Ubuntu 9.04: What’s New for Desktop Users?
With Ubuntu 9.04, otherwise known as the Jaunty Jackalope, set to be released in less than three weeks, WorksWithU will be publishing some posts about what the latest and greatest version of Ubuntu will mean to different groups of users. Today, we begin with a look at the new features that Jaunty brings to traditional desktops.
Jaunty doesn’t include any earth-shattering changes for the traditional desktop–and it shouldn’t, because Ubuntu already works pretty well on most personal computers.
Below is a breakdown of the features most noticeable to desktop users, most of which represent incremental improvement in areas where Ubuntu was pretty strong to begin with.
Look-and-feel
The first change that desktop users are likely to notice is an updated look-and-feel. Although plans to completely revamp Ubuntu’s look for the 9.04 release were postponed for a later version, Jaunty still comes with some aesthetic improvements, including the much-vamped notification system and a more diverse set of alternative themes available by default.
2.6.28 kernel
Under the surface, Jaunty sports the 2.6.28 Linux kernel, the latest stable release (2.6.29.1 is the latest stable kernel as of 7 April). While most of the new features in the kernel are of little consequence to most desktop users, changes most likely to affect the desktop include a more feature-rich wireless stack with support for a broader range of devices, which will be a welcome improvement among users who previously had to install wireless drivers manually.
Desktop users can also benefit from the latest kernel’s support for the ext4 file system. Although there were reports of data loss using ext4 under the Jaunty alpha releases, this bug has reportedly been fixed. Users who opt for ext4 (ext3 is still the default choice in the Ubuntu installer) can enjoy impressive boot times and other performance improvements.
Gnome 2.26
Ubuntu 9.04 will ship with Gnome 2.26 desktop environment , which, unsurprisingly, is responsible for the lion’s share of new features useful to desktop users. The latest Gnome release offers such improvements as:
- support for Microsoft’s MAPI protocol in the Evolution mail client, which will make the lives of people working in Windows-dominated environments easier (here’s hoping Gmail IMAP also finally works reliably in Evolution–I haven’t gotten a chance to try it yet)
- an updated screen-configuration utility, offering better support for multiple monitors
- the ability to assign arbitrary commands to key bindings of the user’s choice, meaning that hotkeys can be created for almost every task imaginable, rather than being limited to the choices available in the “Keyboard Shortcuts” utility
- a more intuitive interface for Brasero, the CD/DVD burning utility
Summary
In short, Ubuntu 9.04 won’t be a revolutionary release for desktop users, but it brings some attractive new features offering incremental improvement in areas from look-and-feel to boot time to wireless support. And at this point in Ubuntu’s development, slow-but-steady advancement on the desktop is precisely what it needs in order to continue its encroachment onto the personal computers of casual users.
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“A more diverse set of alternative themes”? Really? Is it the dark panel and title bar that set it apart? Or is it the never-before-seen-in-Ubuntu earth tones? I’m beginning to think the light is different in Africa, or that African eyes are more sensitive to subtle color change. I don’t know, I’m undecided.
Totally new and unexpected would be if Ubuntu used blue and Kubuntu used brown. Now, that would be creative. NOT!
Brown should be banned if real style change is wanted. But calling these slight variations diverse sets the bar too low. Like, inches-from-the-ground too low.
“And at this point in Ubuntu’s development, slow-but-steady advancement…”
In 6 months Ubuntu got a new kernel, better boot time, new notification system, updated versions of everything and an official netbook version.
MS took 3 years to make win7 faster than Vista(making it even slower would be an achievement!!)
I don’t find Ubuntu development slow at all.
Scott:
Look at it from this point of view, Ubuntu has always been known for it’s orange/brown look and so the Ubuntu Developers ar enot suddenly going to add a blue or green theme in here or there. It’s like Apple adding in some yellow or red themes, just becuase some people may like them.
No the Ubuntu Developers have picked some themes that fit in with the already well known colour scheme and let users choose between them. If you detest brown that much, go to gnome-look.org and download any one of the thousnads of themes on there.
The Ubuntu Developers are not suddenly going to modify their brand identity because it may please a few users, and that is the beauty of Linux, if you don’t like it, you can change it.
Not to mention there are already several other different color schemed themes in ubuntu. Of course not made by the ubuntu developers, but the creaters of the several GTK engines, but still, they are there, and always were.
