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Having used Ubuntu since 2005 I have seen allot of improvement from the community operating system. So with the alpha release of the latest long term support version I though I would take the Lucid Lynx for a test run. As usual the Install CD has a live desktop option and runs smoothly. The testing was done within Virtual Box running under Ubuntu 9.10 AMD64.
Virtual Box Specs (as seen by Lucid guest)
CPU: AMD Turion(tm) 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-60 (1500MHz)
RAM: 1024MB
Video Memory: 128MB
Harddisk: 10GB
Network: 10/100 PCNet
Media: Lucid Lynx Alpha 1 ISO (32bit)
The Install
As we have come to expect from Ubuntu the install is very smooth & easy to follow. Along with the ext4 Journaled File System there is now the ability to have your home directory encrypted. All in all not much new here as of yet.
The Desktop.
The first thing I noticed was yes, the brown theme remains. There is a nice selection of desktop wallpapers available, as per 9.10 there is also a slideshow desktop wallpaper option. A quick google on 'Ubuntu slideshow wallpaper' should help you create your own as opposed to the using the Cosmo slideshow included.
Also with the introduction of the new Gnome version in 9.10 we can no longer easily change the logon theme, but this thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1311284 @ Ubuntu Forums should help you change the background of the logon screen at least.
The Applications
The applications included within Lucid are much the same as in 9.10 except there is a lack of games. There are now only 5 games included as opposed to the 17 previously included. There is not really much need for a in-depth look at each application as they are standard across most Linux flavours these days. The only one I was surprised at in 9.10 as well as in Lucid is the inclusion of Empathy IM Client in place of Gaim/Pidgin & Ekiga SIP phone.
I do not know about my fellow users out there, but Pidgin has always been my choice for any OS that I have run. With this in mind I had a look at the developers blog and found that the reason for this change was due to the Empathy's integration with Gnome as well as the use of Telepathy to manage the protocols it supports. Empathy supports (amongst others) SIP, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo & Gtalk, which means that the it can support Voice/Video calls & all favoured IM services from within a single application. You can find out more at http://live.gnome.org/Empathy.
List Of Applications
| Games |
Accessories |
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| * AisleRiot Solitare |
* Calculator |
| * Gnometris |
* CD/DVD creator |
| * Mahjongg |
* Character Map |
| * Mines |
* Disk Usage Analyzer |
| * Sudoku |
* gedit |
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* Manage print jobs |
| Internet |
* Password and Encryption keys |
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* search |
| * Evolution mail |
* Take screenshot |
| * Firefox web browser |
* Terminal |
| * Empathy IM Client |
* Tomboy Notes |
| * Remote Desktop Viewer |
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| * Terminal Server Client |
Graphics |
| * Transmission BitTorrent Client |
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| * Ubuntu One |
* F-Spot photo manager |
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* GIMP image editor |
| Sound and Video |
* OpenOffice Drawing |
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* XSane Image Scanner |
| * Brasero Disc Burner |
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| * Movie Player |
Office |
| * Rhythmbox Music Player |
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| * Sound Recorder |
* Dictionary |
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* Evolution mail and calender |
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* OpenOffice Presentaion |
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* OpenOffice Spreadsheet |
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* OpenOffice Word Processor |
Out Of The Box
Ok so out of the box neither DVD nor MP3 playback is supported, this is due to the licenses' around both. Both these features are easy to install as Totem will go out there and download the gstreamer plugins needed. Besides the media playback, the out of the box experience is quite slick and polished which doesn't feel like an alpha at all.
One of the things I always install during the initial setup is Cups-PDF Printer. After installing this I found that it didn't work, after some investigation I found that the version of Cups shipped on the install CD has a buggy pdftopdf library that causes the issue. However a `apt-dist upgrade` will upgrade cups to a later version which solves this issue.
What's Next?
There is not much new in this release as of yet, but with this being only the first alpha it is still early. Also with this being a LTS release I think there will be little new as it will mainly be built on the stability of the previous releases. The second alpha is scheduled for the 14th of this month with the 3rd near the end of February. It should be interesting to see what appears before the beta releases.
Thoughts
Well there is not really much I can say about the new release yet. I think it will be a while yet before we get a true taste of what is to come. With the last few releases we can be assured that it will be stable and another step forward. There are a few applications bundled with Ubuntu which I think should be changed out, but perhaps that is for another day.
Screen Grabs
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