Ubuntu 6.04 Dapper Drake Preview - Part I

A few nights ago I decided to take the plunge - I finally upgrade to Dapper. The latest release of XGL and compiz which include tons of bug fixes and enhancements pushed me over the edge. I had XGL running on Breezy, but the only package for the latest version of XGL I could find didn't work, and I was too lazy to build it from scratch. So I pondered - Was it time for me to upgrade to Dapper?

Anyways, after changing my /etc/apt/sources.list file and dist-upgrading overnight, I was greeted to the usual NVIDIA driver breakage - A simple reinstall of the drivers and I was off to the races!

Here's some first impressions:

• There's now a low-diskspace notification that pops up in the bottom-right corner of your screen when any of your partitions is getting low on space. (ie. I need to clean out my home directory...)
• People weren't lying - The bootup speed is definitely much faster.
• Rendering speeds - I'm not quite sure whether it's the pango improvements or what, but Firefox is definitely snappier. It doesn't lag as much when rendering pages anymore.
• Nautilus with integrated search - I had seen screenshots of it, but thought it looked kinda ghetto. Fortunately, it's easy to use and fits in well with Nautilus when you actually use it.
• Gstreamer 0.10 is niiiiiiiice! Seeking through songs is now smooth and continuous in Totem, Rhythmbox, Banshee, etc...
• The new "Ubuntulooks" theme is very easy on the eyes, definitely a good move.
• The latest XGL with compiz is incredible - Since the first release, they've both become much more stable and polished. Did I mention everything feels snappier too?

If I had to sum up my first impressions of Dapper in one line, it'd be this: Dapper Drake is going to be one snazzy OS.

I'll post more as I find out neat stuff. (Screenies too!)
:)