I don't know about you, but i'm damn excited about the upcoming version of Ubuntu, so it better deliver! As usual, there will be tons of bug fixes, updated packages, tighter integration, as well as increased stability and usability. All talk so far. The One Hundred Paper Cuts campign looks promising on providing even more usability enhancements. Aside from a new Ubiquity slideshow for new users, what specific things are there to look forward to?
Before i start, i must give good mention to PlayDeb, which should be back up for Karmic! Gaming needs some leverage in Ubuntu. PlayDeb is a third-party repository you can add to Ubuntu for all of the latest games available that aren't included in the Ubuntu repos. I can easily install and play StepMania 4 and Yo Frankie! (even if it doesn't make it into Ubuntu).
Sorry for the lack of pictures and a more detailed breakdown, but i'm sure you will see much of that will develop over the coming weeks. This list should hold you off until then:
Before i start, i must give good mention to PlayDeb, which should be back up for Karmic! Gaming needs some leverage in Ubuntu. PlayDeb is a third-party repository you can add to Ubuntu for all of the latest games available that aren't included in the Ubuntu repos. I can easily install and play StepMania 4 and Yo Frankie! (even if it doesn't make it into Ubuntu).
Sorry for the lack of pictures and a more detailed breakdown, but i'm sure you will see much of that will develop over the coming weeks. This list should hold you off until then:
- New Theme I list this first because we've been promised this for so long, and even though we were promised it was actually happening in Karmic, i'm just not so sure anymore. I hope to see it, but i won't set myself up to be crushed if we don't =]
- Flawless PulseAudio Oh yes, we've been waiting on this for all too long. Audio should finally be close to perfect. If you're like me, and haven't had any real problems with it, please move along to the next item.
- Firefox 3.5 The wonderful new version of Mozilla Firefox that adds support for Ogg Theora/Vorbis, audio and video, respectively for HTML 5's Open Web Video (also supported in Midori using WebKit) should be a significant upgrade from the current version.
- Faster Boot Times This is a general thing that we should see improve a lot in Karmic and Karmic +1. Self-explanatory, move along now.
- Ext4 now Default Ext4 support was just added in 9.04, and now it will be the default for new installs of 9.10. If you don't know already, Ext4 brings a lot of nice changes, over Ext3, and will generally improve filesystem performance.
- GNU GRUB 2 The boot loader for new installation will now be GNU GRUB 2, which is a complete rewrite of GRUB which make it faster, cleaner, safer, as well as more robust, portable, and powerful.
- Plymouth Goodbye, USpash! Plymouth will be making our graphical boot experiance cleaner with no more of that annoying flickering of the display at startup. It makes Ubuntu look more polished, or at least less unpolised. [Update, see below]
- New Linux Kernel The newest Linux Kernel 2.6.31 will be included in which we can hope to see ATI kernel-based mode-setting (KMS) and memory managemnt support in. The current 2.6.30 Kernel will already be old by then.
- New Intel Drivers Again, this will solve major performance problems that Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 had with Intel drivers. Gah, i hate Intel. Sorry, i had to throw that in there.
- New NVIDIA Drivers The new NVIDIA drivers add VDPAU and CUDA support resulting in, you guessed it-- more performance enhancements!
- GNOME 2.28 (and Testing GNOME 3) Not only will Ubuntu ship with all the enhancements of GNOME 2.28, but users will be able to test GNOME 3 in Karmic! Cool stuff.
- PackageKit Oh yes. It's a much nicer way to manage and update applications than Add/Remove and Update Manager that actually uses PolicyKit. This will certainly be quite a refreshing change.
- Empathy Lastly, the most controversial of the changes, Empathy will take the place of both Pidgin and Ekiga. I would like to take this opportunity to support this decision. Hopefully, even if you still prefer Pidgin for yourself, you can appreciate what Empathy brings for new users. It has been discussed for over half a year at UDS Jaunty and Karmic, and there are a number of reasons it should happen:
- New users: Pidgin has lots of features and plugins that may cater to some of us just better, but Empathy has a friendlier UI for new users. We want to make Ubuntu the best experience for those migrating to it. The rest of us have no trouble keeping Pidgin.
- Integration: Empathy integrates well into the GNOME desktop. A lot of cool stuff is possible with it. 'Nuff said (you can learn more on your own).
- Features: Empathy is mostly feature complete, and the lack of OTR is something that new users will not know or use. I agree it is important, but it is still available in Pidgin until Empathy implements it.
- Telepathy: Empathy uses the awesome Telepathy framework. It supports libpurple for all networks only currently in Pidgin.
- Voice/Video: Empathy already has VoIP support for audio and video chatting, which means it can replace both Pidgin and Ekiga.
- Feature Gap: Yes, Telepathy might be a tiny bit behind in a few places, but none of them are showstoppers, and it is far ahead in others. Including it in Karmic will mean that the feature gap between Empathy and Pidgin will close and reverse much sooner, not to mention we'd like Empathy to be awesome in Ubuntu Karmic +1 10.04 LTS.
