Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 beta on a Dell Latitude D630

I've been using this laptop, a Dell Latitude D630 for more than one year now, and I've always used Kubuntu (but always up to 8.04). Today, I decided to give a try to Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 (still in beta); I preferred Ubuntu instead of Kubuntu because the same version of Kubuntu has a bug at the end of the installation process which does not let you decide whether to install the boot loaded on a specific partition instead of the MBR.

I tested the system live first, and experienced no problems. Thus, I installed it on the hard disk (on another partition, since I'm still keeping the kubuntu 8.04 installation).

The first nice thing I noticed was that now it's much easier to select your time zone, and the Region and City lists are neater (you can select the time zone with a few clicks now).


Also the suggestion of the keyboard layout works fine!

Then we come to the partitioning step:

where I preferred to do a manual partitioning (having already some existing partitions I needed to keep):


I also specified to mount my other linux installation in a specific directory



The installation also offers the possibility of importing existing accounts (note that it detected windows and other Linux installations), but I preferred not to.


Then, before starting the installation...


remember to click on the advanced button, to setup the boot loader as you prefer, otherwise it will be installed on the MBR.


Now, since I already have grub installed (from my main kubuntu 8.04 installation), and want to keep that that way, I chose to install the ubuntu boot loader on the first sector of the installation partition (in my case (hd0,5) or /dev/sda6):


Now, I'm read to start the installation:


Of course, I had to change the grub menu.lst file of my main linux kubuntu 8.04 installation in order to add a menu item to boot this new Linux installation:

title        Ubuntu Jaunty
root        (hd0,5)
chainloader    +1

By selecting this grub menu item, I can boot the new Jaunty installation.

The first impression was really good! Everything seems to work fine: ethernet (Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)), wireless (Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)), bluetooth, graphic card (Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)) with special effects on!

It also looks like the infamous bug concerning too many load/unload cycles is not there anymore!

Stay tuned, as I'll keep this post up to date with new information :-)