Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
April 19th 2007
I’ve recently gone back to booting Linux every other day or so when I don’t have any pressing graphical or… er… “gaming work” to do. It’s been really slick, especially on my new hardware (nVidia graphics cards are SO much easier than ATi/AMD, sadly. C’mon AMD, open-source those drivers).
Ubuntu 7.04, Feisty Fawn was released today right on schedule, and it’s the closest thing yet to a usable desktop Linux OS. It’s still in the nerd camp for some reasons, but I’d go so far as to say my mom could use it (hi mom!) without too much trouble, and that’s saying a lot. 
There’s a great review up here, and also great news that Java EE5 and the Java 6 JDK will be included in the main Ubuntu repositories! I’m glad to see Java integrating cleanly with Linux and under an open-source license. I remember just a few years ago when it was hard to even run a Java app on Linux, and now it’s just an apt-get away.
And if you want to impress your friends, check out Beryl, also newly in the main repository. It allows for insanely cool 3D effects and multiple desktops on a spinning cube, which is surprisingly useful and a helpful visualization concept as well as being an absolutely SWEET effect. I’ll post some screenshots a little later.
What are you waiting for? If you’ve interested in Linux and what it can do (a lot, now), grab an Ubuntu live-cd and see if you like it. [Note: if you can’t get into the main Ubuntu site because their servers are swamped, try this list of torrents]