P.S. Today is Empathy Hug Day! Let's all give it some love.
Update: My bad, Plymouth has been dropped to focus on making Ubuntu boot in under ten seconds which would make Plymouth worthless.
Posts
42 comments:
I think plymouth was dropped. I never heard of packagekit integration either, I should look into this.
I'm all for the advancements that Ubuntu brings, but can you explain something for me? You said that the next release will bring "tighter integration". What do you mean by that?
I know that there are buzz words that are commonly used by certain software makers. If Apple were to produce a #2 pencil they would market it as "intuitive". When it comes to Linux the buzz words tend to be "robust" and "usability". But "tighter integration" is a new one for me.
Empathy integrates well into the GNOME desktop meaning it can do things like auto re-connect using Network Manager and allow GNOME applications to embed Empathy's widgets.
Erm, according to the Phoronix article "No Plymouth Coming To Ubuntu 9.10" (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzI5NQ) it's been dropped. :(
Yay for a working pulseaudio, faster boot times and FF3.5 (the ogg+javascript demo at http://www.dailymotion.com/openvideodemo is really impressive!)
Nice to see a good number of Kubuntu friendly features. \o/
I don't like Pidgin in the first place. So I welcome this change.
the kernel in Karmic will be 2.6.31 not 2.6.30
packagitkit won't be used in Karmic because the apt backend is not feature complete
I thought empathy's voice/video only worked on one protocol (jabber I think)?
99% of users who use video in pidgin do so through MSN, making the feature almost useless at this point.
As far as I can tell, the only clients that support video over MSN are aMSN and kopete.
I'm pretty sure the "visual refresh" was put off for Karmic. I remember reading that long before UDS.
Dunno about others, but I'm on karmic atm, Kubuntu... and pulse audio is not that great.
Funny how each comment bashes some of the points ;)
I tried empathy and couldn't even connect... was asking for a password like a moron, nothing worked. And as far as I know, sucks hard with MSN, which is one of the most used. Oh well...hopefully the Intel video driver won't suck so hard when 9.10 will be release.
I don't get why plymouth was dropped. Has it been proved to make boot times slower? You'd think that flicker-free boot-ups would make things faster, not slower. On my computer, the flicker when loading the GDM login screen takes 1 or 2 seconds, that's 10 to 20% of the desired 10 second boot-up.
@flimm: I think the point is more that boot times will be so short that there's no point in having plymouth. Usplash only shows up for 10 seconds on my laptop, so if 10.4 is supposed to load 3x faster, then there's almost no point in having a loading screen as it'll only be shown for a couple of seconds.
nothing special about Karmic . when it was annouced we heard it would come with plymouth which would a visual pleasing to the eye boot process. and we heard it would come with a UI Revamp .. as it is non of this will happen. Karmic will end up being yet another gloried Service Pack upgrade. (not that this is necessarily a bad thing just that canonical should try and manage expectations next time when making announcements ..
I can understand why Empathy was chosen, but there's one thing I wonder.
I've installed it to try it on Jaunty, but the one feature I wanted to test didn't work. Hopefully it will be fixed for Karmic.
That feature is file transfer .. That's the only thing I find to *really* suck in pidgin. I don't recall exactly why file transfers are so slow with pidgin, but that's without a doubt one of the most painful aspect of this software.
Please tell me Empathy doesn't send files like a 56k modem.
"the lack of OTR is something that new users will not know or use."
Care to provide any supporting evidence for this claim? Every "new user" I've introduced to Ubuntu has used both Pidgin and OTR. One of the main reasons I recommend Ubuntu over other distros is the fact it is so secure by default, and there are so many ways to make it even _more_ secure.
Security is not something "new users" are unconcerned with. I don't understand what kind of "new user" you're talking about. One that has never used a computer before? In fact, the first questions I get about Ubuntu are security-related: what anti-virus does it have, what firewall should I get, etc. Part of the transition from the Windows security mindset to the GNU/Linux security mindset is making use of the wide array of crypto software.
Why is such a fundamental aspect of a secure desktop being treated like some unneeded feature? Would you use a mail client without GPG support? Would you recommend one?
I've translated this post to Korean. If you mind, tell me please. I'll delete my post immediately.
http://mr-dust.pe.kr/entry/13-things-to-get-excited-for-in-Ubuntu-9-10-Karmic-Koala
h3: You may want to install the PPA or wait until Karmic. File transfers work in the later version.
Danny: I haven't heard anything about Packagekit being put into Karmic. Do you have a reference link?
Anonymous: I would agree with the statement the most users don't know or care what OTR is. Just because the first questions you get are about security that != new users want OTR.
