Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala - default desktop
In this article I'll overview the latest update of Karmic, after installing the Alpha 3 and performing a full sudo apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. Currently, Karmic Koala comes with Linux kernel 2.6.31, GNOME 2.27.5 as desktop environment, Empathy as the default chat application, OpenOffice 3.1 as the office suite, GIMP 2.6.6 as image editor. Firefox 3.5 is not yet included in the Karmic repositories, but it will surely be available in the October release, so currently 3.0.13 is the version in the repositories.
Karmic Koala will come with Ubuntu One integration, which is a service that provides a free 2 GB disk space to Ubuntu users.
Ubuntu One homepage
All you have to do is create a new account for Ubuntu One or use your already existing Launchpad.net account, then fire up Ubuntu One from the Applications -> Internet -> Ubuntu One menu entry, and start uploading your files. This service also includes a paid account which offers a 10 GB disk space.
Ubuntu One client
Empathy is the new instant messaging application in Karmic, replacing Pidgin completely and introducing the Telepathy protocol. Empathy has a user interface based on Gossip, which is a chat client for GNOME on top of Jabber.
Empathy supports many IM protocols, including Yahoo!, Jabber or MSN. Besides those, support for internet relay chat (IRC) is also available, to say nothing about Google Talk voice calls. Empathy also comes with smileys, notifications, sounds, conversation logging and themes for the user list.
Empathy running in Karmic
Ubuntu Karmic switched to ext4 as the default filesystem, but you can change to ext3 or some other filesystem using the partitioner included in the installer.
Another major change is the use of GRUB 2, the new boot manager.
Regarding development, Karmic will use the latest version of GCC 4.4 instead of 4.3.
Some other applications bundled with the Ubuntu CD include Transmission for BitTorrent, Evolution as the email client, over 10 GNOME games like Chess, Mahjongg, Four-in-a-Row or Sudoku, Totem for movies and videos, Rhythmbox as the music player, or the notes-taking application Tomboy.
GIMP 2.6.6
Tomboy 0.15.4
One of the other changes with impact on the user interface is the GNOME display manager (gdm), which was rewritten completely for this release.
Ubuntu came a long way since the old days and it consolidates its position more and more with every new release. Karmic can be only a step ahead considering all the hard work that was put in GNOME and in key graphical applications like Firefox, GIMP or OpenOffice.
41 comments:
Why did they ditch pidgin? there was nothing wrong with it...
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11705/ might have some of the reasons.
looks like the same old piece of garbage to be
same old brown poo for sure.
sure glad I don't run uboobtu anymore.
a bad clone of a great os, that seems to aspire at getting worse and worse. get a real linux os
Ubuntu One looks cool. Will it be available for Kubuntu?
Brown .. weee!
No doubt Ubuntu is the linux os for the masses but there seems to be little incentive for existing users to upgrade when 9.10 comes out.
Thanks for the early review! Some comments about it:
- Telepathy is a framework, not a protocol
- Firefox 3.5 is in the repositories, but it isn't installed as default (yet). The transition should be completed for alpha 4.
a few people have indicated that they don't like Ubuntu. I wonder what exactly they don't like.
Ubuntu sucks. its ugly, it won't run on half the hardware i throw at it ( when fedora, mandriva, installs flawlessly ) All the new things they come up with are always for Ubuntu only. No compatability with other linux os's. At least with mandriva, thier pulse and click'n'backup work with other linux/windows/mac/solaris operating systems. The forums suck, just a bunch of newbs giving other newbs stupid answers to stupid questions. Mandriva forums don't get allot of traffic. Thats because its so easy to use, and everything just works. I've tried Ubuntu several times, I get so irritated with it I can't stand it. I haven't spent that much time in a terminal since 1998.
