UPDATE: Please read our updated post on the final release of Lucid Lynx!
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!
I thought the inclusion of Simple Scan is genius. A very simple but good scanning app. Kudos to the devs. Lucid should be a great release.
Thanks for the tip! Simple Scan is really nice indeed. I even decided to write a little post about it.
http://www.starryhope.com/linux/ubuntu/2010/ubuntu-lucid-makes-scanning-simple/
“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?”
In that case you don’t need iTunes, because you don’t want to upgrade your firmware, or you might break compatibility. It’s kind of like updating BIOS. Don’t do it unless something is broken!
Seems that the sound controls were aready there in 9.10.
Anyway, thanks for the review :-)
Johannes,
Seems you are right – they were just a bit harder to find. At any rate, the new system looks great and I hope that Pulse Audio will be more stable this time around.
Um, 9.10 also supported Apple’s newest ipod out of the box… Mine is a fresh install, I plugged my ipod in and it appears on the desktop and rythmbox sees it. Don’t know about the ipod touch though.
No, it’s stated above as “iPhone & iPod Touch Support”, not just the iPod. This new feature is SO WELCOME! As an iPod TOUCH owner, I have been annoyed by having to keep a Windows partition for iTunes. 9.10 was only able to access my iPod Touch as digital photo storage media–actually it only saw it – it couldn’t read from it.
9.10 will support the newest ipods (the classic) but not the ipod touch, or the iphone.
10.04 has added support for the iphone and ipod touch, which is what were all happy about :)
FB Chat has worked on any Jabber client since Facebook ‘did the right thing’ and adopted open protocols. They deserve praise for that decision. Empathy is a great way to chat to FB friends, much more reliable than the web client. Is Empathy video-chat working ‘out of the box’ this time around?
I was looking at this today. I’m looking forward to the new release of Ubuntu as well, but I was even more interested in the fact that your Rhythmbox window has Starflyer 59 on it! That is one of my favorite bands, and I’ve always thought they were severely underrated.
Also, I don’t know that my iPod will be supported as it is a 5g Nano and doesn’t work on 9.10.
I’ve also heard that they are aiming for a 10-second boot time. My current installation of Xubuntu boots in no more than 20 seconds as it is, but I’m looking forward to seeing if there is a notable improvement.
The biggest difficulty I find in ubuntu is installation. If a better installer comes with ubuntu, so that user could double click on any package and just relax until the installation completes, then I think ubuntu will be a big hit in 100 days.
The Ubuntu Software Center already does this. I only use synaptics for dev packages or libraries that I need for obscure programs . The USC is great and very easy to use.
I’ve installed the new lucid lynx ubuntu and I’m loving the feel and flow of it. The chatting and social aspect is great, however I did have trouble after installing the ATI drivers. Another area which I am battling with is the customisation of my “splash screen” + “login menu”. I cant seem to change these, even after install GDM2. (within appreances you can change these attributes, as well as install new themes for some reason)
Its a step closer to what I dream of and I look forward to the future of ubuntu