Ubuntu's latest OS not so Gutsy

Gibbon monkeys around with web access

By Kelly Fiveash • Get more from this author

Posted in Operating Systems, 24th October 2007 15:31 GMT

Free whitepaper – Total cost of ownership of Dell, HP and IBM blade solutions

Ubuntu fanboys have been crying into their beers after discovering internet connection problems with Canonical's latest open source Linux distribution operating system, dubbed the Gutsy Gibbon.

The latest version (7.10) of the increasingly popular free OS, which launched last week, was punted to the masses by Ubuntu as being "delivered on a stable, easy to use and learn platform".

But one reader contacted El Reg telling us that he had no choice but to revert back to Ubuntu 7.04 to get his computer working online, because of issues with IPv6 implementation and DHCP-handling.

Indeed, a look at Ubuntu's community forum suggests that both the upgrade and install of Gutsy Gibbon have been causing big headaches among the Linux-loving crowd.

Many HP and Sony users have also experienced hardware support issues with the upgrade complaining that the latest version is less compatible than its predecessor, Feisty Fawn.

Our reader told us that Gutsy Gibbon's internet access "whether by wireless; ethernet or USB DSL modem is either impossible without some deft work at the CLI [Command Line Interface] or is incredibly slow (mostly from delay in resolving DNS)".

While blogger Wille Faler, who pointed out that many routers do not support IPv6, has offered a possible "work-around" for a problem he described as being a "big flaw in Linux's handling of DNS-servers".

We put a call into Canonical to see why ~~Umbongo's~~ Ubuntu's Gibbon was not all that funky when it came to connecting to the internet, but no one was available to provide a comment. ®

Free whitepaper – Thermal design of Dell PowerEdge server