asciipr0n

When I finally got around to upgrading my Ubuntu install to 8.10 (“Intrepid Ibex”) earlier this week, I ran into an issue with my keyboard. Yeap. My keyboard.

My left-arrow key no longer worked. My right arrow-key didn’t work. My up-arrow key became Print-screen. The first thing I did was hit the Ubuntu forums, where I found about a dozen “solutions” which either didn’t work or were just plain hacks. I finally found one that worked for me:

1. Open up /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist with your favorite text editor. Make sure you open it up with root privileges.
2. Add the following line into that file. Save, close, and reboot.

   blacklist evdev

Apparently, this was a known issue in the release candidate, but they went ahead and did a general availability release by just documenting a temporary solution in a forum. Breaking keyboard functionality (it worked perfectly in 8.04) is not the way to win new users, especially when the distribution is billed as user-friendly. I’d rather they push their release date back than have a show-stopper like this make it’s way out the door.

I’ve been thinking about getting a MacBook since before the new aluminum ones were recently announced. I’d like make sure that welcoming my first Mac into my barnyard of computers will go as smoothly as possible and without any regrets. However, since this is the first release of a new laptop case design from Apple, I expect there will be some issues as is the usual case for first-run Apple products.

Already, a few issues have been reported in a few forums.

• The battery/HDD cover doesn’t close flush against the case or has gaps.
• Problems with connecting external displays via DVI or VGA.

The Apple Defects wiki hasn’t reported any issues yet with the new late-2008 MacBooks or MacBook Pros, but I’m sure they will trickle in as the year wraps up. Are any of you dear readers unfortunate victims of defects in the new MacBook/Pros?

Update 10/4/2008: Looks like the trackpads are having issues now.