If you haven’t installed Ubuntu on your computer yet, never fear, it’s easy! We recommend downloading the Ubuntu Manual to help you get started. The Ubuntu Manual includes installation instructions and lots of helpful information to get you started with Ubuntu.

Step 1: Install Ubuntu Restricted Extras

After installing Ubuntu, the first thing you’ll want to do is install a package of applications called “Ubuntu Restricted Extras.” This will install Flash, Java, and a bunch of other features that most Facebook users will find necessary. If you don’t know how to install this package, it’s no problem, we already wrote an article and made a video all about it – click here to learn how to install Ubuntu Restricted Extras.

Step 2: Setup Facebook Chat

Facebook chat is built right into Ubuntu from the start. The Empathy IM Client allows you to always be connected to Facebook chat without even logging on to the Facebook website. You can also connect with your friends on other chat services, such as AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and MSN. Empathy also provides great desktop integration, providing visual and audio feedback when new messages arrive. We find that this integration greatly improves our ability to get work done while still staying in touch with our Facebook and other chat friends.

Here’s a video that shows how to setup Facebook Chat on Ubuntu. You’ll need your Facebook username  if you want to follow along. If you don’t have a Facebook username yet, or don’t know what it is, you can create one by clicking here.

Step 3: Configure Gwibber and the Me Menu

Ubuntu 10.04 comes with two other great applications that integrate Facebook right into the desktop experience. Gwibber is a microblogging client with support for Twitter, Identi.ca, StatusNet, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, FriendFeed, and Qaiku. It allows you to view your Facebook activity without visiting the Facebook website. Gwibber also allows you to post status updates to Facebook and other social websites like Twitter.  This is especially useful if you maintain profiles on multiple sites. The Me Menu extends this functionality by allowing you to quickly make status updates.

Here’s a video that shows how to configure Ubuntu with your Facebook account and shows a few of the features of Gwibber and the Me Menu.

Step 4: Share your favorite apps with friends on Facebook

Apps for Ubuntu is a Facebook application that helps you find, install, and share Ubuntu software with your friends. Browse or search thousands of Ubuntu applications and click the star next to the ones that you like and use the most. After you’ve found all your favorites, add a list of your top 5 apps to your Facebook profile. You can also share applications with your friends and see what their favorite apps are.  For more information, watch this video or just click here to get started.

Related posts:

1. Find, Share and Install Ubuntu Apps on Facebook
2. Ubuntu Restricted Extras – Lets Ubuntu Play Everything
3. Last.fm Support in Ubuntu 10.04 – Scrobbling and Streaming

Brave New User Interface Design

With version 10.04, the Ubuntu design team has abandoned the traditional brown and orange of past releases and started using a new color pallet based on purple, red and orange. Canonical also introduced new logos and design ideas for future websites and marketing materials. The design team seems to have taken Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth seriously when he said that “Pretty” should be a feature of the Linux desktop. While many of these changes have been controversial, Lucid Lynx represents a revolutionary leap forward in the “look and feel” of Ubuntu.

New Themes

Click to enlarge

Ubuntu 10.04 brings us two new themes – Ambiance and Radiance. Gone is the old Humanity theme that we’ve all come to know and associate with Ubuntu. The default Ambiance theme is a dark theme which may be quite a change for some users, but after using it for a few weeks, we think it’s a great default theme for Ubuntu. Radiance is almost identical but is a very light theme focused on shades light brown.

Window Controls Moved to the Left

Probably the most controversial change in Lucid revolves around the placement of the window controls on the left side of the window. Despite all the controversy, Mark Shuttleworth decided that the buttons would be moved to the left and be in the same order as the window controls found in Mac OS X. This change may be slightly uncomfortable for some who are accustomed to Windows, but we think it won’t be a huge stumbling block for most.

New Icons

Along with the new themes have come new icons. The old orange icons have been updated with redder tones, brown has been replaced with purple.  In general, we think this is a nice improvement.

