My Thoughts on Ubuntu 10.04
Ubuntu 10.04 is out today! To mark the occasion, I am going to give you my thoughts of Lucid Lynx.
Ubuntu 10.04 is yet again an excellent release. This release is an Long-Term Support version (LTS) which has an aim to be a very stable release, and in most cases it does. With an aim to be stable release does not mean lack of features, it has
The All-New Ubuntu Desktop (click to enlarge)
tons of great additions. The key feature of 10.04 is the all new look to Ubuntu. Ubuntu has under gone new branding, with a new logo. Along with the new logo comes an entirely new UI to Ubuntu. The new Light theme makes Ubuntu look far more slick and professional than before. Ubuntu finally looks great! Part of the theme comes a new arrangement of the close, minimise, maximise buttons. They have moved from the right-hand side of a window to the left, like Mac OSX. It has caused complaints from many Ubuntu users, personally I like the change. Plus, it is very easy to move the buttons back to the right using Ubuntu Tweak. Along with the new theme, comes changes to the notification area. For many users the notification area, or system tray, has been filled with many different icons. In Lucid, these icons have been replaced with indicator applets, which are design to look and act similar, giving the user information about certain things going on with their computer. Such as, battery monitor, sound, network status and music playing. One of Mark Shuttleworth's own inventions has made it into 10.04, the Me Menu. This new menu which sits at the top right of your screen is used for all your social networking. It allows you to set your status (on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc) and change your status on your IM client (Available, Busy or Away). New wallpapers and the Ubuntu-Mono icon set finish off the brilliant look and fell to Lucid!
Further improvements have been seen since the last release, 9.10. An new kernel (2.6.32) provides improved hardware support, which also makes Ubuntu the first OS to support USB3.0 out of the box. The new kernel also supports the new open-source nVidia drivers, nouveau. However, I am having issues with these new drivers, causing crashing, no providing the correct resolution and no 3D support. Luckily, you can use the official nVidia drivers, which cause no problems at all.
One of Ubuntu 10.04 's main aims was to have social out of the box, making it the first OS to do so. Improvements to the Instant Messenging client, Empathy, as seen the added support of Facebook Chat from the desktop. Gwibber is a new addition to Ubuntu, which is a micro-blogging client. It allows the user to follow their friend's statuses and post their own on many services, such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, etc. The default applications in Ubuntu has been important for this release. For the first time, Ubuntu has a video editing application, Pitivi. It is a basic and easy to use video editor, which does the job well. Gimp has been dropped in favour for a more user friendly F-Spot. F-Spot has a very easy to use editing feature, with the key basic editing tools. Many games have been removed, however 5 have stayed which seem to the popular ones with many users.
Ubuntu One, which is Ubuntu's online service which was added in the last release, has seen improvements in Lucid. Improvements have been made to their cloud storage service to important the user experience. However, the service is still not stable enough in my opinion. I'm still using Dropbox, hoping Ubuntu One will be ready soon. One of the major new features in Ubuntu One has been the Ubuntu One Music Store. It works like iTunes. In the default music player in Ubuntu, Rhythmbox, there is now the Ubuntu One Music Store. You can browse the store, find your favourite tracks, buy and download. DRM-Free MP3s. The store is powered by 7-Digital, so it has a great library of Music. However, it is abit pricey compared to my favourite Amazon MP3.
Improvements to applications already Ubuntu have been made. Firefox 3.6 is faster than ever. OpenOffice 3.2 also boasts faster startup times. Gnome 2.30 provides a very stable desktop, before its jump to Gnome 3. Ubuntu also boasts improved speed, with boot up times faster than ever. Expect to me on your desktop within 15-20 seconds of pressing your power button.
Overall, Ubuntu 10.04 is an excellent release. Many improvements to the Ubuntu desktop make it the best-looking OS out. The OS is more user-centric than ever before, with applications and social networking features which will appeal to most modern day computer users. There are now ever more reasons to move away from Windows and Mac OS X!
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.
Me!
Ed Hewitt, 19, Studying @ Derby Uni, Blogger, Ubuntu user, Columnist & Podcaster for FCM, Gamer, Admin on Gfire.- Spotify is saved. Usa by the end of the year!
- Back home from work. 2:30am, time for IT crowd!
- Half way through my shift. Time for a double expesso.
