These release notes document known issues with Ubuntu 9.10 and its variants.

System Requirements

The minimum memory requirement for Ubuntu 9.10 is 256 MB of memory. Note that some of your system's memory may be unavailable due to being used by the graphics card. If your computer has only the minimum amount of memory, the installation process will take longer than normal, but will complete successfully, and the system will perform adequately once installed.

Systems with less memory may be able to select "Install Ubuntu" from the boot menu to run just the installer, rather than the whole desktop, or may be able to use the alternate install CD.

Installation

Recommended packages installed by default

In accordance with the Debian Policy Manual (which says "The 'Recommends' field should list packages that would be found together with this one in all but unusual installations"), the package management system now installs packages listed in the Recommends: field of other installed packages as well as Depends: by default. If you want to avoid this for specific packages, use apt-get --no-install-recommends; if you want to make this permanent, set APT::Install-Recommends "false"; in /etc/apt/apt.conf. Be aware that this may result in missing features in some programs.

(This change was made in Ubuntu 8.10.)

Hibernation may be unavailable with automatic partitioning

The default partitioning recipe in the installer will in some cases allocate a swap partition that is smaller than the physical memory in the system. This will prevent the use of hibernation (suspend-to-disk) because the system image will not fit in the swap partition. If you intend to use hibernation with your system, you should ensure that the swap partition's size is at least as large as the system's physical RAM. (354126)

Upgrading

Users of Ubuntu 9.04 can upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 by a convenient automated process. Users of older Ubuntu releases need to upgrade to Ubuntu 9.04 first, and then to 9.10. Complete instructions may be found at http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading.

Kubuntu users can upgrade directly from Kubuntu 8.04 to Kubuntu 9.10. Users upgrading in this way are advised to also read the release notes for Ubuntu 8.10 and for Ubuntu 9.04, as the issues described there will in most cases also apply.

Setting wireless regulatory domain via module option no longer supported

Ubuntu 9.10 enables the CRDA wireless regulatory framework for controlling which wireless channels are usable and visible in a particular location. If you previously had to use the module option similar to that below in /etc/modprobe.d/options to allow access to certain channels in your locality then you may find that wireless will not function at all:

• options cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom=EU

You should remove this kernel module option on upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 and use the iw reg command instead.

(This change was made in Ubuntu 9.04.)

X server crashes when using a wacom tablet

The wacom driver in Ubuntu 9.10 supports automatic configuration, but it conflicts with manual device entries for wacom tablets in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, causing the X server to crash either on startup or shutdown. Please comment out or remove the entries from xorg.conf to get rid of the crashes. (358643)

Kubuntu may keep unneeded guidance power package

The kubuntu upgrade may leave the no longer needed packages "kde-guidance-powermanager" or "guidance-power-manager" installed. Those can be removed.

Ctrl-Alt-Backspace disabled by default in Xorg

The Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key combination to force a restart of X is now disabled by default, to eliminate the problem of accidentally triggering the key combination. Users who do want this function can enable it in their xorg.conf, or by running the command dontzap --disable.

(This change was made in Ubuntu 9.04.)

Change in notifications of available updates

Ubuntu 9.10 launches update-manager directly to handle package updates, instead of displaying a notification icon in the GNOME panel. Users are notified of security updates on a daily basis, but for updates that are not security-related, users will only be prompted once a week.

Users who wish to continue receiving update notifications in the previous manner can restore the earlier behavior using the following command:

gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

(This change was made in Ubuntu 9.04.)

Other known issues

Switching to ext4 requires manually updating grub

If you choose to upgrade your / or /boot filesystem in place from ext2 or ext3 to ext4 (as documented on the ext4 wiki), then you must also use the grub-install command after upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04 to reinstall your boot loader. If you do not do this, then the version of GRUB installed in your boot sector will not be able to read the kernel from the ext4 filesystem and your system will fail to boot.

Avahi will not start if a .local domain is present

The avahi-daemon package, which implements the mDNS "zeroconf" standard, includes a check to avoid running when a conflicting .local DNS domain is present. It is reported that some ISPs advertise such a .local domain on their networks, which will leave Ubuntu 9.10 hosts unable to see names advertised on the local network (327362).

To force the use of mDNS on a network configured this way, users can run the commands:

sudo sed -i -e'/AVAHI_DAEMON_DETECT_LOCAL/s/1/0/' /etc/default/avahi-daemon
sudo service avahi-daemon start

Amarok will not offer to download additional codecs when running Kubuntu from the live CD

When started from the live session, Amarok will not offer to download additional media codecs when needed, so, for example, it will be unable to play MP3 files. This will work normally after the system is installed to the hard disk. (362538)