New Startup and Login Screens

Gone is the black startup screen with a white Ubuntu logo. The new startup screen features the new Ubuntu logo and a purple and red color scheme.

Thankfully, the login screen has also been updated. The new login screen features a much lighter color pallet and new Ubuntu logo.

New Desktop Backgrounds

Lucid Wallpapers [click to see all 21]

The default desktop background (wallpaper) has been updated and it’s … purple! We thought that the default desktop background for 9.10 was about as ugly as they come, and we’re happy to see it replaced. The new desktop background is nice, but if purple is not your thing, Ubuntu has included a great selection of community contributed backgrounds to choose from.

Notification area icons and menus

All of the icons in the top-right of the default Ubuntu desktop have been updated and are now monochrome (similar to OS X). The way most of the menus work has also been changed in an attempt to make the functionality more uniform across applications.

Installer Updates

Slideshow screenshots

The new installer CD no longer displays a text-based screen at startup. Instead, it boots into a full graphical environment before asking if you want to “try” or “install” Ubuntu. The installer wizard is pretty much the same, only with small visible changes. Once the installation process has started, however, you’ll be treated to a fabulous new slide show, a tour of sorts, that tells you about all the features of Ubuntu.

Improved Startup Speed

With version 10.04, Ubuntu has moved to a new startup process called Plymouth. This new system, earlier used in other Linux distributions, makes Ubuntu boot much faster.  It is also responsible for displaying the pretty new graphical startup screen. Many people are reporting amazingly fast boot times, your results may vary.

New Default Applications

Simple Scan

Canonical developers have written a brand new scanning application in an attempt to make scanning, well, simple! If your scanner works with Ubuntu (still a big question), scanning documents is now extremely simple. Simple Scan has only the most necessary and most used features, but if you need more features, you can always install XSane.

PiTiVi Movie Editor

Ubuntu 10.04 now includes PiTiVi, a simple movie editor, by default.  Normally, this would be a sign that an application has reached a good level of stability, but in the case of PiTiVi, it’s far from the truth. While we can foresee a great future for PiTiVi, we have found it to be incredibly buggy and probably not worthy of inclusion in an LTS release.  However, if you’re willing to put up with a lot of crashes and bugs, you can make some simple movies with PiTiVi.

Social From the Start

One of the major themes for Lucid is the inclusion of tools for interaction with social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. The idea is to include tools which are integrated into the default desktop install that will let people connect to their favorite social services right out-of-the-box. There are many changes in Lucid which will help you interact with your social networks, here are three that we found especially useful.

Gwibber

Gwibber is a microblogging client with support for Twitter, Identi.ca, StatusNet, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, FriendFeed, and Qaiku. You can use gwibber to interact with all of your social networks and view them from within one window on your desktop. We found gwibber very useful for following multiple social networks and accounts simultaneously. Gwibber provides a rich experience and you might even noticed things that you missed when relying on the social networking websites alone.

Gwibber also provides a programming interface that allows other Ubuntu applications to easily add social networking features. This makes it easier for application developers to build apps that interact with sites like Twitter. It also provides a unified account management system across multiple applications. One application that already takes advantage of these new features is the “Me Menu.”

Me Menu

Brand new in Ubuntu 10.04 is the Me Menu. This new menu is your one-stop place for quick interaction with your social networks and chat accounts. You can quickly update your Twitter or Facebook status right from the Me Menu. This eliminates the need to launch Firefox and load Facebook or Twitter if you just want to send off a quick status update. Chat status settings have also been moved into the Me Menu. Finally, the Me Menu provides quick access to settings for your social networks, chat accounts and Ubuntu One.

We’re excited to see the inclusion of the Me Menu in Ubuntu, and look forward to seeing it continue to develop in future releases.

