The next major release of Ubuntu is now available. Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx” packs in a ton of new features in this new long term support (LTS) release.
So what does Lucid Lynx have in store for us? The best new features include noticeably faster boot up (thanks to the removal of HAL), a nifty social media manager, a great new music store, as well as new default applications. Of course, there are numerous under the hood changes including updating to the latest GNOME environment and Linux kernel.
A clean installation of Lucid Lynx only took me about 10 minutes.
Lucid Lynx Installing Progress
Boot Time
Faster start up has been promised in this release and this release is significantly faster at starting up taking only a few seconds. This is especially thanks to the removal of hardware abstraction layer (HAL) during the boot process.
New Default Theme
The first thing you’re notice even during installation is that Ubuntu is no longer brown. Instead, it sports a black-pink color scheme. In addition, the default theme has close, minimize, and maximize buttons on the left side of the window rather than the right, similar to a Mac.
The new black-violet default theme along with new placement of close, minimize, and maximize buttons. This will definitely take some time getting used to.
Of course, if you don’t like the new theme, you can always customize it in Appearance Preferences.
Social Network Applications and the New “Me” Menu
Do you actively engage in social networks such as Twitter and Facebook? If so, the new Gwibber client built into Lucid Lynx might be useful. What’s Gwibber? It’s a streamlined all-in-one social networking client including desktop notifications of messages and all of your messages in one easy to use interface and a global status updater.
Say hello to an integrated social networking client
Remember Ubuntu 9.10 ditching Pidgin in favor of Empathy as the default chat client. It looks like this move was to prepare for the all new “Me” menu. Lucid Lynx is social right from the start.
What is this “Me” menu? It allows you to set your social/chat status right from the desktop by clicking your username in the corner menu. It integrates with both Empathy and Gwibber.
The new "Me" menu integrating Empathy for Chat Accounts and Gwibber for Broadcast Accounts as well as access to Ubuntu One.
Ubuntu One Syncing and Music Store
Ubuntu One is an Ubuntu exclusive file syncing service offering a free 2 GB of could syncing storage. It didn’t offer much when it was first introduced with Karmic Koala, but with Lucid Lynx, it offers something special. That’s right. A DRM-Free music store integrated directly into the default music player.
The new Ubuntu One Music Store
Whenever you buy music from the store, the files are automatically synced into your Ubuntu One account, ready to be added to any other computer. Lucid Lynx also introduces contact syncing within your Ubuntu One account.
Simpler, Lighter Default Apps
Ubuntu used to ship with GIMP as the default graphics editor, which is a powerful free alternative to Photoshop, however contains lots of features most users would probably never use, and XSane, which was a option rich scanner application.
In their place is an insanely simple application, Simple Scan.
Simple Scan - A very simple scanner application replacing both XSane and GIMP.
Of course, should you ever want GIMP, the Ubuntu Software Center has what you need. The default built in F-Spot Photo Manager also has many image editing options.
PiTiVi Video Editor
Lucid Lynx includes for the first time, a video editor by default. PiTiVi Video Editor is a very simple to use eidtor involving mostly just dragging and dropping clips onto a timeline.
Lucid Lynx PiTiVi Video Editor involves mostly dragging and dropping.
It doesn’t support a large variety of media clip formats and seems to only output as Ogg Theora. It does however support many Ogg Theora quality levels.
PiTiVi has many output quality level options
Lucid Lynx also includes numerous changes to the operating system backend as usual therefore providing better performance and stability.
This is a long term support release and therefore Lucid Lynx will be in active support for at least 2 years.
Ready to upgrade? You can either download a new ISO image from the Ubuntu website (I recommend the Bittorrent version if the servers are overloaded) or update through the Update Manager.
You can upgrade to 10.04 LTS through the Update Manager.
This has been a first look at whats new with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx and of course, does not include all the changes in the new version.
Have you tried Lucid Lynx yet? What do you think of it so far? Love it? Hate it? Don’t care? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Ubuntu 10.04 LTS [Ubuntu]
Nice, Ubuntu looks like its coming together nicely. Thanks Brian
So far trying the upgrade manager to upgrade seems to have resulted in my laptop loosing its ability to connect to my local network in mid upgrade (during file download so I can still boot into Karmic). i am going to try the CD tonight.
The idea of having a scanner program that does not allow one to control what part of the image is scanned is really really dumb in my opinion.
Hi Bonnie,
That same thing happened to my laptop too.
I agree with you about the scanner program. Simple Scan might be a bit “too” simple. Of course, users can always easily download another app.
Thanks for visiting and commenting,
Brian
Just a quick question here. Does Ubuntu detects Pata HDD?
I don’t intend to install it in my other computers…Lol.
Hi Creastery,
A quick search on Google suggests that it probably will detect it, though I’m not fully sure.