The New Ubuntu 11.10 Review

Filed under Open Source Reviews . Posted on Oct 15, 2011

Ubuntu 11.10 is the latest (of this post) release of the open-source and arguably the most popular Linux Distro, so it's a big deal of this new release.

The update process

Updating the system was very easy, however I believe waiting an hour for everything to update was a bit too long to wait. However, I did hear about people having a long time downloading, and I would recommend that for the next distro update tool, for the Ubuntu team to put effort into selecting a mirror before any update is carried out.

LightDM - The new login system

The new login system is very nice and slim. However, a few UX issues will annoy people I know and because the Ubuntu team have pretty much full control over this, then it'll be easy to get these features through.

When the password is being checked, the field looks editable and really shouldn't look like that.
Entering an incorrect password doesn't generate much visible response (for example Mac OS X shakes the box and Ubuntu 11.04 did).
When you're waiting for the desktop to load, you get no response at all to tell you the system is working. Not even text saying "Logging in" or "Loading the desktop" which it would be nice to get something

More 'Unity'

This release sees some improvements to the Unity Scrollbars which is very useful and I like the improvements to them, however there's just a few things with terminal and the bottom corner which are annoying but I will get used to it.

The new toolbar with movable-ness is good too and I like it. However, applications without support will need to be updated, but it's something we have to do.

New Software Centre

The new Software Centre is lovely, very flashy and while I have had the odd bug, it's something that will fade with time. I like the new web look to it, however I know that some will complain, it's just the way design is going these days and people will get used to it.

Overall

It's a well needed and expected improvement. There's probably lots more going on behind the scenes (for example Chrome seems faster on my machine now) so it's certainly better than the older system.

Thanks to the Ubuntu Team for creating such a brilliant operating system! :D