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Ubuntu 9.10 is Coming
Work has been keeping on my toes lately and posts are few and far between. However I did have some time try out the upcoming Ubuntu release and I am actually very excited about the release. I tried out the Alpha 5 late last month and then the Beta I have running now on a spare machine.
Overall I think it is going to be a solid release; one of the best in a while for Ubuntu. It seems like they are really trying to push things forward in this release. Below are some of the features note.
Software Center
One of the new additions to the Ubuntu desktop is a new replacement for the Add/Remove program. It sounds like they are trying to integrate all of the various applications used to install and update software. However the software center has a lot of work yet to be done on it and it remains to be seen how well this application will be a real replacement for Synaptic, the Update Manager and apt-get.
This interface is a lot nicer than the old application for finding and installing software. You can actually get halfway decent details about an application before you choose to install it. Also you can queue up applications you want to install as you go instead of having to mark them all and then run it all at once, feels a lot more streamlined.
They also are playing with the idea of presenting commercial software in the software center. This seems like a good possibility for Canonical to monetize their Linux offering by running a pay for commercial repository. I don't think we will really see any of this in this release, so we will have to wait to see where this goes.
PulseAudio
They finally seem to be trying to properly integrate PulseAudio. The default sound preferences seems to support a much more robust set of sound preferences. I haven't really had a chance to put the sound system through its paces yet because the machine I am testing on doesn't have a microphone or anything to test out Skype on. The real test will come after the release and I upgrade all my machines.
Look
With every release they keep slowly getting closer and closer to something decent for a default theme for Ubuntu. This time they have opted for something a little darker and on the whole it is a little more attractive. However the default background on the Beta is ugly as can be. On the other hand the the boot up and login screens look great.
And of course, as always you can customize it to no end.
Boot
The boot time seems remarkably fast. Also the look and amount of polish on the whole process is really impressive. The startup splash screen is really slick looking and the way the login window fades into the desktop gives the whole desktop startup experience a level of polish that you don't see in any other operating system to date.
