[Fwd: Archive frozen for preparation of Ubuntu 9.10]

[Madison Kelly]

D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> | From: Madison Kelly <linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>
> 
> | A few things I've noticed already;
> 
> Thanks for the update.
> 
> I run Ubuntu on some of my systems and I salvishly update when a new
> version seems safe.  Thanks for being one of the testers!

Figured it's time I contribute. :)

> | - At the command line, when you pipe something through grep, it highlights the
> | part of the string grep matched on. A small change, but soooo nice.
> 
> How could it do that without violating normal UNIX abstractions??

No idea, though I think it might be a Gnome Terminal thing. I've noticed 
it doesn't highlight in one of the "normal" terminals (a-la 
ctrl+alt+f[1-6]).

> | - The default font size in terminals, and I mean outside of X, is much
> | smaller. This means that when you do ctrl+alt+f[1-6], you have MUCH more
> | screen space to work with. This is probably one of my favourite changes.
> 
> That's been possible, I think, with a kernel parameter (i.e.
> vga=something in the kernel line in the grub config file
> /boot/grub/menu.lst).  I don't do this so I'm not sure if this has
> changed in the last decade.
> 
> I do usually scrape off the kernel parameters I don't like, splash and
> quiet.

I knew you could, but it's nice to have it done by default now. I'm 
curious though how it would handle low-resolution screens... Modern 
screens can report their capabilities so perhaps this setting is only 
enabled when it can confirm the screen type?

By the way, the new size (on my 1440x900 screen) is 180x56.

> | - Input method switching now is done by ctrl+space instead of shift+space.
> | This is long over due! For example, if I was trying to write a SQL query, I
> | have a habit of capitalizing command words. I'd often switch to kana input
> | when I didn't want to. That won't happen any more.
> 
> Yikes!  My fingers have been using CTRL-SPACE for NUL since 1982 (the
> EMACS set-mark command).  They are not going to be happy.

Lol! It is still configurable to something else. :) Poor emacs people... 
Should use vim! (I keed!)

> | - They dropped Pidgin for Empathy as the default IM client. I've not used it
> | yet though, I just installed pidgin.
> 
> I'm kind of used to Pidgin for the very few times I use it.  LICQ used
> to be fine.  Is Empathy better or just different?  This is some Gnome
> issue, I guess.

No idea, haven't tried it yet. Just noted the difference.

> |   If you or anyone else is interested, I'll post more as I get more used to
> | it. In short though:
> 
> I'm interested.

Will do then!

Madi
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