[EDIT: The Version is 7.04 and not 7.10]

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p class=”alert”>For those who want it: >>>Screenshots Tour(Flickr)<<< UPDATE: THE SCREENSHOTS ARE DOWN FOR A WHILE

Review of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn Herd Release 3: Downloading the iso was a little difficult to find the right download links. But then I checked out distrowatch who had a link to the iso directly. Ten hours later, it was done. I didn’t see anything different after booting from the cd. It gave the same old options, and there was no kernel trace output or anything, just that the bar filled up while the cd booted up and unpacked the squashfs filesystem, and booted up the livecd.

First impressions: The moment I booted up, there was a crash report for the synaptic update notifier, because I need a proxy to access the Internet. I sent the crash report back to their server. The hardware recognition worked fine, though there is still no native support for my nvidia 7600GT. There was the install option [which I later tested and worked fine] And the artwork is more or less the same as the one in Edgy. It runs gnome 2.18. There is nothing that’s really noticeable the first time you see it. I also noticed only two virtual desktops by default and some minor changes in artwork. The default applications are the same (openoffice, firefox, gaim) with the eikga smartphone that comes with a gnome default install. Gimp is there, and nautilus is in the “Web browser” display by default. (Nautilus looks so fking cool that way. I wonder why a gnome default install features a minimalistic filebrowser. If it wasn’t minimalistic enough already).

Dude! Where’s my system Menu? One of the biggest changes is an oversimplified system menu. But there’s one option here called the “Control Center” which really impressed me when I opened it up. It’s like a control panel, just simpler and better. It’s divided up into 4 categories: Hardware, Look and Feel, System and Other. The names are self explanatory and you can configure almost all major functions of your computer with ease. It’s like a much more simpler and better thought out version of openSuse’s Yast (yet another system tool). All the icons are part of the lovely ubuntu mod of tango iconset called tangerine. There’s also a very useful and very intuitive search filter which you can use to quickly find the setting you’re looking for.

The Ubuntu Help Center: I knew kde had a help center with some stuff like how to change your wallpaper, etc. But This was very nice. A simple and useful help center has been included in ubuntu. This has loads of useful articles on how to install multimedia codecs, help for server systems, and almost everything you may need. To top it all off, a very useful search that found articles on nvidia drivers, mp3 codec installation, and an entire section dedicated towards ubuntu propaganda like “the desktop”, “The difference” etc. But real good stuff indeed.

Endnote: I have a love/hate relationship with ubuntu. I’m primarily a debian user, and I feel ubuntu oversimplifies things a bit. But after reviewing Feisty, I’m convinced that this just isn’t any other debian wrapper. While older distros love their elitism and sadomasochistic installation techniques, and newer ones are just a different collection of packages with a clever name and some artwork. I was a little annoyed because the upgrade from dapper to edgy was practically nothing but init and a new version of gnome, but ubuntu’s gone ahead leaps and bounds with feisty. With the support and commitment to making the best distro out there and to make it user friendly is commendable. The alpha version of Feisty looks great, can’t wait to see the release candidates.