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Forget the Heron; what's new in Ubuntu's Intrepid Ibex?

by David M Williams

Thursday, 29 May 2008

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Ubuntu, arguably the most popular Linux distribution today, came out with its 8.04 release last month, dubbed Hardy Heron. That's passé now; here’s the low down on what the future holds this October with Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex.

First, the name: an ibex is a wild mountain goat with large recurved horns. It’s also known as a bouquetin or a steinbock. Such animals wander freely, roaming about as they please. With Ubuntu’s previous two heavily-publicised releases still not shipping with reliable WiFi drivers, the first question on my mind is whether Intrepid Ibex is the one which finally lets its users roam as freely as a wild mountain goat?

The developers say it will; hamming up the goat analogy, Ubuntu’s announcement promised the Linux distro will “venture into interesting new territory,” requiring “the rugged adventurouseness of a mountain goat to navigate tricky terrain” and that Ubuntu will be “reaching new peaks of performance.”

Two key design goals were announced from the beginning. Firstly, the user interaction model will be re-engineered to ensure Ubuntu works as well as responsively as possible on hardware ranging from squinty little subnotebooks through to high-end powerful workstations. Secondly, and the one on my mind, is the goal of pervasive internet access. Ubuntu have explicitly stated they wish this release of Ubuntu – finally – to tap into bandwidth wherever you may be. Once more the goat metaphor comes to the fore, “No longer will you need to be a tethered, domesticated animal – you’ll be able to roam (and goats do roam!) the wild lands and access the web through a variety of wireless technologies. We want you to be able to move from the office, to the train, and home, staying connected all the way.”

At last! It’s embarrassing saying Gutsy Gibbon will be the easiest Linux ever! Whoops, it still doesn’t give WiFi access to many people. Hardy Heron – with long term release support – is going to be the best Linux ever, with a gazillion new hardware drivers! Whoops, still no WiFi. A less than enthused reader commented here on how backwards the priorities must be that compiz looked great but you still needed an Ethernet cable to do anything requiring connectivity.

So, from my point of view, the fact Ubuntu have declared ubiquitous connectivity as a design goal is a tremendous thing. I will definitely be keen to make that one of the very first tests as it begins shipping in various pre-release forms.

Actually, the intention of pervasive internet access on trains and the like also suggests support must be included for increasingly-popular 3G modems. I struggled to make my Telstra NextG modem work with my ASUS Eee; it required a lot of modprobes and recompiling of kernel sources. Imagine how tremendous it would be to replace the custom ASUS version of Xandros with Intrepid Ibex and have a tiny super-light ultraportable laptop that works anywhere.

Let’s check out what the Ubuntu roadmap is.

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