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Canonical's latest revision to Ubuntu, version 7.10, dubbed "Gutsy Gibbon" proves that Linux can compete with and, in some cases, trump Windows as a desktop system. It's ease of use that's put Ubuntu near the top of Linux popularity and Gutsy Gibbon brings yet another round of improvements and advances.
Gutsy Gibbon's ease of use shows why Ubuntu remains the target in desktop Linux competition. While there are still some snags, like DVD playback, for the most part, Gutsy Gibbon is easier to install and set up than WIndows Vista and is very close to matching Apple's OS X when it comes to making things "just work" -- wifi, printing, iPod and digital camera support all worked out of box, no drivers or other software needed.
Oh yeah, did we mention it's free?
As with previous versions, Gutsy ships as a live CD, which means you can boot from your CD/DVD drive and run Ubuntu without fear of harming your existing system. If you like what you see, installing Ubuntu is just a matter of clicking "install." From there Ubuntu will lead you through the process of choosing a partition or disk and installing the OS.
If you choose to dual boot with Windows, you can tell Ubuntu to import in all your settings and files. Installation took under twenty minutes.
Once Ubuntu was installed and rebooted it immediately recognized my Wifi card and automatically joined the network. It even defaulted to WPA encryption something that required additional configuration in previous versions.
Historically Linux has been more popular with programmers and the tech elite, making it weak when it comes to multimedia support, but that's changed in recent years and playing your favorite music and movies in the new Ubuntu is every bit a simple as it is in OS X or Windows.
Managing music with the built in Rhythmbox player was easy, though I did have to install additional codecs to get MP3 and WMA support. However, the process was relatively easy. The only gotcha was enabling the "restricted" repositories in the Synaptic package manager. Rhythmbox easily imported all my music from a Windows XP partition without issues and had no trouble browsing and uploading music to my iPod Shuffle.
DVD playback was a slightly different story. The Totem Media player, Ubuntu's default DVD player, lacked the necessary codecs out of the box, but helpfully offered to fetch them. Unfortunately, even after the codecs were installed, I was unable to get any of my Netflix DVDs to play.
Unfortunately this isn't a new experience, I was never able to get DVDs to playback under either of the previous two version of Ubuntu using Totem. Luckily, installing the more robust MPlayer DVD player through the Add/Remove programs panel is easy and DVD playback in MPlayer worked without a hitch. Other options include VLC and gxine.
When it comes to finding and installing applications, the Add/Remove Programs feature in Ubuntu trumps both Windows and Mac OS X.
Whereas Windows and Mac users need to hunt the web for popular applications for their newly installed systems, Linux users simple turn to the package management program, which makes it easy to browse and install software without scouring Google.
Open up Install/Remove Applications and you'll see all the available software listed in one easy to browse panel and installation is a simple as click a button. Even better Ubuntu will inform you any time there's updates available -- something that just isn't possible on Windows or Mac. If you don't see what you want, there's a virtually endless list of repositiories you can add by hand.
Other notable changes in and new Ubuntu 7.10 are the latest Gnome Desktop, which provides much improved drag and drop support, and you'll also find that the whiz-band 3D desktop effects package Compiz is enabled by default. You can change Compiz settings in the system preferences.
Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon features new fast user switching, which mimics the same feature in OS X and makes it easy to switch between user accounts. You'll also find a much improved Apple Spotlight-like applet designed to speed searching and act as an application launcher.
Ubuntu has put considerable effort into improving the user interface for many of Linux's under-the-hood options. A new graphical interface makes it much easier to make adjustments to monitor settings. A single panel allows you to set the default monitor resolution, change the monitor's refresh rate and set up a dual monitor workstation -- all of which previously required using the command line.
Firefox, the default web browser in Ubuntu, has a new extensions repository that uses the Ubuntu application installer making the process of installing Firefox add-ons just like adding other software to Ubuntu -- which means updates happen just as easily too. The traditional Firefox add-on install can of course still be used.
Printing in Ubuntu has also been overhauled, and now features a default virtual "PDF printer" which allows any application to output PDF files, something Mac OS X users will recognize.
My testing was done on a Toshiba laptop using the final release candidate for Gutsy Gibbon, but Canonical says that, if all goes well, there will be no changes between the candidate and final release due October 18th.
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