Matt Van Stone

I just wanted to say how impressed I am with the latest release of Ubuntu. 7.10, or Gusty, whichever you want to call it has really been an update about making it easier for mainstream (windows?) computer users to get started on linux. Here is a list of some of the improvements I have noticed in my daily use:

• The Screens and Graphics utility: If Xorg can not start because of a misconfigured display adapter instead of failing to an error report like in previous versions, this GUI utility is automatically launched so you can select appropriate settings. It’s not foolproof, but it is leaps and bounds ahead of what you used to get.
• Automatic installation of plugins: I went to a website with flash, Firefox told me it wasn’t installed and asked me if I wanted to install the plugin. Just like on Windows and OS X it worked flawlessly. I tried to open a video file in Totem and there was not codec installed for it. Totem prompted me to install the gstreamer packages, installed them, and then continued to play the video – better than windows. I opened Amarok and tried to play an MP3 file. It notified me that MP3 support was not installed and asked if I would like to install it. I went to the Apple Trailers website and they all worked. This is probably a result of me opening that video file in Totem earlier. All this was done without me having to pull up a terminal window once.
• Compiz Fusion: It has all the eye candy of Compiz Fusion installed by default, you just have to enable it. If you want access to all the advanced effects just install the compizconfig-settings-manager package.
• Speed: I dont know why, but it runs faster. Firefox launches faster and the whole system is more responsive. The boot process seems quicker as well.

The next version of Ubuntu is going to be a Long Term Support version, which means over the next 6 months they are mainly going to be working on bug fixes and stability. I really think Ubuntu is going to take off in the next year. Soon enough all that will be holding them back will be that ugly yellow colour scheme.