As usual I have been installing or trying to get the new ubuntu release installed on a couple of the older computers I have just to test it out. Unfortunately the last couple of releases have had some real installation issues from things just freezing to not wanting to install on anything that I have tried. This version is no exception but if you're patient enough you can get it working. I just finished installing it on an older motherboard and at least this board lets me get to the desktop. The beta didn't. Unfortunately once I try to open say the system settings from the desktop unity, it just freezes. I have tried a few other things off the web to no help. But I did read something that pointed me in the right direction, as it appears the freezes are related to your video. So this machine I just install it on has an intel cpu and an nvidia chip for the video. The ubuntu apparently uses the x.org graphics by default and pretty much wreaks havock on the computer by simply freezing it. Luckily it looks like I may have a bit of a way to fix this. At least on this particular machine, I am able to use the search from the ubuntu logo which is the top icon on the left vertical bar, this is the default unity screen. So here are the steps.
1. Make sure you are connected to the internet.
2. Use the search to find the update so you can update the os.
3. use the search to change the video drivers. Just type drivers and the "additional drivers" window will open up. Assuming things are working after you update if you were able to update, you should see the nvidia drivers. It will take a bit for those to show up, just keep moving the mouse to make sure your computer is not frozen. Change the driver from the x.org to one of the others assuming you have an nvidia like I do, and let it do its thing. If everything goes well, reboot the computer and you should be able to use everything now. At least it looks that way for me. If you don't reboot, your computer will still freeze at it is still using the x.org.
After getting that working, here are a couple of basic changes I suggest making to keep it at least running at a usable pace.
1. Open system settings again, go to security and privacy, click on the search tab and turn that off. If not when you search the darn thing also searches the web and that slows the search down a heck of a lot.
2. Right click on the desktop after you're done with the above and go to "Change desktop background" then hit the behavior tab and in "Show menus for a window" choose in the windows title bar so that you get the menus on the windows themselves. If not they will only be at the top of the screen on that bar.
3. Click on the clock, top right, then time and date settings, then the clock tab. Check the Date, Month and year boxes, so these show next to the clock too. You can also check the weekday too to show what day it is. It's nice to see all of this on there.
After this, you can pretty much change anything to your liking, but this should hopefully get it to a usable state. If this doesn't work, well then you can try the many internet suggestions. Every systems is different, so it's hard to say what will or won't work.
Keep in mind that the flash player is still not working here. So no youtube yet.
The reason for using this latest version is because it supports many more drivers automatically, unfortunately they didn't get the graphics quite right to make it usually right of the bat with some machines. You win some and you lose some. Either way, I got it in a laptop and it worked fine there so I didn't have to do anything, so it really depends on the hardware itself from what I can tell, some will work others won't.
Just a bit of an update. I have now been using the OS to burn some isos and doing some web surfing and so far it's been stable, so no weird stuff after making the changes above. Youtube has started working again. I couldn't get the flash download so I left it alone and it worked on its own after a reboot or two. Not sure what the heck is going on there, but apparently there is some bug with flash at the moment.
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