Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) is only in the Alpha stage of testing at this moment. It doesn’t look extremely different from the current version of Ubuntu but there are a few noticeable differences.
I installed Lucid Lynx using VirtualBox OSE. Before I installed, I booted up from the LiveCD just to get a look at it to see if anything looked different. After a quick glance it looked just like most other recent Ubuntu releases. The background is a brown/orange color, the UI is gray, and everything is still set up the same.
It only took around 20 minutes to install on a virtual machine with just over 700 MB of RAM and a 2.16 GHz processor. I haven’t timed any of my other installations but this one seemed to be the fastest of them all. I decided to dig a little to find out what has been changed. The first things I checked were the applications.
The most notable differences to me are the games (or lack thereof) and a video editing software called PiTiVi. The games that come with Ubuntu 10.04 are AisleRiot Solitaire, gbrainy, Mahjongg, Mines, Quadrapassel, and Sudoku. It saddens me that Tetravex wasn’t included. However, if you do a search in the package manager for Tetravex you will find a package containing games from the official GNOME release including Tetravex.
The video editor known as PiTiVi looks similar to Windows Movie Maker in my opinion. I don’t have any videos so I can’t fully test it but it appears to be very easy to use for both beginners and experts to use. As long as the file format is supported by the GStreamer Multimedia Framework, PiTiVi can deal with any format you throw at it.
PiTiVi video editor
When Jack did a review over Ubuntu 9.10 he had this to say about the new Ubuntu Software Center:
“It’s a promising concept, but still in its earlier stages. It only has one level of categories to sort all the software packages available, which is very messy considering the wide variety of applications included.”
In 10.04 it has been upgraded. In 9.10 it only had one level of categories. So if you clicked on the Games category you would be presented with a list of all of the games. In the latest version when you click on the Games category the screen gets split and you can chose from a sub-category or scroll through the entire list of games.
The updated version of the Ubuntu Software Center
These are just the first few things I discovered after installing Ubuntu 10.04 – Lucid Lynx. You can learn more about Lucid Lynx and download the latest test build from Ubuntu’s website. I would not recommend upgrading your system to this alpha release because it still contains a lot of bugs at this stage. If you have never used Ubuntu and would like to give it a try you can obtain a copy of Ubuntu 9.10 (the most current release) here. If you have limited bandwidth, slow internet, or you just don’t want to download it then you can also request a copy of it to be mailed to you for free.
I will probably do a follow up report about Lucid Lynx once the final stable version is released on April 29, 2010 so start checking back around then.
I agree about Tetravex. That and Gnometris were two of the best pieces of software installed by default
Having been running Ubuntu since 5.10, I took the jump and upgraded from 9.10 to 10.04. Aside from a few small glitches here and there, I have been very pleased. Even in Alpha, it rocks.
Well, gnometris is one of the main things I miss when using Windows. There is no other such simple but old school tetris out there!
Using 10.04 now from netbook.
Menu logos and icons have been restyled. Ubuntu logo and icons are white. Excellent! Getting polished- more like a Mac.
Right upper corner menu shows green callout when connected to chat. Empathy icons are much better looking. In Google talk Empathy can do voice.
Open Office 3.2 is faster and with improved Calc (that I use so much).
This is going to be a great release and really shows how the Ubuntu/Linux desktop is maturing. My new notebook (ASUS UX30 likely) isn’t going to have any trace of Microsoft except for that stupid Windows key.
a) Just in case anyone doesn’t know, Quadrapassel is the same game as Gnometris, only under a different name.
b) The only downside to a virtual machine is that you can’t test hardware drivers. I need to know if the Intel iwl3945 driver has been fixed yet! (unusable in Karmic, refuses to connect)
c) Don’t forget about the Me Menu, the inclusion of Gwibber by default, and the Ubuntu One Music Store (which you can’t actually play with yet, but whatever)
d) I’d hardly say PiTiVi is easy to use for experts. You can’t do anything in it but cut and rearrange clips. Use Openshot if you actually want to put a decent video together (which is also in the default repos now!).
Will they ever fix Xorg? That seems to be a big problem with Ubuntu. Changing monitors shouldn’t require an re-install.
Hey, LS-
system76 will send you four Powered by Ubuntu stickers and four little Ubuntu logo stickers (designed to cover that windows emblem on the keyboard) if you send them a SASE. Info on their website.
They actually dont send free cds anymore except to ubuntu members and locos because it cost too much.
One thing — ATI binary video drivers are currently broken. You can use the native radeon driver, which actually works surprisingly well for “simple” 3D stuff like the desktop cube, but forget about video games — even simple ones like Diablo II or Guild Wars (the ones I tested).
Hopefully, this will be fixed before the actual release, but knowing ATI, I wouldn’t hold my breath….
(Same thing happened when 9.10 came out.)
@Shane, I wasn’t sure if they still sent the CDs or not. I requested Kubuntu and it said I had already received too many free CDs so I just thought that was because I had asked for (and received) four different distros already.
The whole cd sending business was getting old anyways. It’s kind of retarded to actually burn something onto a cd and physically send it around the world when you can just download that shit in an hour or two tops.
I hope 10.04 gets real good.
An hour or two? It takes a lot longer than that to download it. Oh well, at least I can still buy a copy from another website for just a few dollars. That’s still a better deal than any Windows operating system.