Facebook Chat

Empathy, the default chat client for Ubuntu, has been updated with multiple new features. The most interesting new feature is the ability to use Facebook chat. In the past, chatting with Facebook users required keeping Facebook open in Firefox. This can prove very resource intensive and also requires keeping an eye on Firefox in order not to miss any incoming messages.

Now that you can add your Facebook account to Empathy (along with chat accounts like IRC, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and MSN), all of your chatting activity can take place in one application. Empathy also provides great desktop integration, providing visual and audio feedback when new messages arrive. We find that this integration greatly improves our ability to get work done while still staying in touch with our Facebook and other chat friends.

iPhone and iPod Touch Support

Lucid also comes with limited support for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This functionality has been missing from Linux all together until just recently (due to Apple’s incredible restrictions and secrecy about their devices).  You can browse the contents of your iPhone right within the Nautilus file manager. Even better, Rhythmbox allows you to drag and drop music to and from your iPhone or iPod Touch. Now, the only time you would need iTunes is to do a firmware upgrade. Of course, most older iPods are also supported in Ubuntu as well.

Ubuntu One Updates

Canonical’s “cloud” storage and synchronization service, Ubuntu One, has also received a lot of updates and new features. There is now an Ubuntu One preferences application that allows you to configure many of the Ubuntu One services (some functions still require visiting the Ubuntu One website).

It is now possible to sync any folder in your home folder between computers (not just the Ubuntu One folder). For example, you could share a folder called “Work Documents” between your home and work computers and the folders will always be in sync. Files can also easily be published online and automatically given a short url that you can share with friends.

Firefox bookmark syncing and Evolution contact syncing has also been included with this new release. Taking things even further, if you’re a paying Ubuntu One subscriber, you can now sync your mobile phone contacts with Ubuntu One. This includes support for syncing with iPhones.

Ubuntu One Music Store

Canonical is also rolling out the Ubuntu One Music Store with the release of Lucid Lynx. The music store is integrated into the Rhythmbox music player much like Apple’s iTunes store is integrated into iTunes. The store offers music from major record labels in a DRM-free MP3 format. Music is automatically downloaded to your Ubuntu One folder and synced with your other computers and backed up to the cloud. While this is a convenient option for buying music, it’s yet to be seen if people will choose this option over existing music shops like Amazon. Hopefully, this will provide a nice revenue stream for Canonical and be useful to users as well.

Updated Ubuntu Software Center

The Ubuntu Software Center is the main way for desktop users to find and install new software in Ubuntu. In Lucid, the Ubuntu Software Center has received an incredible amount of attention. Many features have been added, such as easy access to 3rd party PPA repositories, bigger application preview screenshots, the addition of “Featured Applications,” and the devision of applications into sub-categories for easier browsing. The Ubuntu Software Center also features a nice graphical overhaul with many usability and application discoverability  improvements.

Nautilus Changes

Along with the release of GNOME 2.30 (the last release before GNOME 3), we’ve seen some changes in the Nautilus file manager.  Some features have been removed and the interface has seen many minor enhancements. The most interesting and useful new feature is “split view mode” which allows you to display the contents of two different folders within the same window. This feature is especially helpful when trying to organize or compare two folders at the same time.

What is your favorite new feature?

This article just highlights some of the biggest changes in Ubuntu 10.04, but there are hundreds of other updates, fixes and new features. What updates did we forget to mention? What new features do you like the most … or perhaps dislike the most? Let us know in the comments below!

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3. Ubuntu Lucid Makes Scanning Simple

A fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) comes complete with Firefox, the Rhythmbox music player, and the Totem movie player. You may find, however, that some websites don’t work correctly because Flash and Java are missing, you may also find that a lot of your media files do not play. This is because Ubuntu (for legal reasons) only comes with support for free and open source audio and video formats. Many technologies such as Flash, MP3 and DVD are proprietary or patent encumbered and can not be included on the Ubuntu CD.

