Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 getting out of control.

A few days ago I presented you Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 (here), telling you that it has some bugs at sound (it doesn't work at all with some sound cards) and at booting procedure (or more exactly, it fails the installation procedures and is forced to boot in live CD). However, there is another critical bug that I experienced a few minutes ago.

Here are some details: Pidgin + Chrome were running (nothing else) while I was notified that Gwibber crashed (it was not running, I didn't open it). Everything is...normal until now, I periodically receive notifications telling me that Gwibber crashes (even without running it). But what happened after was....let's say, normal for a pre-release version of Ubuntu. The main problem is that you it makes it difficult to save what you were working on at that time. This is what I'm talking about.

When Gwibber crashed, "Report a problem" has opened, in order to let me send details to developers, to help them fixing the problem. And it seems that, I don't know why, "Report a problem" crashed after that, too. And again. And over and over again. I think that every second, two windows of that type were appearing. That's not much, I know, but for my desktop, which doesn't have video hardware acceleration (lack of drivers), they are a real problem, as it is hard to save anything.

So, here's a new bug that developers need to fix for the final release of Ubuntu 10.10.

Controlling Synaptics touchpads on Ubuntu.

Even if Ubuntu is a great OS, it might have some problems on laptops with their touchpads. My laptop's touchpad is made by Synamptics, which runs, natively, on Linux, but for changing the way it responds and behaves, it needs a driver. The best way you can get it is via Ubuntu Software Center (located on Applications). Within the software center, search for "Touchpad". Click on the right button from the first result, and click install. Now, it will ask for your password (which you entered when you have installed Ubuntu). Wait for the installation to finish, then close software center, and go to System -> Preferences -> Touchpad. Now you can modify the way your touchpad moves, behaves, and others.

Tested on Dell D610 and works without problems.