I have just installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my old Compaq nx9005 laptop.

I started by attempting to upgrade from Hardy Heron.  The result of this was that X no longer worked, so I did a complete re-install. About time, as I’d been doing upgrades since Dapper.  I thought the pain of loads of reconfiguration would be worth it.

Things that work in Intrepid that did not work in Hardy:

• Compiz desktop effects.  These have never worked on this laptop before, so this was very unexpected and exciting!
• Connecting to my external monitor, a Samsung SyncMaster 215TW.  Switching between laptop screen and external monitor is still a bit fiddly, but it’s better than no external monitor at all.

Things that do not work in Intrepid that did work in Hardy:

• Connecting to a Creative Zen Sleek MP3 player using Amarok.
• BBC iPlayer is very choppy in Ibex.

I’ll be returning to the outstanding problems, and hopefully fixing them, in future posts.