With the first release of the year with Natty Narwhal Canonical is on full swing with preparations for, the second of the Ubuntu bi-annual release for the year, the Oneiric Ocelot.
Bi-terminology for every bi-annual release of Ubuntu
Ubuntu follows a unique two-term nomenclature for all its two releases each year. The first term is an adjective from the English alphabet series followed by animal name from the same alphabet. Ubuntu release is named by the year first followed by the month of release. Therefore, the just released, path-breaking Ubuntu was 11.04 with a tradename Natty Narwhal. The following Ubuntu release slated for October release is called Ubuntu 11.10 and will be called Oneiric Ocelot.
Oneiric Ocelot the path-definer
If its predecessor was path-breaking in nature by moving to the Unity platform from the traditional GNOME 3, Oneiric Ocelot in October will be a path-definer as in the next six months, Ubuntu’ s future default applications are going to be well-defined.
The Ubuntu 11.10 repositories (yes, it is already available) are a road map of what to expect in October’s release. However, there will be required changes to these in the final release.
Here go the blueprint
The Ubuntu Developer Meet on May 9th will help define on most of the defaults but here are some of the leading defaults in the competition.
Browser
The browser that will be default on the Oneiric Ocelot will be decided between Firefox and Chromium that are schedule for release almost at the same time. Though, Chromium is being pitched as the likely browser this will have to wait for May 9th.
Ligther Greeter
Lighter Greeter is more likely for Oneiric Ocelot as LightDM is being preferred for its 10,000 lines of C in comparison to 50,000 C lines for GDM. Besides, LightDM offers HTML/CSS as well as Javascript allowing greater theme-ing for greeters.
Unity 2D will be default
Qt libraries in CD will be available with Ubuntu 11.10, and Unity 2D with Qt is the most likely default.
Backup Tool
Open source community experts believe a default Ubuntu backup tool is what is significantly lacking. This need is being addressed with an under-the-hood backup tool that has User Interface with central control panel, replacing Deja Dup Interface, which if included will have the Ubuntu One support for cloud synchronization services.
Thuderbird over Evolution
Though Evolution is the default, things are likely to change following the UDS-0 on May 9th in Budapest and Thunderbird chosen as it allows experimental integration with Unity as Thunderbird 3.3 alpha is already available. New age developers are more comfortable with Thunderbird and there are greater number of extension that are more usable and intuitive.
These are some of the things to come on the Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot and more of the things to come will be much clearer post UDS-O in Budapest in May first week.
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