Ooh, A Koala …

Hmmm …

I’ve got to admit, I’m mildly impressed …

Mildly, maybe, but impressed, none-the-less.

I’ve managed, over this week-end, to upgrade both Kevin and Allison’s laptop from Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope to Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.

And, as I think I’ve said, I’m mildly impressed.

Now, I’m no coder, and have really only have an idea of what’s going on, under the surface; but, from the little I can follow on the Ubuntu site, there’s quite a lot going on. They’ve changed the file system from ext3 to ext4; which I’m told can support larger file and hard drive sizes.

Which can’t be bad …

There’s definitely a few other things, going on, though.

I do know that they’ve improved the boot-loader; with the net result that both Allison* and Kevin’s laptop’s have seen some noticeable speed improvements.

Which, from what Tim tells me, is possibly where his Dell is having problems; it seems his is having CPU throttling trouble; if I’ve understood what I’ve read, correctly, it’s the way the processors in some laptops — Dell’s in particular — start idling during quiet patches.

Mostly as a power conservation measure.

So while his laptop’s boot procedure is rather zippy, he’s having a few problems.

Which means a little bit of hacking, when Tim’s round, next!

No bad thing, possibly; I’m just a touch disappointed that Kevin and Allison didn’t fancy making the switch to Xubuntu.

Shame, really, I’d’ve not minded seeing that in action!

Either way, the mainstream release of Karmic Koala’s — as I think I mentioned earlier — impressive; the icon set’s been tweaked so it look’s a touch more contemporary, the log-in screen, and initial splash screen are rather good — if rather familiar looking one, to me as a Mac user.

There’s a lot of iCandy added; new theme’s and wallpaper’s for starters, and the various menu’s — Applications, Places and System — given something of an overhaul.

But the noticeable overhaul …

Comes in the Applications folder; the makers of Ubuntu have managed to combine the Synaptic Package manager with the Add/Remove function, to come up with what they call Ubuntu Software Centre.

Which is very bloody handy; and something I wouldn’t mind seeing integrated into OS X.

Oh, I know there’s a feature in iTunes, that enables you to download tons of freebie apps for the iPod and iPhone, and purchase many others, but — beyond the buyable stuff on the Apple site — very little on the Apple site specifically aimed at OS X.

Or, at least, not that’s handled in quite the same way.

* Allison’s having mixed feelings, I’m most confess; while the sound quality on her laptop’s improved, it’s also been having trouble interacting with the printer she’s got.