Love the changes to 9.04. However being a KDE fan, I quickly moved to Kubuntu 9.04. It runs great after a few updates with KDE 4:2.2.2, QT 4.5. Running on my test Toughbook and a Dell Mini 9.
I think you will find that the latest stable release for the kernel is actually 2.6.29.
Bah! Evolution still cannot connect to Exchange servers later than 2003 … its DOA, as far as most office environments go!
“I think you will find that the latest stable release for the kernel is actually 2.6.29.”
True, but it was released rather late for inclusion in 9.04. I expect it (or 2.6.30?) will be included in 9.10.
Just an FYI – Evolution seems to work reliably with Gmail IMAP for me.
Version 2.24.1.1 on Suse 11.1.
I could certainly be missing something, though.
Timmans: you’re right, 2.6.29 is the latest stable kernel. Thanks for the correction.
Tom: Evolution with Gmail does work more or less, but it has a tendency to hang sometimes, taking a really long time to open messages. The trash folder also doesn’t really work–if I delete messages in Evolution, they end up reappearing in my inbox the next time I log into Gmail in the web browser. If you google around you can find other users reporting similar problems. Other IMAP services have always worked fine for me, so I’m hoping the developers will get around to figuring out what’s wrong with Gmail and Evolution (I suspect it has to do with Gmail’s unstandardized implementation of IMAP) and fixing it one of these days.
It is good that open source projects like this keep evolving and getting better and better. Nevertheless I would be much happier if all the energy was put into a small set of items that I believe make a difference:
- Improve stability: that means resolve all issues before adding more functionality… that applies to all apps on a distribution. Evolving more people on testing and reporting is crucial.
- Improve interoperability: this is linked to the first one but needs more emphasis. Linux distributions should work better with devices and better with other systems.
…and then go for new functionality… make it stable… and start again.
Anyone know if Wubi has been fixed so you don’t get the Err13 permission denied error when Wubi is nearly finished it’s install?
9.04 Beta is really the first version of Ubuntu since 7.04 that I consider to be potentially good. It’s the best beta I’ve seen from Ubuntu and KDE 4.2.2 is far better than its reputation.
If the release keeps the promises of the Beta and attention to bugfixing is there I even will consider to start recommend *buntu again.
Great job – so far.
I don’t know why people have such a hard time with the brown/orange ubuntu colors. I personally think they are soothing. But hey, you don’t like it then feel free to run a different theme. I do that from time to time to change things up. Whats the big deal?
another important feature at least to me is blurtooth+mobile broadband support via network manager
Installed the beta version on my laptop when it came out, have never successfully been able to install 8.10 always hung on install. 9.04 went right in with wireless working even when still on the Live CD. It seems to be faster booting and have had no issues.
Correction.
Ubuntu doesn’t include all portions of GNOME 2.26…
they are still shipping gdm 2.20 from GNOME 2.20. That is a deliberate decision.
It’s really unfortunate that the Canonical developers who added presence features as a patch to the dead gdm 2.20 codebase for Intrepid didn’t take their work directly to upstream and help implement the D-BUS presence API introduced in gdm/gnome-session during the run up to 2.26 release.
http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gnome-session/?pathrev=5211
http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gdm/?pathrev=6663
Notice who the committer is?
If Canonical is taking the reins and leading the charge for a better default desktop experience… why is the upstream presence api work being committed by a Red Hat employee?
Will the manhours of effort Canonical paid for to integrate presence into the Intrepid desktop be obsoleted in gnome 2.28 in six months? Or will Canonical continue to hold back Gnome desktop components in their distribution in order to keep their home grown presence implementation working instead of helping to make sure the upstream GNOME presence stack is optimal?
-jef
I would really like to try 9.04 but until the following is “fixed” I have to stay with 8.10!
From the Ubuntu 9.04 Beta web site.
“Upgrading a desktop system using an ATI video chipset with the fglrx binary-only driver may result in a warning that the driver needs to be replaced. There is a bug in the driver replacement logic, so if you see this prompt, please cancel the upgrade until this is fixed, which will happen immediately after the beta release.”
Desktop looks: If they changed to blue theme then you would hear an outcry that Ubuntu is just aping windows. I just change to my personal themes as soon as i do an install anyway.
Still have problems with all kinds of things Still can’t get proper resolution on many of my machines. Wireless sucks on a few of them. Even though other distros like Mandriva load right up and run everything. Performance is always slower than other distros. I keep trying, but I’m just going to go back to Mandriva so that I have something that works with everything.
