Dapper Drake

I've started using the pre-release version of "Dapper Drake", which is the upcoming Kubuntu Linux release. Kubuntu is a version of Ubuntu but with a KDE desktop instead of Gnome. I had been using the prior release 5.10, nicknamed "Breezy Badger".

I jumped on pretty late in the release cycle, so I haven't really had any problems with Dapper. Overall it's certainly better than the previous release, though I seem to be maxing out the 256MB of physical RAM on my home system.

I've also finally been able to turn on the X composition manager, which adds fancy things like drop shadows and transparency to your windows. The transparency runs too slowly for my hardware, but the drop shadows are something I've wanted ever since I saw them on Barb's Mac.

There is an alternative version of X called xgl and an alternative composition manager called 'compiz' that uses the OpenGL graphics API for cool 3D desktop stuff. I tried setting this up using some magic incantations found on the Ubuntu forums, but it didn't seems to want to play on my oldish ATI video card. No matter. As long as I have my drop shadows I'm happy.

Dapper is set to officially release in June 2006.
Jim on 04.16.06 @ 09:03 AM ET [link]