Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Beta
I must say that Ubuntu 8.10 is really shining on my tablet. I made a live USB stick of 8.10 with the slick usb-creator app (works from 8.04 too) and booted up with correct resolution (1280×800), perfectly working wireless (intel4965agn adapter) that could connect with my university TTLS/PAP wifi network. Even the SDHC card reaader is working with my 16GB card! Suspend also worked flawlessly and faster as well (2 or 3 seconds instead of 4 or 5). Wireless comes back quickly too. In Hardy I had to wait about 10 seconds before wireless came back online, now it reconnects almost instantly.
The only major snag was having to manually futz with the xorg.conf to get my tablet to work. Once configured, I played with GIMP, recently updated to 2.6! GIMP is much improved for tablet support and has some nice options for changing brushstokes with not only pen pressure, but also velocity! This is as close to painting on a real surface that I’ve seen in any non-custom paint program.
GNOME desktop configuration is much tighter with the Appearance preferences. The new, darker, human theme is great for those who work in the late hours with lights low or in dimly lit cafes. I eventually switched back to XFCE for desktop, because of fast rock solid panels (GNOME panels are still relatively sluggish, even with animation turned off and low delay settings). GNOME does have a very nice way of altering the display settings though.
The main reason for trying 8.10 was the new kernel and wireless stack, and I must say that the increased hardware compatability is well worth it!