Thankfully, it’s extremely easy to set up your new Ubuntu system to play just about any media file you can throw at it. All you need to do is install one software package from the Ubuntu Software Center and your system will be configured to enjoy all of your media files and the whole internet. The software that we need to install is called “Ubuntu Restricted Extras.” This package, in turn, will download, install and configure Flash, Java, core Microsoft fonts (the fonts used on many websites), MP3 support, DVD support (for unencrypted DVDs) and support for just about every other audio and video format you can imagine.

To install this package, open the Ubuntu Software Center (by clicking Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center) and search for “Ubuntu restricted extras.” You should see the “Ubuntu restricted extras” package in the search results, then just click “Install” and let Ubuntu’s built-in package manager do all the hard work for you!

Because this package downloads and installs a lot of other packages (many of them not located on Ubuntu’s servers), it can take some time to finish downloading. Just be patient and let the process finish. It’ll be worth it in the end.

Once the package has been installed, you can restart Firefox and you should now be able to access all your favorite sites, like YouTube, that require the Flash plugin, play any multimedia files you may have, and watch non-commercial DVDs.

Bonus: Installing support for commercial DVD playback

Due to many varying laws around the world, Ubuntu can not ship support for commercial (encrypted) DVD playback. To install support for commercial DVDs, all you need is to install one file which can be found at Medibuntu called “libdvdcss2.” Medibuntu is a software repository that contains several restricted multimedia related applications, and you can follow the instructions on their site to install this repository on your computer. In our case, we just want the libdvdcss2 file, so we can install it manually. Just visit this page and download the libdvdcss2 package for your computer (either 32-bit or 64-bit). Once you’ve downloaded the file, simple double click it and follow the instructions to install. You should now be able to watch all your favorite DVDs on Ubuntu!

Legal Warning: Check with your local laws to make sure usage of libdvdcss2 would be legal in your area.

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3. Last.fm Support in Ubuntu 10.04 – Scrobbling and Streaming

Setting up scrobbling in Rythmbox

First of all, what is scrobbling? According the the urban dictionary, it is the act of automatically sending the name of each song played by an audio player to Last.fm. Sending information about the music you listen to to Last.fm is useful because it helps them build a profile of the music you like which in turn enables Last.fm to suggest relevant new music to you which you’re likely to enjoy.

If you are using the default music player in Ubuntu, Rhythmbox, then setting up scrobbling is pretty quick and easy, just follow these steps:

1. In Rhythmbox, click on the Edit menu and then click Plugins.

2. Select the Last.fm plugin and click Configure

3. Enter your Last.fm username and password and click Close. Also close the Configure Plugins window.

Now, each song you listen to in Rhythmbox should be automatically scrobbled to Last.fm.

Installing the Last.fm desktop client

Last.fm provides an open source desktop client for Linux that allows you to stream your favorite Last.fm your stations, recommendations, and library. This is useful because it keeps Last.fm in its own window, outside the browser (where the Flash player can sometimes bog things down). Since Ubuntu 9.10, the Last.fm player is available right from within the Ubuntu Software Center, so installing it is a breeze. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Launch the Ubuntu Software Center

Click the Applications menu and choose Ubuntu Software Center. This will launch the Ubuntu Software Center, a one-stop place for finding and installing thousands of free software applications for Ubuntu.

2. Search for “last.fm” and install

Inside the Ubuntu Software Center, search for “last.fm” and you should find an entry called “Last.fm” with the red Last.fm logo. Simply click the install button next to this entry (and enter your password if prompted). The Last.fm client will now be downloaded and installed automatically. The whole process should only take a few minutes (depending on the speed of your internet connection).

3. Launch the Last.fm client

You can now find the Last.fm client by clicking on the Applications menu and the Sound & Video sub-menu and finally on Last.fm.

4. Complete the Last.fm Setup Wizard

The first time that you launch the Last.fm client, the Setup Wizard will ask you for your Last.fm username and password.