People always bring up the brown color scheme. Who gives a crap? Do you honestly keep a default theme on any OS you install? Right click and change the background. Stop bitching about the brown already.
if the first thing i see when i install an os is an ugly brown crap desktop i know its not worth it. back out fast before the poo gets stuck in your computer.
try Kubuntu. similar to Ubuntu but much better looking.
If you do not like the looks and feels of ubuntu, then try Linux Mint: http://linuxmint.com
well, personally I really like Pidgin and it's my chat program of choice but I don't understand why passwords are not encrypted ( just look and you'll see password in vi ~/.purple/accounts.xml ). Another thing it seems like pidgin will never have video chat support. It's going to be 2010 and no video chat. :(
http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/34
Uh oh, "Anonymous" said it was crap, so I guess I must stay away from it. And brown, too: must be for non-whites...
Some people really believe their bad-mouthing and foul language is important enough it should be shown publicly. I wonder if you find the same hate-letters on their favorite distros/OS sites. What is that attitude anyway: "if I can't make it work, neither should you" ? Geez...
These comments dismissing Ubuntu are hilarious.
I hate the brown theme too, but guess what? You can change it! Besides, a new theme is scheduled for 10.04.
Ubuntu is one of the very best distros for hardware detection, and you can avoid the terminal completely if you wish.
ubuntu rules no doubt i have tried fedora and mandriva non had the potential of ubuntu. Brown theme don't be like a windows user and just change the theme!!!! with every release ubuntu gets more stable and more friendly recently i switched from ubuntu to kubuntu and i could not be more happier KDE 4.3 is amazing. I hope that ubuntu continues their innovation hopefully see version 20.4 :)
I tried sip communicatior. its a wonderful chat client based on java hence its cross platform.
its still in alpha stage but changes are coming day by day... it all gtalk, yahoo, facebook, and many...
http://www.sip-communicator.org/
Ugly gnome button icons are gone! I am not very pleased with their decision to keep the old theme for this release. Other than that I am excited to try this version.
jack molanreader has obviously NEVER even installed Ubuntu, and anyone who read his rant could realize that.
It helps to actually try the system out before you make up baseless lies about it.
Mandriva forums dont get any traffic because no one can figure out how to FIX anything.
There's a reason why Mandriva is considered the next step after Windows. Because it crashes just as often.
Ubuntu is a broken fork of Debian. It has a lot of regressions. It's slower than Debian, has less platform support, is less configurable, and less stable. Furthermore, Canonical is easily the most evil company associated with Linux. They violated their own policy by using the Ubuntu trademark to hawk their commercial Ubuntu One service, their new server deployment software is closed source, and they recently included a spyware plugin with FireFox.
Who cares about ubuntu KK?
Kubuntu & kde4.3 is where the the fun is at.
Try Gnome Colors with a Brave Icon theme.
Looks Blue & works for me on Ubuntu 9.04
If you really want a xp green/blue/red?!
Anon@9:53 casts an hilariously MS-shill-worthy amount of FUD there.
linux is crap tryed mint and ubuntu still behind the times back to good old xp works out the box
@Anonymous 11.17
Works out of the box? Yeah 640x480 VGA with no 3D Acceleration, no wireless, no sound, need I go on?
And for the people complaining about brown. Just take a another look at that tellytubby screen most likely facing you at the moment. Failing that you're running Vista and that's not good :P
If you're running Mac... Touché
Let's see,
Brown is ugly so don't use Ubuntu...there are spyware plugins in Firefox...Linux is crap so went back to good ol' XP...XP works right out of the box...LOL!
I've yet to here 'one' valid comment from these Microsoft astroturfers.
I don't understand the whole empathy switch. Those with yahoo accounts still have to use the Pidgin backend ( a.k.a. libpurple) that telepathy-haze requires. I wish they would stay with pidgin as its more robust and doesn't rely on any program to function.
I'll certainly upgrade *after* I know the regressions in Jaunty have finally been fixed and nothing disastrous introduced.
