My first look at Ubuntu 10.04

Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, is now out on Beta. I thought I'd give it a quick spin to see what it had to offer.

First and most obviously, the brown Ubuntu theme we've come to know and love/hate is no more. In its place: a light shade of purple. Sigh. This will take some getting used to all over again.

The applications menu looks the same as it ever did, but with some changes in applications.

Fewer games than we had before, but in their place, some new ones, like the IQ test gBrainy...

...which looks to be quite challenging, actually. But I think it's an improvement over the old selection.

As promised, The GIMP is no longer installed by default (though still installable via Ubuntu Software Center and Synaptic.)  I must admit, though, in recent days, I have been using F-Spot more and more, and it suffices for most of my needs.  That said, I will still be getting The GIMP.

A new addition to the Internet tools: Gwibber, a social networking client that connects to Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  It's pretty slick, but since I've sworn off social networking, my blogs excepted, I don't expect to be using it at all.

Another controversial change when first announced: default search engine is no longer Google but Yahoo! (and behind it, Bing, from Microsoft.)

Default browser is now Firefox 3.6.

Roughly the same set of tools for office productivity.

Installed OpenOffice.org is now at version 3.2.

A new tool: PiTiVi video editor. Haven't really tried it yet, but will check it out soon.

One thing I will continue to hate: the hard-to-modify login screen.