5. Start Enjoying your music!

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3. Ubuntu Desktop in the Cloud

Here are 10 alternative browsers that you may find useful or interesting. This is not a comprehensive list of Linux web browsers, just 10 that we liked. If you’re using Firefox on Ubuntu Lucid (and in some cases older versions of Ubuntu or Debian) you can install these browsers from this page by clicking on the “Install Now” button after each browser summary.

Arora

Arora is a Webkit based browser written with the Qt UI framework.  It’s surprisingly fast and pretty full featured. Arora has many of the features we expect in a modern browser, such as Flash blocking, ad blocking, private browsing mode, a bookmark manager, a history manager, privacy controls and even the Webkit inspector. Arora also runs on FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Windows, and Haiku.
Install Now

Chrome/Chromium

Google’s Chrome browser and its open source brother Chromium are quickly becoming a popular replacement for Firefox on Linux systems. Chromium is included in the Ubuntu repositories for Lucid and Google has released beta versions of Chrome that run on Ubuntu and other Linux distros. Chromium is pretty stable and works well for day-to-day browsing.  Chromium seems much speedier than Firefox, especially when dealing with javascript intensive web applications such as GMail and Facebook. Chromium includes support for a variety of extensions and well as the Webkit developer tools.  These days, Chrome and Chromium are giving Firefox a run for its money on Linux!
Install Now

Conkeror

Conkeror is an Emacs inspired Mozilla based browser.  It features the same Gecko layout engine as Firefox, but there is no GUI, just Emacs style commands for navigating, searching, etc. If your fingers are programmed for Emacs, you might feel right at home in Conkeror.  We doubt this browser will be a big hit with the average Joe, but Emacs fans will surely enjoy Conkeror.
Install Now

Elinks

Elinks is atext based browser similar to the classic Lynx browser. It launches inside a Terminal window and presents you only the text of websites, no images, javascript, or Flash. This can be rather useful for website developers to test their sites, and can be useful for reading information on sites that are full of annoying javascript and Flash ads.
Install Now

Epiphany

Epiphany is the official web browser of the GNOME desktop. It is a very easy to use Webkit based browser with a simplistic user interface. Epiphany is very slim on features and options, the standard installation offers no extensions, no advanced developer tools and no ad or Flash blocking. Installing the packages epiphany-extensions and epiphany-extensions-more will give you some useful extensions such as ad blocking and greasemonkey scripts (although this also made Epiphany very unstable). What Epiphany does offer is simplicity and speed. If you’re looking for a speedy no-frills Webkit based browser for GNOME, this is it.
Install Now

Fennec

Not really an alternative desktop browser, but interesting and useful none the less,  Fennec is the mobile version of Firefox that is used on mobile platforms like Nokia’s N900. Fennec is included in the Ubuntu Lucid repositories and is quite useful for testing out your sites in Mozilla’s mobile browser without spending money on all the latest mobile phones. This is a must have for web developers.
Install Now

Flock

Based on Firefox, Flock is a browser that focuses on close integration of different social media services such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. Flock has been around for several years but has never picked up substantial market share. While the integration of these social networks is nice, there is a lot of competition from the plethora of other tools for social networking. With new features like the Ubuntu MeMenu, the features of Flock seem even less compelling. That said, Flock is a very nice browser and runs quite well on Ubuntu (although a little manual installation is necessary).

Links

Links is a text based browser that ads basic image support. It’s kind of like using the web in the Mosaic days. We’re not quite sure when Links would be useful, but if you’re looking for a text-based browser that supports images, Links is for you.
Install Now

Midori

Midori is a GTK browser based on Webkit (more specifically WebkitGTK+). It tracks the latests versions of WebkitGTK+ very closely, so you always have a fresh version of Webkit. Midori is very lightweight and fast, but still has a lot of features including extensions like ad blocking and user scripts. We find Midori useful for sites like Facebook which tend to slow down Firefox.
Install Now

Opera

The only non-free browser in our lineup is Opera. This is one of the most controversial browsers available for Linux. Many people think it’s the best browser on any platform, while many would never install a browser that isn’t open source. Opera is a very mature and full featured browser, if you like Opera on Windows or Mac, then go ahead and use it on Ubuntu too.

