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My Thoughts on Ubuntu 9.10

(Originally post on 29 Oct 2009)

Ubuntu 9.10 is out today! I have been trying it out since the beta, I thought today it would be a good idea to give my thoughts on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Kola.

Straight off the bat, Ubuntu 9.10 is the best release so far. Of course, you think that ever Ubuntu release is better than the last one. However, Ubuntu 9.10 has made, in my opinion, a huge leap forward over its past releases. I believe this is down to three key features of Karmic. Firstly, the Ubuntu Hundred Paper Cuts project. This project was started at the beginning of the Karmic development cycle. The aim of the project is to fix minor usability bugs within Ubuntu. In past releases, you may have noticed these, such as window titles having no title and inconsistency with naming of certain parts of Ubuntu; e.g. Filesystem or File System. 100 usability bugs have been targeted for Karmic, so far only 50 of these have been fixed. These 50 fixes have made Ubuntu more polished and well put together. One of the major usability bugs which has been fixed is system beep. For many releases, I have been interrupted by a loud system beep, now it has been replaced by a sound file.

Secondly, the new look of the User Interface is excellent. Everything from, booting up to logging in to your desktop is beautiful. There is a new “boot experience”, mainly thanks to xorg starting first. This now allows for a fully graphical boot, with no flicker! Boot time is quicker than Jaunty, but you will not see as much as change as

The New Ubuntu Desktop (click to enlarge)

we did between Intrepid and Jaunty. The login screen now features a list of users with their login picture. Very similar to Windows XP. Its a design feature Ubuntu has been needing for many years, since its more suited to home users. Before I talk about the desktop, the entire boot experience reminds me of the OS X boot experience. It is very similar, this is not a bad thing, since I believe OS X is the best looking operating system. Ubuntu is coming close to beating OS X in that area. The desktop is looking great too. The new desktop look features a new theme, icons and wallpapers. The new theme makes Ubuntu looking abit smarter and polished, though it is still brown. The new icons are excellent, one of the best improvements to Karmic. The new default wallpaper is excellent, but for the first time, Ubuntu comes with a good selection of different types of wallpapers. Other UI improvements have been with notify-osd, a more slimer notification box, which is used more often. In your home folder, new icons have been added to certain folders, such as Music and Documents, to represent what is in them.

Thirdly, the Linux Kernel. Its usually a feature hidden away from the end user and most people see it as not being very important. However, with the Karmic release, I have noticed major advancements in Linux Kernel. Ubuntu 9.10 ships with kernel 2.6.31, this kernel and the one before it, 2.6.30, have brought big advancements to Linux. More drivers which now include USB 3.0 support, first OS to support it!!! Plus, on my EEE PC 900, the wifi on/off switch now works! Speed and stability improvements to ext4! Faster boot! Better memory management! Better performance! These major advancements have made Ubuntu 9.10 very quick and snappy. I have found that applications load up quicker, just general use of the OS feels more responsive. Plus, improvements to xorg which means that the Intel drivers are back up to good performance again. All these improvements complete a far more polished Ubuntu!

Of course, like all Ubuntu releases, new applications are updated and added. One major application change has been the replacement of Pidgin with Empathy. Personally, I am not happy with the change, Empathy is a good IM client which integrates well with Gnome, however I prefer Pidgin. I have removed Empathy and Installed Pidgin, no problems. Gnome 2.28 is in Karmic, nothing which excites me with this release. Firefox has been updated to 3.5, faster webpage loading, new javascript engine, private browsing and support for HTML5, all good advancements. OpenOffice 3.1 and Gimp 2.6.7 are now in Ubuntu. Canonical's online backup service, Ubuntu One, has been fully integrated into Karmic. It is a good service for Ubuntu users, however it has not replaced Google Docs, because I access my work at University on a Windows PC. Ubuntu One does not work well on Windows. I will hopefully do a full review on Ubuntu One shortly.

To conclude, Ubuntu 9.10 is the best release ever. Mainly down to being a polished version of Ubuntu, thanks to work of the Hundred Paper Cuts project. Advancements in the UI and applications have completed the final product, making a more usable OS. Ubuntu has now got an excellent stepping stone onto the next release, for further improvements and polish.