Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx - A Fresh Look At What Is On Offer

As many of you will know, Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is officially being released today - perhaps has already been released as I am writing this. Ubuntu 10.04 is an Long Term Support (LTS) version. With the Long Term Support (LTS) version you get 3 years support on Ubuntu Desktop, and 5 years on Ubuntu Server.

Let's get a bird's eye view of what is on offer in this latest avatar namely Ubuntu 10.04 a.k.a Lucid Lynx.

New Features in Ubuntu 10.04

User Interface Design

1. Ubuntu 10.04 sports brand new themes - Ambiance and Radiance.
2. The Window minimize, maximize and close buttons have been shifted to the left.
3. New Logos - Ubuntu 10.04 sports redesigned, aesthetically pleasing logos that reflect the precision and engineering that sits at the heart of the product.
4. Icons, start up and login screens, and desktop backgrounds that are brand new.

A Redesigned Installer

Ubuntu 10.04 sports a far more user friendly installer. The installer now provides feedback on password strength and the option to encrypt the user's home directory.

Improved Startup Speed

With version 10.04, Ubuntu has moved to a new boot system called Plymouth.

Plymouth is an application that runs very early in the boot process (even before the root file system is mounted!) that provides a graphical boot animation while the boot process happens in the background. Ideally, the goal is to get rid of all flicker during startup.

This new system makes Ubuntu boot much faster.

Applications - New and Improved ones

1. Simple Scan - An application that makes scanning documents quite simple.
2. PiTiVi Movie Editor
3. Gwiber - A microblogging client with support for Twitter, Identi.ca, StatusNet, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, FriendFeed, and Qaiku.
4. Me Menu - A menu that resides in the top panel of your GNOME desktop and which provides one click access to all your social networking and chat accounts.
5. Empathy - The default chat application sports new features one of them being support for Facebook chat.
6. Nautilus - The default file manager, it has seen many minor enhancements, the most prominent being a split view mode which allows you to display the contents of two different folders within the same window.

However, GIMP is out of the default list of installed applications. No one is stopping you from installing it separately though.

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Desktop

iPhone and iPod Touch Support

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04) comes with limited support for iPhone and iPod Touch devices which is a good thing for the owners of these Apple products.

Now you can browse the contents of your iPhone and even play music residing on these devices from Ubuntu.

Ubuntu One - Cloud Storage

Ubuntu One - Cannonical's cloud storage service is seamlessly integrated in Ubuntu 10.04. Some of the integration features are listed below.

• Sync any folder in your Home folder between computers.

• Easily publish files online to share with others.

• Synchronize your Firefox bookmarks to be available on multiple computers.

• Synchronize your contacts residing in Evolution email client.

• If you’re a paying Ubuntu One subscriber, you can now sync your mobile phone contacts with Ubuntu One too.

Ubuntu One Music Store

Buy DRM free music singles from the Ubuntu One Music store.

Ubuntu Software Center

Ubuntu Software Center allows you to install and manage your installed applications. In Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, it has seen lots of user friendly enhancements and has received a nice graphical overhaul.

Impressed already ? Then download Ubuntu 10.04 a.k.a Ubuntu Lucid Lynx from the Official Ubuntu website.
[Image Source : Ubuntu]