Tech - Getting natty indeed

The latest version of Ubuntu was out in April 28, following the pattern of Canonical's 6 monthly release cycle. It's called Natty Narwhal. I have been using it for a few weeks and it's natty indeed.


The latest edition is very slick when it comes to the user interface. I wasn't too happy with the Unity desktop interface, I am using the GNOME 3 desktop. However, installing GNOME 3 breaks the Unity installation. I would recommend having another desktop manager like KDE. This is where the flexibility and architecture of Linux comes into play, one can do what one wishes!



Based on my experience, some of the key features are:
- Very simple user interface. Search is now central to the desktop experience (top right in the above screenshot). Hit the "Windows" key and the above menu appears.
- The device drivers for for the keyboard, display, bluetooth, wi-fi work out of the box seamlessly (on my Acer 5738z laptop). I am particularly impressed with the trackpad, it's as smooth as a Mac (2-finger tap for right click, 2-finger scroll etc).
- All the free software like Chrome, Firefox, Office suite continue to be up and running.
- Built-in support for multiple desktops (can be seen in the above screenshot in the right)
- I like the way, the icons merge (of the running application) in the top bar.

The gap between Ubuntu and other commercial operating systems just keeps getting shorter. Looking forward to their next release in October.

Location: Bangalore, Karnataka, India

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