Has Ubuntu let us down again
Ubuntu's contribution to propagating Linux to the client platforms (general desktop/notebook) is invaluable. Its developers are known to codename major builds of the OS after animals. An upcoming version, 9.10 has been codenamed "Karmic Koala", after the cute and cuddly animal from south-east Australia. Going by Ubuntu's six-month development cycle, 9.10 should follow 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" slated for this April, and should be coming out by October.
Take a deep breath, here come 5 short updates about Karmic Koala!
Grub 2.0 Will be Default for New Installations
Grub2 will replace Grub 1.5 in all new Karmic releases from current Alpha's on. What is Grub2? Basically a nicer version of Grub that you currently use - It has a slight visual refresh as well meaning that it is easier to fix and reinstall it should you need to.
Banshee or Rhythmbox?
It's still up-in-the-air as to which will be the default music player in Ubuntu. At UDS it seemed Rhythmbox was settled on, however Banshee advocates have piped up and the default media player for Karmic is, as of Alpha 2, still undecided...
Vrooooooom... ....10 Second Boot
Ubuntu have a 10 second boot goal for Karmic - and so far they're making excellent progress on it. As such they've decided NOT to use the 'Plymouth' boot-splash (looks fancier) as the computer won't be booting long enough to really notice it...
EXT4 As Default
Karmic will use the EXT4 filesystem as default meaning a significant sped boost for Ubuntu when writing/reading files and applications.
No Major New Theme/Revamp
Despite being planned for Januty but pushed back to Karmic Ubuntu's big interface revamp has been pushed back to 10.04. Reasons include the maturing of the Ayatana project and it's projects.
