Gutsy Gibbon swinging along

By Sam Varghese
Monday, 10 September 2007 22:22

Opinion and Analysis

There's a month to go before the next Ubuntu release, 7.10 aka Gutsy Gibbon, hits the download servers. A September 4 daily build shows a number of improvements over the 7.04 release which was named Feisty Fawn.
The 7.04 release was examined in April and there were plenty of reasons to be disappointed. The Gibbon has improved in several noticeable areas.

One must point out here that the PC on which the testing of 7.10 was conducted was built sometime in March; it's got mainly regulation hardware, nothing fancy. A Gigabyte integrated motherboard, two gig of RAM and an AMD64 dual core processor are the main bits. The emphasis was on functionality as far as the Ubuntu daily build is concerned. When Feisty was examined, the PC used was a much older one.

The Gibbon has no problems with DHCP, unlike the previous release. On booting up after installation, it picks up an IP address without any problem. What's more, if one changes to a static IP - using the graphical utility provided - the changes take effect immediately. There's no need to resort to the command line.

There is no change in the installation procedure but then this was already streamlined and efficient. There is a stage during the installation at which one can migrate accounts over from a Windows installation - if one exists on the PC in question. (For me, having two Windows installations (my wife's PC and my daughter's laptop) in the house is more than enough - as the good book says "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.")

Every commercial Linux distribution - and I put Ubuntu in this category because it is produced by a company named Canonical - has to plough a fine path between the free software crowd and the open source backers. In keeping with this balancing act, Ubuntu provides proprietary drivers from NVIDIA for its graphic cards but these have to be installed after the system is up and running - it is not part of the default install.

3D effects have been promised; Mark Shuttleworth, the head of Canonical, said Compiz Fusion would be integrated, barring any last-minute issues that show up in beta testing or upstream.

"We have a good set of defaults that create a slick desktop experience. This is, I think, just the beginning and I'm keen to get developers focused on the use of 3D in the desktop so we see a wider innovation pipeline. Till now it has felt very theoretical, we want to move this tech into the mainstream. ATI's open source moves bode well for this in Hardy (the release after 7.10)," he said.

Gibbon also includes a desktop search tool, which Shuttleworth said was meant to provide "fast access to any of your files without needing to navigate through directories." A deskbar applet to provide "quicksilver-like instant-command access to web sites, web services, local search etc" is also present.