Circlingthesun

I recently installed the beta version of the upcoming version of Ubuntu codenamed Karmic Kuala. The changes since 9.04 are somewhat subtle yet significant. Already in the beta you can feel the polish that went into it. Below, in no particular order, I shall rant about a few improvements that puts a smile on my face.

For one, the boot sequence has been completely revamped. Ubuntu now using a new X based splash screen that allows users to see way prettier graphics while they wait for their machine to come to life. The boot also seems more snappy so you wont have to look at progress bars for to long. Once the OS has loaded you are greeted with the new GDM login manager which has also been prettified. Overall the boot feels much smoother and should comfort the novice user when he or she boots into this strange new environment for the first time.

Sadly, the current default theme is yet another version of the same old brown crap we have seen countless times. Yet there is hope. As far as I know the final theme has not yet been chosen and if you install the community themes package there is this little beaut called Hanso. Hanso is another brown theme, but not the kind of shitty brown we have come to expect from Canonical. Think more along the lines of rich mahogany, something luxurious with an exclusive feel to it. Along with its shiny new icon set called Breathe, this theme is one that you wont have to be ashamed of when demoing a live cd to a new user. Frankly I think good first impressions are imperative. It doesn’t help explaining to a new user that the atrocity they had just witnessed is just the default theme and they can change any time. At that point the person has already made up his or her mind and will be running for the hills.

Enough about that. There is also a brand new Ubuntu Software Center which is reminiscent of the Apple App Store which I have never seen or used. Although it is really basic at this stage, it looks promising and like a step in the right direction. I’m actually typing this now on some oldy named blogging software called Lekhonee which I found in the Software Center.

Then, the network manager has also been revamped a bit. In conjunction with the Bluetooth applet you are now able to connect to your mobile phone’s 3G internet connection via Bluethooth in just a couple of clicks. Connecting to the internet from a fresh install is now as easy as grabbing some random persons phone and clicking about 7 or 8 times.

Another big reason to upgrade for those of you using Jaunty is that the big mess they made with the Intel Graphics drivers has now been cleaned up.

There are other changes like Empathy replacing Pidgin (which is probably a good move in the long term), but I don’t feel like going into that. You can go read about that on some other blog. If you feel the need to keep up to date with the latest developments and funky features on the Ubuntu front I highly recommend www.omgubuntu.co.uk.

The post is brought to you by lekhonee v0.7