Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Review

Wow finally the ultimate Windows ( 7) killer reincarnated as Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala !!!. Ubuntu 9.10 is the best thing that has yet happened to Linux and is definitely the best Linux ever. So i think its worth have first look and review on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.Ubuntu 9.10 is a major update from Canonical Ltd. and all existing ubuntu user are recommended to upgrade. I guaranty that you wont regret that effort. The Windows 7 is also around the corner and will be a tough contender for ubuntu but the good news is Ubuntu karmic incorporates may new goodies , improvements that it is equipped to win the competition from Windows 7 or Mac OS X.



Now lets check out The Features of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala !!!

1)
The Ubuntu Software Store


Ubuntu is now following the success of Apple Store , Ubuntu Software Store makes installing and organising software pretty easy.It replaces the ADD/REMOVE option .But Synaptic is still there.

2)
UBUNTU BOOT TIME

Mark Shuttleworth CEO Canonical Ltd stated that Ubuntu 9.10 will boot "blindly quick", which shouldn't be surprising considering Ubuntu's presence on increasing number of devices like notebooks,Ubuntu Mobile on MIDs and Remix netbooks.
The best thing is Ubuntu 9.10
boots in 5 seconds with my Solid State Drive in my Desktop and 18 seconds in my new DELL Studio laptop!!! This is simply wonderful and i bet it is better than Windows 7. Ubuntu developers are being into serious work to improve boot performance as is evident from comparison below.

AVERAGE BOOT TIME
  • 9.10 (Karmic Koala ) : 18.45
  • 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope ) : 22.06
  • 8.04 (Hardy Heron ) : 26.09
This incredible boot performance is due to new Upstart technology and Ext4 File System.

3) Default Ext 4 File System
The fourth extended filesystem is a journaling file system (JFS) developed as the successor to ext3 is the latest stable File System which support volumes with sizes upto 1 Exbibyte and files with sizes up to 16 tebibytes. It provides major improvements to linux and is superior than NTFS!!




4) New Powerful Linux kernel 2.6.31
This new ubuntu kernel incoprorates USB 3.0 support and new Firewire drivers and major improvements to Ext4. The kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics processors, enhanced performance tracking and memory leak detection is also notable. The new linux kernel will definitely power up your system than ever!!

5)Grub 2

The next-gen of Linux GRUB bootloader
Grub 2 has been rewritten from scratch to provide greater flexibility and important features like localization support.

6)Enhanced Live-CD installer

The installer of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is basically the same but with refined friendly pictures of applications available with ubuntu 9.10 as the installation progress. It will be helpful for newbies who migrated from windows and dont know the name of required softwares.


7)New Icons & Themes

I remember the saying "First Impression is the best Impression" ,ubuntu 9.04 lacked killing looks and made a bad first impression ,but things have improved now in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Human Theme is improved and looks refined and they changed the icons design to Humanity which has got more polished and modern look!!


8)New Instant Messaging Client - Empathy
I having long recommending Empathy instead of Pidgin simply because it have better video and audio chatting features that Pidgin and it makes audio chatting with windows user with Gtalk possible.

9) Gnome 2.28
The gdm 2.28 login manager is completely rewritten, allowing more integrated login experience.
and ofcourse Pidgin is replaced by Empathy .Other minor changes are also include for details check out Gnome 2.28

10) Ubuntu One file sharing

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala ships the Ubuntu One file sharing web service which gives strongly-integrated data synchronization( a cloud-computing service) of your pc with other systems and the Ubuntu One network storage service.

The Ubuntu One

1) File syncronisation and network storage service were features which ubuntu lacked and which microsoft and apple have been providing for some time.

2)
Ubuntu One will become a major source of revenue for Canonical Ltd

11)New Intel video driver architecture

Thanks to Intel, they had done there bit to open source community. Many users experienced a WHITE SCREEN during shutdown which was really annoying in ubuntu 9.04 and ubuntu 8.10. Now its fixed in ubuntu 9.10 ,i recommend those users to review the use of there old ubuntu and go for ubuntu 9.10.

SHORTCOMINGS

People must guess why such a die-hard fan of linux like me must talk about shortcoming of Linux. Actually somethings in ubuntu can be a bit frustrating to new users i would like to discuss that here

Lack Of High-End Graphics Game
Gaming has always been a upper hand for windows. Why dont EA release NFS SHIFT for ubuntu ? The reason may be because Linux doesnt have a high-end graphics software framework like Directx. I am not saying that linux doesnt have descent games ,but the games in linux may not satisfy hard-core gamers. But games like Urban Terror,Yo Frankie are really fantastic and you will just love them, also propietary games like QUAKE4 are also available.

URBAN-TERROR
Working Out Of The Box
Some hardwares rarely dont work right out of the box, but we know there are solution to 99% of the problems in ubuntu forums.The problem with hardware is due to the lazy hardware vendor who dont provide drivers as they do for windows, its not fault of ubuntu or linux. New ordinary user may just dumb the os due lack of working out of the box, they may not bother to find out the soultions from the ubuntu community and fix it. So I think ubuntu which produce new releases every 6 months must take more time like 1 year and spent time to consider the user problems in the ubuntu community and fix it by themselves.
If such issues are ever solved it can be done by ubuntu alone because ubuntu alone have the financial backup and support of large linux community to solve such issues. Think putting a Ubuntu and Windows 7 netbook together inside Best Buy, then asking customers to bring over any hardware device – an iPod, a webcam, a USB device and watch which laptop flawlessly works. Imagine the additional power and respect we linux users would have over those Microsoft fanboys. Check This Link to know what i mean.
It just makes me smile thinking about it. Drop a comment or two. I’d love to hear what you people have to say.
By the way Canonical Ltd already announced Ubuntu 10.04 its called The Lucid Lynx !!!

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