I looked on the Ubuntu site this morning around 10 am, and saw version 9.10 was still the version du jour.  I knew that Lucid Lynx was due out today, and was wondering if somehow the date had been moved, nope, checked back at 2 pm and wahlah! Ubuntu 10.04 LTS has been officially released.

I covered what was projected for the new release months ago, but now that its here, let’s do a quick review of the new features.

Lucid Lynx has three versions a Netbook Edition for browsing the web, a  Server Edition, and of course, the Desktop or Laptop Edition.

Number one on the list is the LTS in the name, standing for Long Term Support.  Commercial customers have been reluctant to move to Ubuntu in the past, because there was limited support offered from one version to the next, notably 18 months.  With this version Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, have committed to supporting this release for five years for the server, and three years for the other versions.  This make 10.04, Lucid Lynx, a major Ubuntu release.

Lucid Lynx comes installed with “Firefox,” and “OpenOffice.org”  It has a Software Centre application that simplifies finding, and installing software for Ubuntu. There’s an instant messaging application called “Empathy” that integrates all your instant messaging accounts, and a email application to keep track of your emails.  There is an application called, “Me” that integrates your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

This version has an improved Nvidia video driver, so your gaming and heavy graphic applications should run smoother, for all those Nvidia graphic card users.  Most Ubuntu systems by the way use Nvidia graphic cards.

For multimedia we have a new Music application that integrates playing your music with an online store.  “F-Spot” integrates all your pictures and videos along with Flickr, Facebook, and Picassa.  There is a video playback application, called “Movie Player,” and an application called “Pitivi” to edit your videos.  There’s hundreds of free games available, all free.

For sharing accounts, all Ubuntu users get an online file saving account, called “Ubuntu One,” that allows you to share files from anywhere on the Internet.

Both Microsoft and Apple may have some competition here.  None of them come with this much software installed with the operating system.  Oh, did I mention, all of this is free.

Top this off with an easy, quick install, and the fastest loading operating system in the industry measured at 10 seconds in one test.  Although, this could be a drawback, I’m so used to Microsoft’s long loads, that I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have enough time to get my morning cup of coffee, but I’d think I’d manage.

That’s it for now.  More on doing the upgrade and my general impressions from 9.1 to 10.4 later.

The next release of Ubuntu, version 10.04, “Lucid Lynx” is set for April 29, 2010. The Alpha 3 version is out, and there is much buzz about what to expect from the next release.

This release is set for long term support which offers bug fixes and security patches for three years for desktops and five years for servers. Usually the six month Ubuntu releases are supported for only 18 months.

Something that all the Linux distros have struggled with is keeping up with video drivers. Ubuntu has made a concerted effort to support NIVDIA drivers, even though NIVIDIA keeps its drivers proprietary. With this release, the Nouveau project will be the standard NVIDIA project used by Ubuntu. The Nouveau project specializes in high quality, open source drivers for NIVDIA cards. This is good news for system builders, who are major users of Ubuntu, and favor NIVDIA graphic cards. Currently, Nouveau offers full 2D support for NVIDIA cards. 3D support is not quite there yet, but there working on it.

Along with this, transparency in all areas of the desktop and in applications will be supported.  GNOME 3 will be available in March, before Lucid Lynx, with additional functionality for the desktop.  What all this means is that those fancy aero screens in Vista and Windows 7 with desktop stunning images now will be possible in the Ubuntu desktop. With Gnome 3 and transparency coming to 10.4, we could be pleasantly surprised with a considerable upgrade in “eye candy” for this release.

New applications include easier file sharing between Windows and Ubuntu implemented with Personal File Sharing.   Gwibber will allow for easier social networking by retrieving and combining information from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Digg to name a few social sites.  And there will be  support for Apples  iPhones and iTouch drag and drop in Rythmbox.

Much effort has been put into getting Ubuntu to boot quickly. Ten second boots has been the goal. This new release will be close to that goal. Boots from 10-15 seconds have been reported. That’s incredible! We’re getting closer and closer to “Instant On.”   Microsoft, which touted quick booting as a feature of Windows 7, takes twice as long. A splash screen has been added to start,  so you don’t have a period of time with nothing on your monitor while booting during that 10 seconds that is.  I’m still blown away by this kind of boot time, just amazing.

Ubuntu is getting very close to being a better operating system environment for computer hardware and software than Microsoft Windows. If the public becomes knowledgeable about just how good Ubuntu is, we could see a positive shift in Ubuntu’s market share.

