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Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Now In Beta
An anonymous reader writes "To little fanfare and not much news coverage, Canonical released the beta of Ubuntu 9.04 'Jaunty Jackalope.' I tried it on a Dell Mini 9 using the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) and it's fabulous! Much better than the sad 'Dell Desktop' that it shipped with. Finally, someone has broken the 25+ year old too-many-open-windows-and-chaos desktop paradigm with UNR's task oriented layout, which is perfect for small netbook screen sizes."
What the heck is a Jackalope?
a rabbit with antlers.
spinochet
Users of Intel video chipsets have reported performance regressions in Ubuntu 8.10 compared with previous releases. (252094) Although these performance issues have not been resolved by default in Ubuntu 9.04, a new experimental acceleration architecture option, DRI2/UXA, is available for Intel graphics users. Our testing has found this provides significant performance improvements for many users, but has also shown risk of severe stability problems, thus we are not yet providing to the general public. You can opt-in to enable this by running "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf", and adding Option "AccelMethod" "UXA" to the Device section of your xorg.conf. Users wishing to maximize stability should stay with the standard default acceleration method, "EXA".
Find out more here:
http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/unr
Selected quotes:
"Ubuntu Netbook Remix is optimised to run on a new category of affordable Internet-centric devices called netbooks. It includes a new consumer-friendly interface that allows users to quickly and easily get on-line and use their favourite applications. This interface is optimised for a retail sales environment."
Wonder what that last bit means? It flashes 'buy me now!!!! 50% discount!!!' on the screen?
"A remix is a 'respun' version of Ubuntu built for a specific purpose. Although Canonical has encouraged community projects to use this terminology for some time, this is the first time that Canonical has used it. We are using it to differentiate from an 'Edition' which we consider a complete version with daily builds suitable for the average user with no additional work beyond installing the CD."
"All of the initial Ubuntu Netbook remixes combine optimisations from the Moblin project for Intel® Atomâ processors and it is specially designed for netbooks. Intel and Canonical are working to create a new computing experience across a rapidly expanding category of portable devices."
Wintel is dead, long live Buntel?
I don't see any reason to make a huge deal about any "new" Linux release.
Well, two things:
1. Yeah, that's the kind of news only Nerds would care about! Can't they find an appropriate forum for that?
2. This is not about a new "Linux" release. It's about a new Ubuntu beta. By contrast, This is a story about a new Linux release.
Anyone know of a remote desktop solution for Ubuntu that can connect to a Windows 2k or newer box?
Yes. Ubuntu. RDP works out of the box--I use it nearly daily. Applications->Internet->Terminal Server Client. There's also an panel applet front end if you'd prefer that--very handy if you have several Winboxes you need to connect to on a regular basis.
Pidgin will be replaced by Empathy in future releases. It's still needs some work, but looks promising - it's very modular and integrates nicely with the rest of GNOME. It has video chat support.
I thought they'd change the brown in 9.10, Karmic Koala. Shuttleworths announcement of KK: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-February/000536.html
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Worst haiku ever.
"Finally, someone has broken the 25+ year old too-many-open-windows-and-chaos desktop paradigm with UNR's task oriented layout."
Umm... tiling window managers have been around longer than non-tiling ones. You can blame apple for making windows overlappable. The 'task-oriented layout' is nothing new or innovative - see wmii, awesome, xmonad, dwm, etc. etc. (even fluxbox, with its 'tabs', actually) for examples of modern X11 window managers that offer similar functionality, plus much more...
Personally, I started using wmii a few months back and haven't looked back since.