Recently, Canonical released Herd 5, the last alpha release of the new Ubuntu 7.04. In this preview I will take a look at the new features in Feisty Fawn, illustrated with lots of screenshots :)

Because I’m pretty reluctant to sacrifice one of my real machines for an alpha release, I’m installing Herd 5 on a virtual machine. That’s also the gray bar on top of the screenshots, VirtualBox displays a small menubar on top of the virtual desktop. So because of the virtualization, I won’t be commenting on hardware support until I install one of the beta versions on my machine.

New features in Feisty Fawn

  • New Gnome control center
  • Faster searching with Tracker
    Tracker is a search tool much like Beagle. Both programs will be available in the repositories.
  • Easy codec installation
    When trying to play a multimedia file, Ubuntu will try to install the necessary codecs automatically.
  • Inclusion of NetworkManager
    Connect to wired and wireless networks with the click of your mouse!
  • Kernel Virtual Machine
    Built in virtualization in the Linux Kernel.
  • Migration assistant
    Migrate documents, files and settings with ease from your previous operating system.
  • VPN
    Easy VPN access with NetworkManager.
  • Desktop Effects
    Bring up cool desktop effects that make Vista and Mac OSX pale in comparison.
  • And much more!

There are lots more features that will be added to Feisty, but I feel like I added the most important ones.

Installation

Just like Edgy Eft, Feisty comes on a Live CD that serves for demonstration purposes and installation. Simply boot the Live CD, play around or start the installation.

Feisty Herd 5 Installation 1

Ubiquity, the Ubuntu graphical installer now no longer uses the excellent GParted program for partitioning. Starting with Ubuntu 7.04, Ubiquity has it’s own partitioning tool. Quoting the team that’s doing the work on this new tool:

[…] we will write a simple Python frontend to partman using ubiquity’s standard debconffilter framework, with relatively small PyGTK/PyQt shims. The UI will be designed from scratch with an eye to usability, and will be sufficiently similar between the GTK and KDE frontends to offer familiarity.

Here are some screenshots of the new partitioning tool:

Feisty Herd 5 Installation 2 Feisty Herd 5 Installation 3

Migration Tool

Feisty includes a new migration tool that can migrate documents and settings to the new installation. Unfortunately I couldn’t test it out but I will review this killer feature later.

Feisty Herd 5 Installation 4

Minor Tweaks to the installer

One of the minor tweaks to the installer is an advanced option at the last screen of the installer. In the window that is displayed you can pick the device for the bootloader installation and select if you want to join in the package usage survey.

I’m personally in favor of the package usage survey, but just like under Edgy Eft, the option to enable tracking packages is pretty hidden.

Feisty Herd 5 Installation 5

Gnome Control Center

If you used one of the previous versions of Ubuntu, you’re familiar with the long menu lists of the Preferences and System menu items. These lists had around 20 items that you had to pick from before you could configure your computer. That’s all in the past with the new Gnome Control Center.

First made it’s debut in the Novell and SuSe distributions, this nice piece of software is now ported to Ubuntu to make our lives easier.

But what’s strange in this alpha release is that the new control center is nowhere in the menu’s! I literally stumbled upon it when I explored the menu editor. I really hope it replaces the current Preferences and System menus because it’s a much more userfriendly system.

New Gnome Control Center 1 New Gnome Control Center 2

Easy Codec Installation

Actually I only have one word: Impressive!! I downloaded an mp3 file and tried to play it with Totem. I was told I didn’t have the appropriate codec and Ubuntu searched the repositories for a suitable one. I just marked the suggested packages for installation and voila, mp3 support!

Easy Codec Installation

New artwork and desktop effects

Just like other Ubuntu releases, there have only been minor changes to the artwork. Since everybody has a different taste, you either like it or you don’t.

There’s also a more easy way to enable the well known desktop effects on Ubuntu 7.04. It’s nice but it could have been done much better. I personally had hoped to see the inclusion of Beryl in this release. But as indicated in Mark Shuttleworth’s blog, the current status of Beryl or Compiz wasn’t stable enough to have the packages included in Ubuntu by default.

New Artwork 1 New Artwork 2 New Artwork 3 New Artwork 4

Conclusion

I like it. I like it a lot!

Ubuntu 7.04 will be a very sweet release. I can only hope that the new Gnome Control Center will be the default instead of the current menu structure and that desktop effects like Beryl or Compiz get a more prominent place in this wonderful operating system.

Source: click here