The Internet is abuzz with everybody vouching for Ubuntu 9.10 as the best Ubuntu edition till now. I have been using Ubuntu for good 2.5 years from the days when getting wi-fi to work was a pain in the … neck, to the days when the wi-fi on almost any computer Just Works. I had updated to and happily using 8.10 since it release and I saw no reason why I should have had updated to 9.04, though I seriously envied the improved fonts in 9.04
But the buzz around 9.10 made sure that I couldn’t resist the temptation of updating this time. And what an experience has it been! Ubuntu is now much better looking, days of the “Orange OS” are gone and there is a set of good wallpapers too. And the beauty of Karmic is not only skin deep. There are some fundamental architectural changes too, like the new ext4 filesystem is the default, grub2 is the boot loader and HALD (the daemon responsible for discovering devices like pen drive,camera etc and notify the applications) is being phased out in favour of the better cousin DeviceKit.
Yes, Ubuntu will still not play the MP3s and avi, wmv files on first boot but you are only ” sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras ” away from such files. And yes, the Ubuntu Software Center is now much sleeker with several GUI improvements. Several of my friends have reported that installing software through Software Center can well become an addiction! Empathy, the default IM Client in Ubuntu brings voice and video chat to gtalk users, the absence of which had kept several people from adopting Ubuntu full time. The Network Manager is just awesome, wired and wireless internet has always been easy under Ubuntu but now forget all the dirty work one had to do to surf the net through USB modems or GPRS/3G phones, you just need to know the username and password, Network Manager will do the rest. And yes, did I forget to mention that Karmic boots with a fantastic artwork in 10 seconds flat!
I can praise Ubuntu only as far as my words can go but you will have to really use it to believe me. And no, I am not saying all this because I am a Linux fanatic, Windows 7 is an awesome OS too but don’t we all like choice ? And yes, on a parting note, if you have a 64 bit processor, do give a try to 64 bit Ubuntu 9.10 , you will savour the satisfaction of giving your 64 bit processor, a matching 64 bit OS as mate!!
Abhishek's Blog 