Intrepid Ibex: Where are the New Features?

Posted October 15, 2008
Filed under: Intrepid Ibex, Ubuntu |

The Intrepid Ibex, Ubuntu 8.10, is coming in 15 days.  The new release had many features planned, but yet in the latest beta release, there is still no sign of some of the major features planned.

I mean, really, if some of the biggest improvements are 1) a guest session, and 2) tabs in the file browser, what has become of the world’s most popular distribution?  So far, it looks like OpenOffice 3 will not be making it into Ubuntu 8.10.  A new theme for the distribution, which has been promised since the inception of the last release, still remains to be seen.  The NewHuman theme, renamed “DarkRoom”, has been uploaded, as well as a new background.  However, DarkRoom has not been included as the default, but rather the old-style Human theme has been included, and is this time using the murrine theme engine.  That’s not a radical change, so things still feel the same.  From my experience, not many people change the look and feel of their system who are new to Ubuntu.  Would it not be beneficial to make it look as good as possible?  I mean, seriously, the DarkRoom theme (which still has some bugs), with this background would be aiming for that darker, more earthy look.  It is far more stunning, and would make any head turn.

There are other features that were discussed but held back as well.  It’s unfortunate to not see this release following in the footsteps of past versions, which included features that were worth mention.

The lack of new features is troubling to me, as this release is almost being treated as an LTS release with respect to features.  Why there was not much of a performance improvement or work put into making this release better to fulfill Mark Shuttleworth’s call to beat the Mac makes me wonder.  Hopefully there will be some surprises in store for the final release.  I am currently running the beta, and all things are working well, so only time will tell.  Hopefully some new features will roll in soon.

7 comments so far

  1. mrintegrity on October 16, 2008

    “There are other features that were discussed but held back as well. ”

    Which?

    Reply
  2. John Campbell Rees on October 16, 2008

    It strikes me that whilst there is no headlining Killer new feature, there are so many small under the bonnet improvements that it make Intrepid Ibex one of the most interesting new releases in ages.

    Reply
  3. jonreagan on October 16, 2008

    mrintegrity: there were various enhancements that can be found on this page:

    https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu

    There’s a list… the ones with intrepid next to them were meant to arrive in intrepid ibex. Not everything makes it in of course, but things like Firefox/KDE integration would have been beneficial.

    John: Yup, there’s a bit of stuff put under the hood. Nevertheless, there still are no killer features that make it stand out among other distributions — being an avid Ubuntu supporter, that drives me nuts. ;)

    Reply
  4. Michael B. Trausch on October 16, 2008

    The nice thing about Intrepid is that a lot of the underlying system software has been updated pretty massively. I am very happy about this.

    There are people in the community that are leveraging the dpkg system, as well, and creating third party ports and backports of popularly-requested software. Ubuntu’s PPA system has pretty much invalidated the work that I used to do on my own web site backporting packages, because it has provided a useful and convenient way for people to do that on their own—I am not complaining, though. We all benefit, and I love that. I’m already using some third party newer software in my Intrepid installation, and am quite happy with it.

    There is something that a friend of mine sent to me that you might find interesting. This was written way before “Ubuntu” had the additional meaning of “A GNU/Linux distributed based upon Debian,” but is interesting nonetheless:

    However, the desire to agree, which—within the context of Ubuntu—is supposed to safeguard the rights and opinions of individuals and minorities, is often exploited to enforce group solidarity. Because of its extreme emphasis on community, Ubuntu democracy might be abused to legitimize what Sono calls the “constrictive nature” or “tyrannical custom” of a derailed African culture, especially its “totalitarian communalism” which “…frowns upon elevating one beyond the community” (1994:xiii, xv). The role of the group in African consciousness, says Sono, could be

    …overwhelming, totalistic, even totalitarian. Group psychology, though parochially and narrowly based…, nonetheless pretends universality. This mentality, this psychology is stronger on belief than on reason; on sameness than on difference. Discursive rationality is overwhelmed by emotional identity, by the obsession to identify with and by the longing to conform to. To agree is more important than to disagree; conformity is cherished more than innovation. Tradition is venerated, continuity revered, change feared and difference shunned. Heresies [i.e. the innovative creations of intellectual African individuals, or refusal to participate in communalism] are not tolerated in such communities (1994:7; cf. also Louw, 1995).

    In short, although it articulates such important values as respect, human dignity and compassion, the Ubuntu desire for consensus also has a potential dark side in terms of which it demands an oppressive conformity and loyalty to the group. Failure to conform will be met by harsh punitive measures (cf. Mbigi & Maree, 1995:58; Sono, 1994:11, 17; Van Niekerk, 1994:4). Such a derailment of Ubuntu is, of course, quite unnecessary. The process of nation-building in post-apartheid South Africa does not, for example, require universal sameness or oppressive communalism. What it does require, is true Ubuntu. It requires an authentic respect for human/individual rights and related values, and an honest appreciation of differences (Sindane, 1994:7; Degenaar, 1996:23).

    This comes from a paper written in 1997, which is easily found using the Google 2001 search engine. The paper itself is very interesting, but I think that this quote is of particular interest with Canonical’s behavior of late with regard to certain types of decisions that it is making. Hopefully, though, that will change…

    Reply
  5. jonreagan on October 16, 2008

    Thanks Micheal. :) That’s pretty cool. Thanks for linking to the Google 2001 search engine as well… it makes for interesting computer news searches.

    Reply
  6. Jon Jennings on October 17, 2008

    Still running 8.10 Beta in VirtualBox here… haven’t seen anything exciting enough to make me want to play with it on a full machine. And VirtualBox 1.6.6 Guest Additions don’t play well with it so I’m not feeling encouraged to give it as much time as I should – although I don’t think that’s Ubuntu’s fault.

    But, in general, I agree with you. I know a lot of very smart people have spent a lot of time getting 8.10 where it is now, but Ubuntu is always going to be a distribution that thrives on new exciting features and I’m not sure I see many of them yet.

    Maybe that’s an indication that 8.04 is pretty cool and serving all my needs already!

    P.S. OOo3.0 probably missing the cut but it looks like GIMP2.6.1 is in there.

    Reply
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