October 26th, 2009
Ubuntu celebrates Thursday drop of koala desktop and server
Ubuntu held a teleconference this afternoon to celebrate the Thursday launch of its new desktop and server edition, karmic koala.
The new desktop is built around “Ubuntu One,”a collection of backup, note and contact synchronization and file-sharing services integrated into the operating system, offering 2 Gigabytes of free storage and more by subscription.
The Firefox 3.5 browser and improved audio support are also part of the offering. GNOME 2.28 is the shipping desktop interface.
On the server side the situation is more cloudy, but in a good way with the addition of full support for Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, from Eucalyptus Systems, that lets you create your own mini-cloud based on open source. The clouds feature host and guest virtualization under KVM and guest virtualization under Xen.
Most new features were previewed in April.
A complete online tour of the new desktop is already online. A list of supported netbooks is available, but the company is suggesting you pack a thumb drive with its Ubuntu Netbook Remix when you go to the store, just to make sure. Should make Friday at Fry’s fun.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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