Maverick Meerkat On VPCEA36FG

I spent my weekend doing fresh install of Maverick Meerkat on my VPCEA36FG. Save for the audio problem, which is related to Alsa version, most of the issues that I was dealing with Lucid still exist. So, all the solution listed on that post are still applicable.

So let me list what I like from Maverick

• Better battery performance. The power management applet reported an additional hour to my battery life. Cool
• The problem with Firefox Awesome bar stop working after screen lock is gone. I’m so happy
• Firefox seems to load faster. I don’t know why
• Changing screen brightness with the custom script now display proper notify-OSD notification
• Faster overall performance.

..And what I don’t like

• The monitor applet and ATI Catalyst Control Center aren’t playing nicely together. Changing to dual monitor on Lucid usually require me to plug the second monitor to the HDMI port, that’s it. The second monitor will be detected immediately. On Maverick, plugging the second monitor to the HDMI ports will also start the monitor detection process, but the screen will show garbage. I need to log out and log back in to get usable screen. Sucks. Badly
• Blueman DUN connection stops working with the network manager applet. Luckily, the default bluetooth manager works fine, even tough it’s not as flexible as blueman
• Switching off wireless connection using the hardware switch does not kill bluetooth. I have to manually turn it off by clicking the icon and select “turn off Bluetooth”

With Natty coming out sometime next month, should I keep Maverick ?

Well.. it feels… bleeding edge. Everything seems to move faster that Lucid. It is obviously less stable that Lucid, which is understandable since Lucid is an LTS release. And the multi monitor problem bugs me to no end,  since I use the setting quite a lot with a 32″ Samsung LCD TV at home.

The longer battery life is a nice surprise, although I need to confirm this with more thorough test.

I think I’m gonna keep it, and hope that the multi-monitor problem will be solved sometime in the future. I really don’t dig Unity in Natty. It definitely looks good, but feels very awkward to use, and I don’t see me using it in near future.