Posted 03/03/10 at 06:03:50 PM by Ryan Whitwam

The Linux faithful should see quite a change when they download the next major release of the popular Ubuntu distro. Version 10.04 is expected to come with a heavily revamped default theme. Yes, gone are the days of the brown default theme that has graced Ubuntu installs since its introduction in 2004.

Canonical has evolved the look ever so slightly as the OS has gone through revisions. The look has been getting decidedly brighter as time goes on with oranges creeping into the desktop color scheme. An expected black/orange redesign back in the 8.04 days never materialized, but the idea of a visual refresh never went away.

The new theme uses “light” as the model. The iconic logo has also been refreshed slightly with a thinner font and overall reduction in size. The Canonical design document claims, “We're drawn to Light because it denotes both warmth and clarity, and intrigued by the idea that 'light' is a good value in software.” There are two different looks currently posted on the wiki page, it is unclear which will be the new default theme. Both have purple and orange elements, while one makes heavy use of slate grey, and the other uses light tans. These are still in the early stages, but it seems clear that Ubuntu will never look the same again.

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Posted 01/27/10 at 04:44:26 PM by Bart Salisbury

Ubuntu’s corporate backer, Canonical, is looking to raise a little scratch in a deal with Yahoo! It’s inked a deal that will make Yahoo! the default search engine on the version of Firefox shipped with Ubuntu, supplanting Google. In return, Canonical will get a piece of the ad revenue Yahoo! generates from Ubuntu users.

It’s a nifty deal that doesn’t impose any real strains on the Ubuntu user community. Firefox will act as normal, so users wanting to switch back to Google won’t have any problem doing so. The only possible loser will be Mozilla, which gets a goodly chunk of its revenue from a similar deal with Google.

The odd thing about it all, Stephen Shankland of Cnet.com says, are the relationships that may emerge from this. Yahoo! has negotiated the sale of its search business with Microsoft, a deal that’s awaiting regulatory approval. That means one of Canonical’s financial lifelines will be with Microsoft, which doesn’t hold Linux, in any of its many manifestations, in high regard.

Canonical’s deal with Yahoo! will start this April, with the release of version 10.04, or “Lucid Lynx.”

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Posted 11/03/09 at 03:56:09 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Exactly a week after the much anticipated launch of Windows 7, Canonical rolled out Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala). Although it may not have been as keenly awaited as Windows 7, Karmic Koala's launch was special for a particular demographic that romances Linux, and especially its subset that dotes on Ubuntu. But early adopters of the latest Ubuntu release are having a torrid time.

Excited users have been rewarded with a plethora of problems in exchange of their bravura and enthusiasm. Karmic Koala's poor handling of graphics drivers - blank and flickering screens are quite common - and its failure to install the latest 2.6.31 Linux kernel figure prominently on the list of flaws. Also, the latest version of Ubuntu is not too good at spotting hard drives, according to initial reports.

According to a poll on Ubuntuforums.org, more than one-third of about 1,500 people polled so far have encountered some major flaws. Users upgrading to 9.10 are experiencing more issues than those opting for a fresh install.

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Posted 10/29/09 at 04:25:26 PM by Bart Salisbury

Making good on its promise, Canonical is right now pushing out the door version 9.10 of Ubuntu, the infamous “Karmic Koala.” Ubuntu is one of the more popular renditions of open source Linux, that small, but dedicated, niche in the operating system universe that follows the path less taken.

And quite the path it is. Renai LeMay, of Cnet News, judged the current version, 9.04, to be “as slick and beautiful as Mac OS X and Windows 7.” Version 9.10 builds on this, adding faster boot times, a better driver for Intel integrated graphics, build in cloud storage, and a Software Centre that permits better management of applications. Ubuntu offers a suite of office applications, plus games, music, video, photo, email and chat software. And, naturally, includes Mozilla’s Firefox 3.5 for browsing the web. 

Ubuntu is at home on PC or Mac hardware, and comes in 32-bit. Ubuntu also comes in a server edition. And a netbook version, Kubuntu, is also available. Get everything you need to know about Ubuntu 9.10 from our guide.

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Posted 08/25/09 at 09:25:56 AM by Paul Lilly

Good news for open-source developers. Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, have launched a new project called "Quickly" that purports to make the process of developing and deploying Linux much easier, Arstechnica reports. It does this by providing a framework for generating code projects, storing any changes in version control, building packages, and releasing finished software.

The project is built around a template system to help users build applications with Python and Glade. Not surprisingly, the default template -- called ubuntu-project -- is geared towards building applications for Ubuntu, but the Quickly container can support other tools and development technologies. It was designed that other templates are easy to write.

Want to try making a Quickly project yourself? Check out this tutorial.

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