"Hopefully, even if you still prefer Pidgin for yourself, you can appreciate what Empathy brings for new users"
This is a total contradiction. New users want full MSN Protocol support. That's it. I want it myself either. The reason for this is that unfortunately all of my non-geeks friends use Live Messenger. Once Pidgin reached a very acceptable MSNP support (like custom emoticons) we drop it in favor of one that support nearly nothing of all this. (But you will get voice/video on... Jabber. Score!!)
Good for new users? To insert an emoticon you have to go to "Conversation Menu -> Insert emoticon -> *emoticon*" for Christ sake!
Sorry for my sarcasm, but being myself a geek, I still believe if we keep thinking as geeks for these kind of decisions, we will never win.
Empathy will rock, I'm sure about it, but it's not ready yet to be Ubuntu's default IM.
Daniel Chen, who writes a lot of Ubuntu's audio-related code, has noted on his blog:
"Glitch-free PulseAudio likely will not be enabled in Karmic. There is insufficient traction in changing kernel configuration options, and we will all need to evaluate how those configurations affect other objectives (e.g., improved battery life)."
So you can scratch "Flawless PulseAudio" off your list.
With the comments in mind....
would it be possible to see an updated post with a revised featureset?
Shouldn't UbuntuOne integration stuff be a high profile feature as its going to be very Ubuntu specific but also touches on upstream Gnome development work because applications are going to need to be patched to interact with CouchDB.
Well integrated CouchDB adoption as a piece of the core upstream GNOME framework is an important discussion to be having.
-jef
I really like that Empathy finally is getting mature/incuded, but it's a big disappointment that noone is willing to support common protocols and use cases and instead do strange stuff geeky special stuff like GPS support. Which will be very cool to have once Empathy is useable in real world situations...
I love ubuntu www.alaskalive.net
Word around the campfire is that there won't be a totally new theme until the next LTS+1, but there will be theming improvements in Karmic.
Anyone know if the GNOME version they'll ship with 9.10 will finally allow different desktop backgrounds per monitor?
Lol I switched to mac osx and am now excite about such things [1] and you are excite about a new boot loader?! Or intel drivers which are finally supposed to work and not to forget the loved pulse audio which is now "perfect" but broke sound on Ubuntu for like two years or so.. I'm really happy I made the switch
[1] http://www.apple.com/macosx/
You should know that PackageKit is also not making it into Karmic.
Cool, but dont feel exited.
As all people said MSN is being used from most people,I agree,BUT I used to have MSN and of course delete it after my entrance in Linux world and also encourage my friends to go away too or have to IT accounts.So today I use GoogleTalk as my friends too.And of course they all now use Ubuntu.
Cool it'll be sort of like fedora 11
So when is Thunderbird going to replace Evolution?
LINUX MINT FOR THE WIN
Ubuntu is coming along quite nicely. Empathy suits me fine. Pidgin and Ekiga will, of course, be available to download for those which Empathy doesn't work for them. At the end of the day, a difficult but correct decision.
nothing special about Karmic . when it was annouced we heard it would come with plymouth which would a visual pleasing to the eye boot process. and we heard it would come with a UI Revamp .. as it is non of this will happen. Karmic will end up being yet another gloried Service Pack upgrade. (not that this is necessarily a bad thing just that canonical should try and manage expectations next time when making announcements ...
@Daryn:
Glitch-free doesn't imply flawless anyway. Glitch-free is only free of glitches on good hardware with good drivers.
PulseAudio will not be flawless until the ALSA drivers are properly fixed. Right now, they're a pile of bandages trying to cover up all the mistakes.
WOO! Plymouth is dropped!
Is ctrl-alt-backspace still disabled by default?
Unfortunately Empathy does not intend to implement OTR like other clients: http://live.gnome.org/Empathy/FAQ#head-a0dc4ab0af32e3bc3a350974a791764b8fb35c39
What about the multimedia applications?
The lack of encryption (neither OTR nor GPG as I understand the FAQ) is a vital flaw of Empathy. The reasons in the FAQ don't make much sense to me: so while we're waiting for a protocol with build-in encryption, to which hopefully enough of us will migrate, we don't have any encryption at all?
No thanks, I will stick to Gajim (GPG) as my main Jabber client with Pidgin as fallback for OTR.
V.
Firefox 3.5 is already in Juanty. You just need to install the package from Universe.
Thanks for the sharing this website. it is very useful professional knowledge. Great idea you know about company background.
web application development
+1 telepathy
IT'S now possible to use telephaty with msn audio/video chat
you friend with xp-live messenger, and you with telepathy, audio/video chat is possible (very frequent than you think)
http://cass.no-ip.com/~cassidy/blog/index.php/post/2009/09/14/MSN-audio/video-chat-in-Telepathy
this has leaved me more confused than ever....
The thing still boots like a cow, but now it has a mouse icon instead, and audio is incredibly dodgy. I found this blog post by googling for an issue that half the time media wont play at all in any program: no errors or anything . . . until I reboot a few times. Oh yeah, this after I had to explain to the horrible new audio control panel thing that Firefox 3.5 and Chromium should not be muted.
Post a Comment