I would like to thank you everyone involved in Ubuntu project! I installed Ubuntu remix 9.04 beta on my asus eee and works right out the box.
The new netbook remix interface really works for smaller form factors. I really like how so many micro-improvements are making this system into a more polished, more beautiful and more modern OS of choice. For example, the new UI for OpenOffice makes it look more flashy, more up-to-the-date. Firefox performance is seriously improved. The boot time is 2 times shorter than before! New themes available by default freshens everything up even more!
My friend, who did not buy into Linux before, was very impressed to see how much progress was made with this beta release. He does not like command line interface much, and that’s why after he installed Firefox plugins w/o leaving the browser to view different media files, he told me that now he would switch to Linux. Yet another victory on FOSS’s side.
In one word, it’s truly amazing to see how Ubuntu and FOSS software is changing the world for the better.
Thank you!
Lot of my customers may switch to Ubuntu if Evolution works better with MS Exchange. For Ubuntu to capture corporate customers making evolution work is very critical. This is just a suggestion to put better show in enterprise accounts. Congratulation on your progress. Thumbs up to Ubuntu. They are gonna change the world.
Boot time!
its soo much faster
I noticed you left out EXT4 support which is a significant boost over EXT3. Also, some of the more major package updates such as OO.org 3 and Netbeans 6.5 (for those who need it) are rather handy updates.
Ubuntu is a good desktop, 7.x was particularly better than 8.x. I hope 9.x will be good. BUT, I agree with some of you who complain about brown theme. I’m not against ubuntu using brown as the default theme, but atleast provide some decent non-brown themes so we can change, instead of downloading from some website.
Unfortunatly, bugs are appearing. One which is very annoying: in evolution you cannot set the time of an event; every event you are going to create has an all-day-long time. That’s something which make perfectly unusable the calendar. Thank gnome for fixing it as soon as possible.
Guys you can’t compare Ubuntu development to Windows 7 development. They’re totally different! In Ubuntu, something actually happened, With Windows 7 they just slapped a Vista theme on XP and called it a new OS. $300 more please thank you!!!
No offense aikiwolfie but you don’t know what you’re talking about, check your facts.
As for Ubuntu’s new look, I dig the new colors much better than the traditional brown but I still don’t like how they stick the 3 icons next to the menu on the top-bar.. IMO it looks amateurish!
So with this release I can:
Watch a video store dvd
Run GoogleEarth without jumping thru hoops
Use my Canon Pixma printer
?
I agree with captkit. Why is it so hard to do things like install Google Earth or download and install new drivers from NVIDIA’s website? I’m not switching to Linux until I can watch DVDs out of the box, and simply double click installers to run them instead of having to open a terminal and type all sorts of weird “sudo” stuff.
WindowsFan: It’s hard to argue with you. Linux (and Ubuntu) still have some nagging challenges. We’ll never hype Ubuntu as the “perfect” alternative to Windows, MacOS X or other Linux distributions. But we will track Ubuntu’s progress — responsibly — on WorksWithU.
Keep us honest. Let us know when our content misses the mark. And let us know if you ever make the leap to Ubuntu.
Best,
Joe Panettieri
Editorial Director
WorksWithU
I’m getting sick of saying this, so here it is one more time just for your benefit. (@ captkit & WindowsFan)
WINDOWS DOES NOT SUPPORT DVD PLAYBACK OUT-OF-THE-BOX. This functionality is installed by the OEM’s.
There is no need to use the command line to install this support either, just open up your package manager, Synaptic, and install the ubuntu-restricted-extras.
If you have a problem installing Google Earth, take it up with Google. It is how ever in the Repos, so there is no need to download it from the Google website.
It sounds like you need to re-adjust from doing things the windows way. There is no need to download from web sites, that’s what the package managers are for.
@Scotty Bones
Actually, Vista Home Premium and Ultimate DO support DVD playback out-of-the-box… But hey, who wants them?
Windows XP (the most used version of Windows) does not support RAID, any drivers, printers, codecs, or any resolution bigger than 800×600 and I am talking about out of the box. It does not recognize modems, graphic cards, monitors, printers, wireless or any nonbasic device. You have to find the damn disk that came with your computer, and even then most of the times, you have to deal with complicated menus or diferent executables for the same thing or find it by yourself on the internet.
Comparing Paint against GIMP or wordpad against openoffice and you are done comparing out-of-the-box functionality.
Ubuntu is not perfect, but hey, out-of-the-box is much better than windows xp (cannot talk much about Vista since it takes ages to do anything in my laptop)
I can’t understand many of the comments here.