SeaMonkey

When Mozilla abandoned the old Netscape Navigator code base and launched Firefox, many people missed the mail, news and composer features of the old suite. For those who miss the old Netscape suite of apps, you can install SeaMonkey. The browser has been kept fairly up-to-date with the latest Gecko rendering engines but it’s starting to look pretty dated (especially with the classic Netscape theme installed). There are better and more modern alternatives to most of the SeaMonkey suite, so we suggest keeping this one around only for nostalgia.
Install Now

What is your favorite Linux web browser? Leave your comments below!

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The Ambiance theme seems a little half-baked, and doesn’t work well with some applications such as OpenOffice (where it becomes impossible to see the menu text). I’m sure that the Ubuntu team will work out all these bugs before the final release. Hopefully it will be fixed sooner, so that people can start writing documentation for the upcoming release with proper screenshots and videos.

One other disturbing change is the order of the window controls. For some reason, they’ve switched the position of the minimize and maximize buttons. I can’t imagine why they’d do such a thing, and if left in the final release, this will likely cause problems for millions of Ubuntu users. Please don’t mess with the window controls, please!

Here are some screenshots of the dark and light themes. Overall, I think they are pretty nice. There’s still a lot of brown and earth tones mixed in with the orange and new Ubuntu purple. I think it’s a fine start, and I look forward to seeing these themes develop over the next few months and years.

What do you think of the new Ubuntu look? Leave your comments below!

Ambiance

Radiance

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One new feature in Ubuntu 10.04 that caught my attention is the “Desktop in the Cloud” project. Until now, most of the attention on cloud technologies has been focused on servers in the cloud. If you wanted to use a desktop environment on EC2, you needed to do quite a bit of tweaking and installing of packages yourself. With the Lucid release, the Ubuntu team is making desktop in the cloud much easier.

You can now find daily testing images for Ubuntu Lucid desktop in EC2.  These images include a full Ubuntu desktop environment as well as Google’s Neatx open source NX server for connecting remotely to the desktop. Here’s what you need to know to get started (note: This is not a full tutorial, and meant for people who already are familiar with EC2 and have their systems configured for working with EC2. Information for setting up EC2 on Ubuntu can be found here. Perhaps I’ll make a full tutorial for beginners after Lucid’s official release).

To find the latest Lucid daily build, simply search for an AMI in the AWS Management Console with the current date, like “20100302.” You should find daily desktop builds for either today’s or yesterday’s date. Make sure to choose the 32-bit version if you want to launch a small instance.

Once you find the AMI, launch it like you normally would. Make sure that port 22 for SSH is open in the security group that you choose. You will connect to this EC2 instance just like to any other instance with only one difference. The official Ubuntu EC2 images do not allow you to connect via SSH as the root user. Instead, you need to connect with your private key as the user “ubuntu”, like this:

ssh -i /path/to/ec2-keypair.pem ubuntu@external-host-name

You should create a new user and give them a password (a password is required by NX). Now you can connect as this new user to your new cloud Desktop instance with NX Client. If you don’t have an NX client, download a free one from NoMachine. Use your NX client to connect to your EC2 instance via its public DNS address on port 22. If all goes well, you should see your newly spawned desktop.

So, we have a desktop in the cloud … but what is it good for?

Right now, it’s a very quick and easy way to test Lucid daily builds. Instead of downloading a new ISO and installing in a virtual machine, you can test on EC2 and save a lot of time.  In the future, I can see this being useful for those who would like to have their own personal desktop that’s accessible from anywhere. It might also be useful for organizations who want to provide desktop work environments for employees who work from home.

What ideas do you have for using an Ubuntu desktop in the cloud? Share your ideas in the comments below!

