Introduction
After the earlier version called Natty Narwhal, the tech community lost a lot of respect for Ubuntu which is the most popular Linux distribution in the world. Oneiric Ocelot the newest version of Ubuntu is much better in almost all areas compared to not only Natty but also all previous versions of Ubuntu. What makes it so great? You are about to find out now.
Testing the OS
I installed the 64-bit version of Ubuntu on my computer on an empty partition on my Windows drive. If you are curious about my computing power here is the full specification list:
- Intel Core i3 530 2.93 ghz
- 4gb 1333 mhz DDR3 memory
- 1TB WD Caviar 7200 rpm drive
- ATI radeon HD 5450 graphics card
- Windows 7 premium 64 bit
- Trendnet TEW-623pi WiFi Card
Installation And First Boot
The installation was pretty straight-forward and very similar to previous versions of Ubuntu. If you are booting up in an old computer you will be greeted with with the Unity2D interface instead of the regular Unity which is a lighter, less intense version of Unity (think of it like Windows without Aero), it runs really fast, smooth and it doesn’t look that much worse than the full Unity interface.
After the installation you boot up to the new login screen which is simply stunning. Beautiful colors, transparent boxes and panels. If you follow this tutorial you can even change the background to your favorite picture. The login screen is just AWESOME, I love it.
You can't deny that the new login screen is perfect
What comes out of the box?
Oneiric comes with a similar set of apps as previous versions which have been improved and integrated better into the Unity interface. Gwibber, the social networking app now has a slimmer, better looking interface with cool transitions along with an optional Dash lens (must install separately). Déjà Dup is the new backup utility that comes with Ubuntu, you can quickly access it through the system settings. Thunderbird is FINALLY the email client that comes with Ubuntu instead of Evolution. This was the right thing to do Ubuntu developers, great job.
Thunderbird is finally the default mail client, with the menu integration and everything!
The new wallpapers are the best ones so far. They fit really well with the big icons and glossy transparent menus of the new Unity menu.
Beautiful backgrounds that come in different sizes for your screen.
The new Unity
The new Unity is much better than the one in Natty, almost all of the bugs and annoyances are no longer present. It’s built on top of Gnome 3 shell which makes it notably faster and allows you to use the popular Gnome 3 tweaking tool to customize the look and feel of Unity.
The Dash is now its own button on the launcher tray rather than a small button in the top left corner. The lenses have been moved from the launcher tray into the dash menu and each lens has its own set of filtering options optimized for the particular lens. There are four lenses which come with Ubuntu by default, the home lens, app lens, document lens and the music lens.
You still can’t customize much though, if you don’t like the position of the launcher tray you can’t move it. The home dash can’t be customized like the Mint menu so what you see is pretty much what you get, but that’s alright because Unity works really well like it is.
The Good: The new Dash with the multiple lenses (especially the music and the social network ones), Unity2D for older computers, filtering options for music, speed improvements, Unity saves a lot of screen space; it feels like you are in the Mac OS X full screen mode all the time.
The Bad: The dash would be better if you could customize it a bit.
Speed I didn’t run any real speed tests because there was no need too, just by using the OS doing regular stuff like web browsing, checking email, watching High-Def movies and turning your computer on and off I could tell that Oneiric is dramatically faster than previous versions of Ubuntu in almost anything. It only takes 2 seconds to login and load the launcher and opening most programs and files is a lot faster now.
The Good: Oneiric is faster than all previous versions of Ubuntu as well as Windows 7
The Bad: If your graphics card doesn’t have good drivers for Linux (this problem occurs most often with ATI Radeon graphic cards) then your computer will lag as hell
System Settings
The new system settings menu takes design cues from Mac OS X which makes it a lot simpler in use than the previous one found in Natty and that is a welcoming change. In the screenshot below you can see how it looks. 
Software Center
The new Software Center now looks more like a mainstream app-store and not a package manager. The home page shows new and top rated apps along with some featured apps in the top border. Navigating is still as easy as before. A neat change is that installed apps are now grouped by default which makes finding them much easier without consulting the search bar.
Some minor annoyances
- You can’t customize the look of the OS without installing a 3rd party app, there are only 4 themes that come out of the box and they all look pretty ugly except the default one.
- The restart function is now hidden under the shut down option in the menu
- Synaptic Package manager is not included by default
- VLC is still not the default movie player (I honestly don’t understand why they still haven’t included it in the default installation)
- Ndiswrapper isn’t included out of the box, very inconvenient for people whose WiFi card doesn’t work without a driver
Final Conclusion
This new version of Ubuntu from my point of view is the best one yet. Unity looks and works really well, the default app sett and backgrounds are great and Oneiric feels faster than previous versions of Ubuntu. The addition of a built in backup program and the new re-designed system settings menu will hopefully help make Ubuntu better for the average consumer users out there who are willing to try the open source world. Lets hope that Ubuntu will reach the 200 million user goal before the end of 2014.
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