Ubuntu Linux 8: Is the heron hardier?

By David M Williams
Sunday, 30 March 2008 21:26

Opinion and Analysis

The first enhancement most people will come across is the streamlined installation process. The wording has been rejigged; “Start Ubuntu” now reads as “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer”, giving beginners more confidence in testing the Live CD mode. Additionally, the Wubi installer also launches if the CD is inserted into a computer running Windows; this allows Ubuntu to be installed from inside Microsoft Windows without having to reboot from CD or worry about partitions or boot managers.

The ordinary installation process remains similar to previous generations with the regular prompts. Under the hoods, Hardy Heron will actually let you install to an existing filesystem without overwriting the /home folder.

However you manage it – whether upgrading, using a Live CD, installing via Wubi, or making a brand new installation –  upon successful startup you’re greeted with the new Ubuntu desktop which is only slightly tweaked. There’s no major theme overhaul to be found here. This said, the elements all driving the user interface, namely the Linux kernel, the GNOME desktop environment and the Xorg graphics handler have all undergone upgrades so there is better support for a wider range of video cards and monitors as well as 64-bit architectures and other environments which had previously been largely left out in the cold all around.

In fact, Xorg has had a big revamp. It no longer requires any manual configuration of xorg.conf. It now offers a graphical safe mode in case anything goes wrong with the X-Windows system, and this feature is called “Bullet Proof X.” Additionally, Xorg will auto-detect your monitor frequency and all other important settings. Dual and multi-monitor support is also promised without any manual tweaks required.

The Ubuntu roadmap shows what the designers plan for Ubuntu’s future, and it is a sizeable least, but the best of intentions don’t always make it into release so some of these could slip, but here’s what looks exciting so far.

First up is more hardware detection. This is pretty much a given but it does need to be said – again – that Hardy Heron is intended to be a stable platform with rich support for a wide range of hardware.

A phenomenal enhancement comes in the way of Add/Remove Software being turned into a virtual shopfront. This facility is already a major distinguishing point between Linux and proprietary operating systems; the Add/Remove Software applet brings down operating system updates, programming languages, databases, applications, tools, utilities, office suites and more, all for free and all with minimal effort. The version debuting in Hardy Heron will do more than just list available packages; it will also show screenshots and categorise packages into recently added, top-rated and the like. This is a massive improvement if fully realised. At the very least, indications are that a rating system has been provided allowing users to vote software up and down promoting the most favoured items to the top of the list.

Next on my list is an easy to configure firewall. Sure, Linux has iptables/netfilter which works well and works hard and is highly powerful and configurable. It’s just a bit lacking on the user friendly stakes. On the one hand this is good because it means firewall modifications can only be made if the user really understands what they are doing and the ramifications of them. On the other hand, it’s not so good because it means new and inexperienced Linux users may be running with suboptimal security.

What does Hardy Heron do about it? Please read on.

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