Ubuntu 9.10 Released!
Today is the day. No, not the 20th anniversary of the birth of Elizabeth Kampwerth. Well, yes, but that’s not what this article is about. Today is the release of Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala. For those of you that have not had the pleasure of having personal relations with Ubuntu, I apologize and encourage you to abandon Windows on the curb. Or at least send Windows to the other room while you gaze upon Ubuntu in all of its glory.
If you haven’t used any of the nightly builds (aka you’ve been using Ubuntu 9.04 until today), you’re bound to notice some major changes. The first change you’ll notice is the faster boot time, thanks to Upstart. Then, of course, the upgrade to the new GNOME release (which uses Empathy instead of Pidgin by default). On top of that, Ubuntu also ships with a new Linux kernel. With the expected changes out of the way, I’ll introduce a few things that you may not have been expecting.
Add/Remove… Removed
In this release, the Ubuntu Software Center is introduced. One of the goals of the USC is to be the single place to go to install, update, and remove packages (applications, fonts, etc). While it will currently only be replacing the Add/Remove… in the Applications menu, all other package management applications will hopefully be replaced in April, 2010 release (Synaptic Package Manager, Update Manager, etc). This is as exciting for current Ubuntu users as it is for newcomers. It simplifies all of ours lives by allowing us to use one application to handle packages rather than several.
Ubuntu One… Ready for Takeoff
To keep up with the competition (or surpass them), Ubuntu comes preloaded with its public version of cloud computing, Ubuntu One. Think of it as your own personal 2GB of storage… smart storage. You can backup your data and access it from a friend’s house via the web interface. If you have music, movies, or photos, you can pay $10 a month for 50GB of space. Have your own backup system in place already? Simply use Ubuntu One as additional storage. We could all use 2GB of free space every once in a while.
Is Ubuntu Ready for the General Public?
I believe one more release is necessary (due in April) to smooth things out a bit more, but I believe anyone that can use Google (use Google well, that is) can use Ubuntu with ease. A full review of Ubuntu 9.10 should be up within the week, to allow myself time to test everything out. Until then, Happy Ubuntuing!
Tags: cloud computing, Empathy, GNOME, Linux, Pidgin, Ubuntu, Ubuntu 9.10, Ubuntu One, Ubuntu Software Center, Upstart