Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Released

The day before Walpurgis Night, long expected new LTS (means three years support for desktop and five years support for server edition) version of Ubuntu has been released. For server administrators it's a good news because they can easily update to the latest software. In addition Ubuntu has quite remarkable support for establishing and using clouds. There is an option to set up Ubuntu on the well known Amazon EC2 or Rackspace Cloud Servers, but you can also (if you are an adventurer; kidding, it's pretty easy ;)) set your own private cloud powered by an open source project Eucalyptus which is used for example by NASA by the way. On an official Ubuntu page I've read that with their Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) technology you can have your own cloud up and running in less than 30 minutes (current record is 25 minutes :)).

Desktop changes

On the desktop version many visual changes took place. New color scheme (no more Human theme colors) moving towards Mac OS X look and feel. Window buttons are on the left by default (IMHO pointless change).

There are also changes on some packages and default software. Gimp was removed for the default instalation and according to Ubuntu distro developers, for edditing and managing your photos you should use F-spot (which isn't bad). One of the major changes is new integrated music store which is huge step forward I think. Music store is "backuped" by 7digital.

If you are a social person you may find useful Gwibber, which integrates all kinds of social networks into one simple interface. If you are a home video geek, you can use new simple video editing tool called PiTiVi.

Of course, there is a lot more changes like new hardware support, new kernel etc. Give it a try, you won't regret (I guess ;)). Download from official Ubuntu download site. Stay tuned for further reviews of this nice open source operating system.