[Tfug] First thoughts on Ubuntu Karmic 64bit alpha4

[Jim March]

Karmic is going to be a VERY sweet flavor of Ubuntu.  Intel video
problems with my i965/"X3100" chipset are completely and totally
solved.  Intel HDA audio handling is also improved, with more controls
and more volume boost for my laptop speakers.

The new hard disk checker is GREAT as I unfortunately learned.  I had
everything backed up to a pair of 160gig HDs, I completely
re-formatted my internal drive with Ext4, and as I was reloading
everything I managed to DROP one of the drives while running!
Fortunately it was very late in the restore cycle, what was damaged
wasn't critical thank the deity of your choice and I was able to get
what remained off by unplugging it, re-plugging, hand-copying specific
directories and skipping over what wouldn't copy.  As this was going
on, it was giving me "read error alerts" of various sorts, and if I
wanted to would throw me into an automatic disk checker that among
other things monitors the "smart stuff" on the disks themselves.

I did have to hand-install the 64bit flash player as the repos wanted
to install the 32bit flavor and nspluginwrapper which was a convulsive
mess.  But overall, this sucker has a LOT of promise and feels fast as
hell.

Jim