One of the things that separates Windows from Linux or Ubuntu, a Linux distribution, is the way the operating system handles the graphical user interface. Microsoft Windows is an integral part of the operating system. It is integrated with the operating system and at this point, Windows 7, you can’t operate the computer with out the Window’s graphical interface. To be fair, you can still get to the old DOS command line by typing cmd in the run window, but it’s more there for a link to nostalgia, than it is to do day to day operations. In a lot of ways, I miss the DOS command line, I was good at it. Alas, even some of the old DOS commands are missing, like fdisk, for example. That’s all done through the windowing system, now.

In contrast, Linux has two windowing systems, KDE, and the one used in Ubuntu, Gnome. These two windowing systems are independent applications, and more important, they run as applications, just like OpenOffice or a game would run.

Linux consists of a kernal, and another layer that runs user applications, and never the twain shall meet. The kernal uses its own memory space, and each application runs in its own memory segment. If an application needs to access a disk drive, it calls the kernal, the kernal accesses the drive, and passes the information over to the calling applications memory space. Because of this the desktop can crash, say from a video game that has a bug, and it will not bring the computer down. It will just shut down that application, which you can restart from the Linux command line.

In contrast, Microsoft integrates windows with the operating system. So if you have a problem with your video driver, the entire system crashes, and you have to reboot the computer. This is one of the reasons Linux is more secure than Windows.

I mentioned you can restart an application from the command line in Ubuntu. How do we get there?  In Windows, you type cmd in the run window, and you get a black window with the command prompt.  Ubuntu is pretty much the same.  From the Gnome desktop, in the upper left corner, go to Applications->Accessories->Terminal. You’ll find a nice black window pop up with a $ prompt. Welcome to the Ubuntu Linux distribution command line.

Bringing Up the Ubuntu Terminal Window

Putting an Icon on Your Desktop

As a digression, I am at the command prompt much more often than in Windows, so I put an icon on my desktop to bring it up quickly.  To put an icon on your desktop, go back to Applications->Accessories->Terminal, but instead of left clicking to bring up the window, right click, and your given a couple of choices. You can add an icon to the laucher panel, this is a tiny icon that appears on the top bar of your screen, like the current Firefox icon, or you can add the icon to your desktop.

There is another choice, of putting it in the menu, as a drawer, the equivalent of a folder in Windows, or a an actual menu item.  Since we’re making an icon for the desktop, we don’t need to put it in the menu, since it’s already there.  By the way,  if you would like to rearrange your menus, change the drawers, or remove some menu items, the menus are completely configurable.  Go to the Applications choice on the top menu bar, for example, right click and select “Edit Menus.”

Back to the terminal window, the terminal window gives you complete access to the Ubuntu distro,  i.e. the Linux operating system command line, and its plentiful commands, but that is the subject of another post.  As a teaser, I’ll give you a couple of commands to get you started.    Everything is in lower case, type “pwd” for print working directory.   It tells you where you are.  Type, “ls” to list the files in that directory, or better “ls -al” to get a long alphabetical listing.  Some things come from DOS.  Type “cd ..” for change directory  to move up one level in the directory structure, and or to go down, type the name of the directory , for example,  “cd home”  goes down to the home directory, that should keep you busy for awhile.  Have fun and enjoy Ubuntu.

And finally, less we get carried away, you can still explore your file system through the GNOME graphical user interface, like Windows Explorer, without using the terminal window or the command line, by going to the “Places” menu in the upper tool bar.

By now you are familiar with the initial installed Ubuntu background.  When you use a computer every day, you know that after awhile you want to change the appearance of your computer, just as a change of pace.  Ubuntu has not forgotten the aesthetics, and gives you just as many choices as Windows.

The Initial Ubuntu Background

For those Windows users, Windows calls their background the desktop, and the way you change the picture on the desktop in Windows is to right click on the desktop, and bring up the properties menus.  In the properties menu you can change the theme and sounds, the desktop picture, what you use for a screensaver, the appearance of menus, and the screen resolution.

Let’s see what we can do with Ubuntu.  Just like in Windows, right click on your desktop, and there you will find a “Change Desktop Background,” menu,  left click, and up comes “Appearance Preferences.”  You’ll find 22 backgrounds you can choose from, or if you click the “Add” button you can use any of your pictures.  You can also down load additional pictures from Gnome Art.  Remember Gnome is name of the Graphic User Interface that Ubuntu uses.  This site has a bunch of additional themes and backgrounds that are easily downloaded and installed by clicking on the “Get more backgrounds online” link.

