Russ Creech06 March 2009, 11:00 AM
Past versions of Ubuntu have been given names such as “Hoary Hedgehog” and “Feisty Fawn” but the next release will be given a distinctly Australian name.
The popular Linux distribution
Ubuntu
is known for creating some, shall we say,
interesting names for each release with
past versions being given names such as “Hoary Hedgehog,” “Feisty
Fawn” and “Hardy Herron.” It looks like they will continue
this trend with this October's 9.10 release that will be called “Karmic
Koala.”
Yes, you read that correctly, the next
version of Ubuntu will be named after a sleepy Australian marsupial. This announcement has dashed the hopes of some who were gunning for names
such as “King Kong” or “Kinky Kangaroo.”
In
the announcement made by Mark
Shuttleworth (Ubuntu's Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life),
he outlines some of the new features of Ubuntu 9.10 along with a few
extra tidbits of information.
For the server crowd, Karmic Koala will
include many new features including implementations of Amazon's EC2
APIs and some nice additions to Eucalyptus, a cloud computing
infrastructure. These additions will allow for anyone to easily
create their own cloud with advanced features using free, open-source
software.
On the desktop side, the focus will be
on the user experience, specifically the overall look of the
operating system and great support for netbooks.
We’re eagerly following the
development of kernel mode setting, which promises a smooth and
flicker-free startup. We’ll consider options like Red Hat’s
Plymouth, for graphical boot on all the cards that support it. We
made a splash years ago with Usplash, but it’s time to move to
something newer and shinier. So the good news is, boot will be
beautiful. The bad news is, you won’t have long to appreciate it!
It only takes 35 days to make a whole Koala, so we think it should be
possible to bring up a stylish desktop much faster. The goal for
Jaunty on a netbook is 25 seconds, so let’s see how much faster we
can get you all the way to a Koala desktop. We’re also hoping to
deliver a new login experience that complements the graphical boot,
and works well for small groups as well as very large installations.
Mark also mentions a “new look,”
something that many users have been wanting for quite a while. He
does not elaborate, but simply says to attend the next
Ubuntu Developer Summit for a preview.
Whatever the final decision is, the new
look will be a very friendly one if it is similar to some of the previous
user-submitted designs. For now, though, we will just have to wait
to find out more details.