Review: Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy Badger
The Ubuntu 5.10 release, also known as Breezy Badger, is not drastically different from the previous Ubuntu release, 5.04 Hoary Hedgehog, but it is an excellent distribution that is well worth a look for any user interested in a Linux distro for the desktop or server.
The Ubuntu distribution is on a six-month development cycle, so releases tend to be full of minor improvements and incremental changes. This is a good thing for users, since it means a great deal of stability from release to release -- as well as a predictable release cycle that's easy to plan around. Ubuntu's installer may give some users pause, because it's not a fancy GUI installer. Nevertheless, Ubuntu's installer works exceedingly well. I tried out the Breezy installer on several machines, including an older Toshiba Satellite laptop and a home-built AMD Athlon 3000 XP machine. The installer detected all of my hardware, and even found and configured a wireless card that I've consistently had problems with when using other distros -- including previous versions of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu doesn't set up proprietary drivers for Nvidia or ATI cards during installation. It is possible to configure these cards with the proprietary drivers, and it's not terribly difficult to do so. Unless you plan to play 3D games or use Nvidia's Twinview for multiple monitors, it's probably not necessary, but it would be nice if the installer gave you the option to do so.
