Thread: The Intrepid Ibex

One thing's for sure-no matter what good or bad is said, written or done about Ubuntu, it still changed the way people looked at Linux for the desktop. I know a set of people who use Ubuntu but have no idea that it is Linux, or for that matter, even care. Taking this mission further, Ubuntu 8.10 'Intrepid Ibex' was'released on October 30,2008.

The big ones

As with every update, each of the core packages has been updated (Ubuntu starts with the Debian unstable tree ~o 'make' a new version). So~e in'(portant ones are:

• Linux 2.6.27

• X.org 7.4

• GNOME 2.24

• Network Manager 0.7

• Samba 3.2
... and lots of others.

Of course, there are a plethora of new features, more packages added to the repositories, and the usual patches¬here-and-fixes-there. Iwon't be taking the normal review route, so there's no 'How To Install' here. Instead, I'll focus on what's changed under the hood (by the way, the installation proc.edure hasn't changed over the last edition) because that's what really matters!

The interface. 'New and improved!'

The new GNOME 2.24 brings in a lot of small but .effective improvements. The important ones are those to File Roller (the archiving utility) and Nautilus (the file manager). File Roller now has support for ALZ, RZIP, CAB and 7Z formats-so there's no more separate 7-zip installation!

Nautilus has a lot more to offer. A very cool feature is tabbed browsing. I agree this
was one thing I had been waiting a long time for, since tabs are now featured
everywhere (thanks to Firefox). I can see the KDE people saying, "We've had them for ages!" but hey, now so do we! The Trash window has a Restore option that is (strangely) something I missed from Windows! The Places sidebar has OS X-inspired eject icons for removable drives. I found them a bit strange, as they don't have the 'click' visual cut and you get confused about whether it has beet1 clicked or not. But they work!

Also, Nautilus now has an 'Archive Mounter'. What it does is mount any archive as a removable drive. It will display the archive on the desktop and in your Places menu. In my opinion, that's not of much use, since File Roller does the same thing with a different interface.

Apart from these, I found other changes as well, which I couldn't figure out from my hour-long trial but are documented on the Internet. This includes a 'Delete permanently' option and a 'Compact view' option among others. Let's move to the Panel. The Panel now has a nice, new Fast User Switcher applet that does some very cool things.

1. The Shutdown, Restart, Standby and other options got a nice visual makeover (which I was told were taken from openS USE) . Nice to see the love across distros.

2. When you're using an 1M client like Pidgin, it automatically integrates your presence settings like Available, Busy or Away into the applet, adding it to the other options of Shutdown, Restart, etc. Nice!



3. It includes an option for Guest Sessions, so you know what to do the next time your friend wants to check out your computer. The sessions are secured with AppArmor so your data is safe! Just log out the Guest and you'll have your machine back safely.

More goodies

Let's see what else got a face-lift, or rather 'code-lift'. Network Manager 0.7 was another anticipated release. This improved tool makes managing multiple networks simultaneously very easy. It allows for wireless, wired, 3G and even PPPOE connections from one single window. It has better support for hidden wireless connections and route management as well. Strangely, I also thought it detected wireless networks quicker

Samba 3.2 got IPV6 support, which though nascent, might be useful to many a systems administrator. It also includes support for encrypted networks, clustered file systems and Windows Vista. I couldn't test any of this out, but from what I read on the Web, it's impressive.

Synaptic Package Manager flOw has a quick search. I liked this, since I don't use the main Synaptic search anyway. If you've got many repositories, it tends to freeze for some time. I used to type in the letters directly to reach the specific packages, whicl) the developers seem to have sensed. Seahorse, or 'Password and Encryption Keys' as we know it, had its interface refreshed. Gone is the six-tab interface, which has been replaced with a simple two-tab one. I am pleased to note the developers 'decrypted' that!


Job well done!

You say, "What else?" Quite a number of people across the community demanded a change from the brown, human theme, so we have a new theme called 'Dark Room', which I found awesome. Also, the new X.org is so cutting-edge that many people found their graphic cards weren't yet supported. Hopefully, that will be fixed ASAP.
Overall, it's as fine a release as ever, and the path to world domination and squashing Bug #1 is getting better and better.