Jaunty Jackalope

As you may know, or perhaps you don't,the 23rd is the release of Ubuntu 9.04 or "Jaunty Jackalope". I know there are two questions, the first is: "what is Ubuntu?" and the second; "What is a Jackalope?". To answer the latter question, a Jackalope is a large bunny with antlers. They are purported to exist in the wild and basically unvisited parts of the American Southwest. In other words, it is a mythical animal. I suppose they are jaunty on top of it all.

That's the first question, to answer the second, the immediate answer is to go through a few of my blogs, I am a fan of Ubuntu. If you are a new reader to my blog, I suggest you follow the link. To give the quick answer, Ubuntu is a distro of Linux which is a UNIX based Operating System devised by Linus Torvalds. I'd say more but I can sense the eyes beginning to glaze. That seems to happen a lot to me when I get geeky. Especially when I start to discuss things such as Dr. Who. Ubuntu is one of the more popular types of Linux and has been making some impact into the mainstream computer community. It has become the second choice for people who buy certain brands of Dell Computers, such as the netbooks; the Mini 9 and 12 to give a couple of examples.

If you follow the link to DistroWatch, a site which offers links to the various Linux flavours, you will notice Ubuntu is listed as the #1 Linux distro in the world. A recent New York Times article states there are something in the order of ten million Ubuntu users. In a world that supposed to be divided between Windows and Mac OS there is the third way and that is Linux. Of all the Linux distros, Ubuntu is becoming the face for this third way.

What I like about Ubuntu is the fact that it has the look and feel that is familiar when it comes to operating systems, that and the fact it is loaded with all sorts of neat and cool programs. Yes it has Productivity software such as Open Office it also has games and a whole lot of multimedia programs. It is all based upon the concept of free and open software, nothing proprietary in this system, although you can install such things to ensure that your graphic card works fine. It also has special effects, things that only Vista is thought to be able to do. Once you see compiz in action you will be hooked.

I've had Ubuntu installed on the desktop and I'm waiting for the day to download the new installation. As you can see by the countdown at top, it's coming soon. I probably will do it this weekend, since with 10 million people downloading the same software, it tends to slow the servers down a bit, even if there are a lot of them.

Ubuntu gives us all the opportunity to be free.

Isn't that all we want.

I did mention a few posts that I was due for an ubuntu blog, plus I can place the countdown widget in the blog at the same time.