Jamyskis

I’ve just updated my installation of Ubuntu to Feisty Fawn (7.04) through Update-Manager, and I thought I’d post a few of my first impressions here. Now, as I understand it, most of the major improvements in this version really reveal themselves to people migrating from Windows, with a migration tool that copies your bookmarks, documents etc. during installation, built-in Compiz desktop effects and easier NVIDIA/ATI driver installation. Since I already had my NVIDIA drivers installed, I already use Beryl and all the bookmarks and documents that I use are already under Ubuntu (I’ve been using it for next to three years now) none of this was much use to me, but it is still a welcome addition.

There were a number of improvements, however, that did catch my eye. The presence of two new GNOME games - Chess and Sudoku - is good, especially since I’m a keen Sudoku player, and the implementation here is very good. The new version of Mail Notification (which I use to let me know of any new mails that Evolution downloads) looks better and integrates better into the Ubuntu desktop. GAIM 2.0beta6 is included thankfully, as the old betas were buggy and prone to crashing, especially when chatting with MSN users that love to have hundreds of those really annoying custom emoticons.

We’ve now got OpenOffice 2.2, which looks rather nice, offering mostly aesthetic improvements, although for whatever reason the theme doesn’t seem to match the native GNOME theme. Very strange. HP’s printer driver collection, HPLIP, has a brand new QT-based interface, which while not blending into the GNOME environment perfectly, looks a lot better than the old rough-looking GTK1 interface that prevailed before.

Finally, the inclusion of a GOOM! visualisation in Rhythmbox is a welcome addition, although I’ve found that setting the resolution in GOOM! to anything higher than medium tends to crash Rhythmbox, as it does with any other client that uses it (VLC, XMMS etc.)

I’m still yet to get a clear picture of how good Feisty really is, but it is looking good so far. Now we just have Gutsy Gibbon (8.10) to look forward to.