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Simple Scan makes scanning, emailing, printing and saving documents much less complicated. Sure, many of us geeks might want something like XSane that offers much more control over our scans, but for beginners, Simple Scan should take all the mystery out of scanning. Scanning documents and attaching them to an email in Evolution is now just a few-click process.

Simple Scan offers only the most basic of controls. It lets you choose the type of document you are scanning (photo or text), lets you do basic cropping, then lets you save the scan as a file, email your scans via Evolution or just print.  It also handles multi-page documents, allowing you to save them as a PDF file or as a series of JPG images. That’s about all there is to it – it’s simple!

Have you had a chance to give Simple Scan a try? Is it too simple, or just right for beginners and for making quick scans? Leave your comments below!

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iPhone & iPod Touch Support

Just last week, I was complaining about Ubuntu’s lack of built-in support for iPhones and newer iPods. Personally, I think this functionality is important if Ubuntu wants to grow in the consumer market. With the release of Lucid Alpha 3, I saw a couple of reports saying that iPhone and iPod Touch support was included out of the box. So, I plugged in my iPod Touch and was amazed to see it not only show up on my desktop, but also working inside Rhythmbox!

Rhythmbox now allows you to drag and drop music to and from your iPhone or iPod Touch. Now, the only time you would need iTunes is to do a firmware upgrade on your iPhone or iPod Touch.  So, how long will it be before Apple moves to block Rhythmbox with an update?

Gwibber and the MeMenu

Ubuntu 10.04 brings social networking to the default desktop with Gwibber and the new MeMenu. This is part of Canonical’s “Social By Default” initiative for Lucid. Gwibber allows you to connect to multiple social networking sites and  interact with them in a unified window within Ubuntu. Gwibber currently supports Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, Status.net, Identi.ca, Qaiku, and FriendFeed. The MeMenu takes things even further, giving you an overview of all your social networks and chat accounts, even allowing you to set your status and post to your social networks right from the top panel.

There is still quite a bit of work to do on the MeMenu if it’s going to meet the blueprints that have been made for it, but it’s coming along nicely. Gwibber also seems to be quite buggy, but a quick look at Launchpad shows that the developers are busy fixing bugs and adding features.  When 10.04 final hits the net in April, I think the “Social By Default” initiative will prove to be a huge success.

Facebook Chat

It’s only been two weeks since Facebook announced support for the XMPP/Jabber protocol, and Facebook chat support is already supported in Lucid Alpha 3. Empathy now includes Facebook chat along with the multitude of other chat protocols that it supports. With support for Facebook chat in Empathy and Facebook updates in Gwibber, you can now keep in touch with your Facebook contacts without ever visiting the site.

Improved Sound Controls

One thing that has really bugged me about the last two releases of Ubuntu is Pulse Audio. Ever since Ubuntu switched to Pulse Audio, I’ve had nothing but trouble with sound. Things seem a bit better in 9.10, but to get good control over sound you have to install the Pulse Audio Volume Control. Lucid Alpha 3 includes a new sound preference panel that’s available by default and right from the sound widget in the top panel.

This sound preferences panel is a unified place for controlling everything sound related in Ubuntu. You can set your sound theme, configure your sound hardware, choose and configure input and output devices, and also see and control how individual programs are interacting with your sound devices. This is especially useful for configuring applications like Skype.

Conclusion

Ubuntu 10.04 is shaping up to be a fine release. Alpha 3 is pretty stable and brings some great new features with it. There are still more features to come, such as the Ubuntu One Music Store and possibly a new theme. I look forward to tracking Lucid’s progress and installing it on all of my workstations when it is released in April.

Have you tried Ubuntu Lucid Lynx yet? What are your favorite new features? Leave  your comments below!

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To install Chromium web browser, just search for “chromium” in the Ubuntu Software Center and click “Install” – it’s really that easy!

Are you using Chromium, Firefox or some other browser with Ubuntu? Leave your comments below!

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