I have 11 employees and we work so hard to earn meney, then when buy a PC or laptop, I’m paying about $300 for OS and another $300 for office etc.
What about registry tools, anti virus, personal firewall and so much more?
I switched some of my PCs and laptops from XP Pro and Vista business to Linux and I want to thank Ubuntu for what they do for us.
It works great and all my guys love the traditional brown…
OpenOffice gives us everything we need and the new 9.04 runs better than any Windows I know.
Scotty Bones (32) said “It sounds like you need to re-adjust from doing things the windows way” and Roger said “Ubuntu is not perfect, but hey, out-of-the-box is much better than windows xp”.
And I, as a new user saying: THANK YOU UBUNTU.
The brown theme argument… Ubuntu should ship with brown/orange, but make it easy to switch to blue or green or black.
I find a blue theme more relaxing, many others do too. I used Kubuntu for several years just because of the default colors. Sure you can change them, many people do (I do frequently as well), but most people do not. If the theme selection is not ‘right on top’ and easy to get to then people will load LiveCD and say “don’t like the brown” and go on.
There is marketing strength in leading with the brown/orange theme – it’s different than competitors. If you’re designing a new coffee house brand, you don’t pick green since Starbucks already has that color mapped out in consumers heads.
But do make it easy to switch color themes (and then users can tweak the icons, boarder colors, etc separately).
All of you who keep harping on Evolution not working well with Exchange… well you’re right Evolution pretty much sucks. Sorry – but it does. THAT SAID – just run Wine or Crossover and go with Outlook. It works just fine even up to version 2007. I am using Outlook 2003 on my Linux box at work on our exchange server and it works beautifully. In fact I find it hilarious that most of Office works better on Linux than my XP partition. Start time on Word and Excel is literally as fast as Windows is at opening notepad.
This poses the question: So Linux can run Windows apps… when do you see Microsoft supporting Linux? Ain’t going to happen. Go open source.
Scotty Bones said: “If you have a problem installing Google Earth, take it up with Google. It is how ever in the Repos, so there is no need to download it from the Google website.” Even though the repo-way is nice it does not necessary work for all (I have Intrepid and done this and that and it still crashes) but as it is said, this is Google’s problem mainly.
What I really don’t understand is the bickering about color themes etc. What is important than color (& you can easily change themes . . . ) is the performance and usability. I think Ubuntu delivers these quite nicely.
I like Ubuntu & have gotten used to it. My problems usually lie in the applications (not being stable or not finding a version for your just installed version) .. and it takes time to get all the media and sound settings done correctly (+get mic working). I have made some concessions with some features when working on Ubuntu but I still believe that it is a good alternative to e.g. Windows.
Oh, one thing though, does anyone know have they managed to improve the renaming of multiple files and folders? There is an app for it but it would save a lot of time and nerves to be able to rename tons of files “naturally” through the file browser!
I haven’t used 9.04 yet, but downloading
, thank you UBUNTU
To Arcticmagnolia,
Install thunar file manager, through the package manager. It has an awesome bulk renaming tool, built into it.
I am using Ubuntu 9.04 / Xp / Vista and Linux Mint. I Loved PCLinuxOS 2007, but I always seem to come back to Ubuntu. Linux in general is incredible. Sometimes not as easy as Windows, but way safer, and so much more customizable.
P.s. I usually change the default theme right away (I like the Mac Look). But The brown theme is a refreshing change from the blues & greens of so many other distros.
Thank You To All Linux Distributions For There Hard Work!!
Too many mainstream apps still do not work or are not at all compatible with Ubuntu. I am pleasantly pleased with the GUI and the tools that come with it but cannot run this in my corporate enviroment due to compatibility issues. I also like Windows installer packages and would like to see a similar installer type for Linux. You cannot beat the price of Ubuntu but it suffers in those areas I mentioned. Keep building a great product and maybe in 3 or 4 more generations, it will be suitable for Enterprise use
I wonder why Ubuntu can do things and distros like Opensuse and Fedora cannot or will not. In all fairness, I do prefer Opensuse but there is always hassle thus am I using Ubuntu today. (But this more because I like the personage of Mark Shuttleworth). Ubuntu is great and probably can be used for all purposes in the mainstream. I foresee that Ubuntu can become like Mac, meaning the whole package: computer (laptop) with operation system. And instead of buying a Mac one can buy an Ubuntu. Would be great!