A New Background

Through the upper tab menus on Appearance Preferences,  you can change the theme, by changing the look of your: controls, colors, window borders, icons, and mouse pointers. Not only that you can change the fonts that are used along with the size of the fonts for menus and documents from the fonts menu. If your eyes need a little bit bigger fonts it’s no problem to adjust them here.

Font Preferences

There’s one other thing you may want to change, and that is your screen saver.  To change your screen saver in Ubuntu, go to the “System” menu in your upper left menu, click on “Preferences” and then “Screensaver.”  This is also where you can configure Ubuntu to go to “sleep” after a period of inactivity or just to shut the display off.  This is under the “Power Management” menu in “Screensaver Preferences.”

Screensaver Preferences

In summary, you can change the entire look of Ubuntu, and make it your own with a few clicks of the mouse.

Ubuntu comes with drivers for most of your peripherals, except printer drivers, which normally are installed separately.  In a previous blog I have written favorably about the Canon MX850 compared to the equivalent HP ink-jet all-in-one printers.  Having a good feeling about Canon, I went to their web site and made an email inquiry about a printer driver for Ubuntu.  Here is their reply, “While considering the desire to provide the best possible support for Canon’s products, Canon must make decisions on which products to support when new operating systems are introduced.  Currently, Canon has decided to support only the Microsoft Windows and the Macintosh operating systems.”

Pardon me, Canon, but Ubuntu and Linux are not new operating systems.  They’ve been around almost as long as Windows, and the Apple operating system is based on Linux.

Have no fear, though, this happens occasionally and what you’ll find when you go looking for a solution is other solutions.  Searching further, for Canon printer drivers, there is a free solution, the CUPS-BNJP Printer Driver, which mimics the Canon BNJP printer protocol for the Canon Pixma printers and works over the network. This also works with the XSane scanning software provided with Ubuntu to allow scanning of documents.

CUPS-BNJP is based on CUPS, CUPS works with other printers besides Canon.  It was built for the Fedora distribution of Linux.  Since Ubuntu uses the Debian distribution, there may or may not be an issue in using CUPS with Ubuntu.  We can check that easily.  If you go to Applications->Ubuntu Software Center->Get Free Software->System Tools and scan through the list of available software, you’ll come to two choices: Printing, Printers.   If you click on “Printing,”  a CUPS printer driver is available.  “Printers” on the menu system gives you a GUI interface between CUPS and the printer.

CUPS uses your web browser to view print jobs, manage your printers, and for online help.  However, it makes use of the command line for its configuration.  The printer GUI in the Ubuntu Software Center. according to the software description,  seemed like it depended on some other software for configuring remote printers on a LAN,  if you don’t want to install a series of dependent software, or if you prefer not to use the command line interface, you probably want to check out a commercial solution, TurboPrint 2 for Linux.

TurboPrint 2 supports ink-jet printer’s from: HP, Bother, Epson, and Canon for all Linux distributions.  For the modest cost of $29 you can be ensured that you printer will function, and pick up a nice set of additional features with the software.

TurboPrint2 features include: high print resolutions, color management that matches screen document color to printed color, printer status monitoring to track print progress and errors, like a low ink cartridge, printing on both sides of the paper, print preview of what your about to print, and intelligent ink management to save ink and extend cartridge life. The one remaining question that I had is will it work on a printer attached to your network, and it will.  This intelligent printer utility has Windows and individual manufacturers printer drivers beat hands down.

The company provides a trial version to see if it will work on your system. You can download from the web and hook it up and if everything works, then purchase the software.  What’s not to like!

Given I was not sure about the Cups-BNJP distribution with Ubunutu,  the GUI configuration tool appeared to need additional software to pick up my printer on my LAN,  which meant there may be some additional configuration issues beyond just downloading the software, and  a free trial of TurboPrint was available, I decided to go with the TurboPrint option and give it a try.

TurboPrint Control Center and Printer Monitor

I downloaded the correct distribution for Ubuntu from their website. Clicked on the install button, the install wizard came up and installed the software.  The installation was painless.  The only thing that made me pause was the request to add a printer before other functionality was available.  This is done with the “Add” button in the Print Control Center.  My model Canon was recognized immediately on my LAN and that was it.  I printed a test page, checked the level of my ink cartridges, and was suitably impressed.

Considering I didn’t have to read any documentation, install several pieces of software,  or potentially do a command line configuration of the printer.  I was up and running in 5 minutes,  and had some one to turn to for support if any problems cropped up, it certainly is worth the $29 asking price for Turbo Print to me,  so much for printer drivers.