Over to Oneiric Ocelot

Ubuntu 11.10 aka Oneiric Ocelot made a silent appearance yesterday in the Operating system arena. Although it has come silently, it does make quite a bit of noise with whatever it has brought along.

After Natty Narhwal and the controversial Unity, Oneiric Ocelot comes somewhat as a pacifier, with improvements on Unity (yes, Unity is here to stay) and official support to Gnome3.


Here are some salient features of Oneiric.

• Linux kernel 3.0! 

Of all the reviews I had read, no one seemed to have noticed that Ubuntu 11.10 ships with the Linux 3 series kernel. That is certainly worth a mention. Although the Linux3.0 by itself has had no major changes except for the notation and rumors about power regression. Will keep an eye on the battery on my machine.

• Unity revamped

As all other reviews have been posting, Unity does get a revamp and seems more stable. It responds quickly, no lag whatsoever. And the aesthetics are more pleasing than in Natty. When I am going to get Oneiric as my production OS, I will certainly want to have picked up all the keyboard shortcuts for Unity.
super+s, super+a, super+f and super+m are for now really handy to view the workspaces, browse applications, files and music respectively.

Another important aspect about the feel of Unity is the dash itself. The new dash is gorgeous which acquires a tinge correlating the backdrop of the other windows/the desktop itself.

• Login screen is sleeker

Another small but pleasing change is on the Login screen itself. It looks simple, yet futuristic. There is also something about the new asterisk while typing the password which grabs one's attention :-)

• No Me menu

The elaborate Me menu has been removed and a less elaborate dock with access to most performance options like Power, hardware, etc.. has been added. Unclear of the intent of this change though.

• Evolution gives way to Thunderbird

Evolution the  long associate as the default mail client has been replaced with Mozilla Thunderbird. Having used only Evolution and not Thunderbird I'm not in  a position to comment on it. From Mozilla must be good. 

• Software Centre is bigger, better

I haven't been a big fan of Software Center. Nonetheless, it has a more professional look and will be of certain use to new users. First thing, I am getting Synaptic, just for sentimental reasons ;-) 

• Missing applications

After removing GIMP from the default install in Maverick, there's no Synaptic Package Manager and Pitivi video editor. Nonetheless, still very much supported by Ubuntu.

• Miscellaneous: Default font all across is the Ubuntu font. Looks a little weird on the terminal though. The default set of wallpapers are amazing, except for the Oneiric one.

• Installation took about 7 minutes and that is still the best in Industry!

• Multitouch support still there; One point touch is left click, Two point touch is right click and the accelerometer simulation kind of an effect with the track pad are still thriving.

• Booting takes about 10-12 seconds on a fresh install; Will see if it slows down as Natty did when I had loaded with hundreds of startup applications. 

 Of all the current OS'es, Oneiric, if not for everything, just for its aesthetics takes a far leap ahead!