 7.04 won't install:

I have tried booting the Kubuntu LiveCD and it stumbles and throws an error: /bin/sh can't access tty; job control mode off.

I've tried booting with a Xubuntu LiveCD and get the same thing.

I've tried several of the supposed work-arounds. They don't work.

I've downloaded the "alternate" Ubuntu install ISO and tried that. The text install gets farther but then says it can't find the network interface.

Just to check, I tried Xubuntu 6.10 ("Edgy Eft") and that came up just fine. There is nothing special about belgian's hardware. So Edgy works, but I'm not going to install a version behind and I'm not going to install a version behind and then hope an upgrade doesn't break things the same way the LiveCD fails. Since 6.10 just works, it's plain that 7.04 is broken.

So, I'm giving up on what should have been named "Flaky Fawn." That leaves me with a problem. What do I install on belgian? If Wolvix 1.1.0 was released rather than a "release candidate" (with known problems) I'd be seriously tempted to go with it. Wolvix has the most recent libexif so GIMP can handle jpgs made by new Olympus cameras, so at least that wouldn't be an issue. And even now Wolvix boots on belgian without any special hand-holding.

I could keep using Fedora for a while longer and hope that Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" isn't "Goofy Gibbon" in disguise and actually works. Or stay with Fedora and wait for Wolvix. Or even try something else entirely, expecting to change again within the year. Staying with Fedora isn't very appealing, but I'm not sure what I'd replace it with even if only temporarily.