I never understand why people get so upset over the colour scheme. It isn't like you can't customise it if you don't like it. For example, I hate mono and gimp but I don't cry about it...I just remove them.
Ubuntu is free and they have done more for the promotion of Linux as an alternative than any other distro. We should be thankful (even if they do stupid things like introduce regressions).
if you don't like the poo theme change to Ultimate Edition it is the best looking thing ever!
although i personally do prefer PClinuxOS,Fedora,and the rest
the worst thing about ubuntu is that the dumb update every 6months i prefer a distro that releases something good then only updates for a a needed fix tell they finish a better version! only makes sens to not update to something when its not done!
You can get firefox 3.5 on both 9.04 and 9.10 by installing the firefox-3.5 package.
I use it currently full time in 9.04.
Color scheme is truly a dumb argument. If these people are already using Ubuntu then they most likely have changed their themes and new releases don't matter. If they haven't been using Ubuntu then why are they around every post about an Ubuntu release fussing about the color scheme??? Just continue to use your distro which you've probably customized too look like Ubuntu anyway seeing as Dust is the top theme on gnome-look.org.
Second ignore all the Micronuts and distro zealots that come running to say Ubuntu doesn't work. Its rather stupid. All of these distros are free so its rather simple for a person to see which ones work and which don't for themselves. Its especially easy with LiveCD's and virtualization. The comments are just plain stupid to make at this point.
I am a newbie. I have 9.04 running on my laptop exclusivly. I love Ubuntu. There is not one single thing I can complain about.
Golly, there are sure some crazy comments here that don't belong here or any where else. Nevertheless, it does remind you that there are people that have no idea or just like to stir the pot.
Ubuntu 9.10 is coming along ningsce. Currently running 9.04 on Dell's Latitude 2100 netbook, very good. I like Pidgin too and I thought that Empathy was going to have video feature. Ubuntu One runs well, improvements to the icon features are in store. Brown? I like the brown, its distinctive and easy on the eyes. I think sticking to the CD image size could be the source for some complaints. Things that should be on there are not because lack of space on the CD. Very happy with Ubuntu.
Colours - what a hilarious site to read. Obviously nothing better to do than discuss a bunch of Ones, Noughts, LCD pixels and some plastic buttons. It's NOT brown it's ochre, it's NOT ochre it's...and on and on. Anyway my Ubuntu desktop is a rich lavender fading to ebony. I don't care what OS I use. Ubuntu has clearer graphic design and nice little drum sound when it starts but that's about it. All computers to the same thing in the end. Make you angry and stop when the electricity is turned off. There's more to life I must remind myself...
I'm very displeased about Ubuntu One. One of the big reasons I used Ubuntu was because it was Free Software, but now they're tying it into a proprietary online service. I don't like it, so I switched to Mint.
I was an advanced windows user, however I pirated everything. Since 9.04 I have erased windows from all of my computers. Excellent OS.
>People always bring up the brown color scheme. Who gives a crap? Do you honestly keep a default theme on any OS you install? Right click and change the background. Stop bitching about the brown already.
+1
I just fucking love the new changes (except for taking the brown color out.)
Taking out pidgin is a rather good idea. I really had a lot of problems (organizing contacts=hell, no video, and some others.)
The “finally, no more brown!” stuff is really stupid. I personally never really minded brown, and think that it is _definitely_ the best idea Canonical could use, because it creates fast and unmistakable brand recognition without having to write “Ubuntu” on the wallpaper. I can tell if someone is using a (stock) Ubuntu without any trouble at all.
i used to work on windows, switched to ubuntu, and the more i use it the more i learn and find how great this OS is, for my win apps, i just run VirtualBox, whats awesome about ubuntu is i havent had many slowdowns or crashes, its so stable!
and for all the people complaining about the Brown theme, lol, there is a program called Gnome Art Next-Gen, and it automatically downloads wallpapers,icons,window themes etc and you can change your desktop look/feel in anyway you want.
ubuntu is awesome!
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