I’ve been getting excited about this latest release of Ubuntu…I know it’s going to sport a bunch of cool productivity enhancers, including tabs in the Nautilus file manager (finally!), useful security features, and the ability to write your entire installation to usb media, creating a custom usb distro.

Well, the reviews have been rolling in, and even though I’ve not even finished downloading Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex for myself, I couldn’t resist taking a peek. I particularly found this review enlightening, written by Chris from The Linux Action Show.

Although there are tons of positives in this release, the following issue that Chris had caught my eye. I’ll quote him on this:

Now all that said, there are real disadvantages to living on the cutting edge of X.org, at the time of this writing the Nvidia and ATI binary (proprietary) drivers do not work with X.org 7.4, that means for many of us, no OpenGL acceleration and no Compiz support.

He also added this update:

UPDATE: A new Nvidia driver (at the time of this writing) is reported to have early support for new X.org version in Ubuntu 8.10: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122139

This is a pretty big disappointment, because I rely on those proprietary divers for Compiz, which really gives a pretty decent productivity boost with things like the Desktop Wall and Scale. Looks like Nvidia users are going to have to through a bit of a hassle right now, and who knows about the state of the ATI drivers? I may put off upgrading until all the correct drivers get in the official repo.

Does this affect your upgrade plans at all?

Full Story: Big Story: Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, Released and Reviewed

Update: JordonR notified me via Twitter that his Nvidia card is working fine after the latest updates. I’d like to hear a report from someone with an ATI card.