I initially installed Ubuntu Linux 5.10 on my new Dell Inspiron 6000 in November, 2005. I fully expect it to begin having assorted hardware problems this year with the amount of use I give it, though hopefully using an external keyboard (excellent, and only $4.99) and mouse at work will extend its life.

I upgraded to 6.06 shortly after its release but didn’t get around to blogging it. I encountered two problems:

• I had to re-install i915resolution to get back full 1920×1200 screen resolution (1600×1200 without it)
• Resume from suspend-to-memory was broken. A fix in the form of an upgraded acpi-support package was available in the next couple days.

I didn’t upgrade to 6.10 upon release, mostly because I just didn’t get around to it. I saw a couple days ago that 7.04beta is out, so I finally upgraded to 6.10. The upgrade process went without a hitch, but resume from suspend-to-memory was broken again. I’m sure there’s an easy fix, but I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to 7.04beta.

Everything now works, though as Brad Templeton notes the upgrade process stopped several times, waiting on my answers to unnecessary questions. Apart from this annoyance, which hopefully will be fixed before 7.04 gets out of beta, I remain impressed with Ubuntu and how it is progressing. I’m also reminded of how rapidly free software projects are doing new feature releases. I don’t think there are any visible applications I use on this laptop that haven’t been significantly improved in the last 17 months.