This has just jumped out at me from the RSS feeds, Mark Shuttelworth has just announced that the next version of Ubuntu, following the not yet officially released 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, will be called the “Jaunty Jackalope”.

To read what Mr Shuttleworth has to say about this just Click Here. What I understand of Intrepid Ibex is that it is hoped that it will make it easier to connect to the internet no matter where you go via better networking functions. In essence giving the user true mobility. The new Jaunty Jacklope seems to be building on this with faster boot time, “weblications” & making it easier for developers to further enhance the available packages.

I am always excited when I hear about up and coming Ubuntu releases and this has never been truer. The days of the the ‘home computer’ seem to have come and gone. Our lives are much too dynamic and fluid to be anchored to a single device with all our software/applications located on it. Personally I want a machine that acts as little more as a ‘terminal’ to my applications and information. With a substantial battery life and enough capacity for some ‘eye candy’ effects. My latest addition, the Advent 4211, just lacks the battery life to make it perfect.

I have voiced my doubts over the Ubuntu 6 month release cycle, saying it would be better to make it 12 months and have a much more in depth alpha/beta testing period. But I was a new convert and using the latest LTS (8.04.1) I realise that those wanting stability can happily stick with that. Technology moves on so quickly now that it probably would not matter if it was 6/12 months as compatibility issues will always emerge. Not even Microsoft can get it right! No, 6 months does make sense and I can not wait to blog about 9.10 and its successors.

I recently ordered and received the Edubuntu suite and installed it onto my partners nieces laptop, some old Dell laptop with a broken screen. It all installed perfectly and everything worked straight away including the wireless keyboard and mouse. While the niece was soon playing with the various Tux software and even getting onto the net with Firefox, all this by a 5 year old.

Ubuntu is more then linux for human beings, in time it should hopefully be the OS for human beings, not yet, but hopefully by the next LTS release no excuses should remain.