April and October are the months where Canonical releases new versions of their OS Ubuntu. And that means it’s time for a new Ubuntu release now, with what may be a ground-breaking user interface and major changes from previous versions that come together nicely.

Ubuntu code named Natty Narwhal, or version 11.04 is here and sporting some radical changes from previous editions of the Linux distro. The most distinguished being the arrival of the Unity desktop environment, which was previously relegated to netbooks. It has integrated search, a combination of launcher and a taskbar, and app menus that have been moved to the top of the screen much like in Max OS X, effectively implementing the best ideas from Apple and Microsoft and a new design.

The new User Interface is not excluding its detractors and reportedly has some stability issues, but you can choose “Ubuntu Classic” at login to stick with Gnome. The update as well makes Firefox 4 the default browser and replaces the Rhythmbox music manager with the sleeker and more functional Banshee Player.

The OS does recognize the iPhone, as we were able to plug in an iPhone 4, import pictures, and work with files and folders on the device, play songs downloaded from iTunes to the iPhone that were purchased with play-anywhere rights.

The 700MB sized ISO image is available for download and still provides the live CD so you can try out the OS without installing anything.

Clean Up And Modify he new Ubuntu Grub2 boot menu differs quite a bit from the previous version. As Ubuntu nominated the new version 2 of the Grub boot manager as of 9.10, removing of the old problematic menu.lst file.

Ubuntu Grub2 Boot Menu

Grub2 is a leap forward in many ways, and most of the annoyances from menu.lst are gone. Yet, if you don’t clean up old versions of kernel entries, the boot list can quickly get messy and end up in a long list of nonsense. Let’s assume we want to remove the 2.6.32-21-generic boot menu entries. Previously, this meant editing /boot/grub/menu.lst. But with Grub2, we use the package manager to remove the kernel package from our computer, Grub automatically removes those options. Btw. if only one operating system is installed on your computer, you may not see the boot menu at all and have to hold down the SHIFT button on your keyboard while booting up to get the menu to show.

To remove old kernel versions, open up Synaptic Package Manager, found in the System > Administration menu. When Synaptic opens up, type the kernel version that you want to remove into the Quick search text field. The first few numbers should suffice. Then for each of the entries associated with the outdated kernel (e.g. linux-headers-2.6.32-21 and linux-image-2.6.32-21-generic), right-click and choose “Mark for Complete Removal”, then hit “Apply”. These entries will be gone upon the next boot.

If you like more control, or add/remove entries that are not kernel related, you can change the file grub.d located in /etc. This file contains files that hold menu entries that used to be located in /boot/grub/menu.lst. If you want to add new boot menu entries, you simply create a new file in this folder, ensure it is executable (chmod +x).

Another way to remove boot menu entries without deleting the files is to remove execute flag (chmod -x). With any change to these files, we need Grub to update it’s database: sudo update-grub.

For more information on Grub2, it’s inner workings and differences to it’s older sibling, check out Ubuntu Grub2 Wiki

Once it gets closer to the official release date of a new version of Ubuntu, I frequently download the latest daily build from the repository and install a fresh version in a virtualized environment, so I can try out and test not only the new OS, but also any software that I am  developing or evaluate to run on Ubuntu.

Medibuntu is probably the most useful and popular non-included repository, as it contains a lot of codecs for viewing or creating audio and video files. It’s a must have repository for Ubuntu.

• Acrobat Reader
• Firmware for the ALSA sound system
• Google Earth
• DVD decryption
• MPlayer / MEncoder
• Non-free codecs and
• Skype

and the list goes on. Two simple commands get you up and running:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/jaunty.list –output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

This adds the Medibuntu as a repository and updates the sources list. You can now install software like additional codecs, utilities and more like this:

sudo apt-get install non-free-codecs libdvdcss2

And you can always use Synaptic to install new software, of course. For a complete list, go here.

…with Windows Vista / Windows 7 installed first.

So you got a computer running Vista and like to dual boot between Vista and Ubuntu. The boot loader that ships with Vista can be a real pain. There are some nice utilities we can use to make that process a lot smoother for us. Here we go.

First you’ll need space for the Ubuntu installation. If you don’t already have a partition for it, right-click My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management. Right-click on the main Vista partition and select Shrink Volume. The Shrink tool will assess how much space you can free up. (If you don’t have enough free space, Vista will not allow you to shrink it and the available space to shrink will be zero) You should have at least 12GB of free space for the new OS, if you don’t have that much it’s probably time for a new hard drive.

Next step is to prepare your installation USB drive, unless you already burned it on a CD/DVD. Follow our detailed instructions in this article. Insert the usb stick, or the CD/DVD and reboot. Check you system for booting from USB, usually you have to press a function key to select from possible boot media.

Follow the standard installation instruction during the Ubuntu install, choosing the newly created partition as target. You also can import accounts and personal folders from Vista, if the Ubuntu installer detects it. Everything else should be pretty straight forward. Once the installation is finished, let the system reboot and you will have a boot menu with listings for Ubuntu and Vista.

So far, all should be well and you can boot to Vista or Ubuntu using GRUB. Unless you want Vista to be in charge of the boot process, you’re done. The next step will explain how to revert back to the Vista boot loader and add Ubuntu as a choice of OS.

Boot to Ubuntu and copy the contents of the boot menu so that it is available in Vista. Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal). Then open menu.lst (sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst) and copy/paste it into a text document and save it onto the Vista partition. Alternatively you can send it by email or save it onto the USB memory stick. Then reboot into Vista.

Now we need the latest version of EasyBCD by Neosmart Technologies - download it here and install. Then, go to “Manage Bootloader” and select “Reinstall the Vista Bootloader”, then “Write MBR”.

This puts the Vista bootloader back into the MBR, but the machine will only boot into Vista at this time.To enable access to the Linux partition, the best option is to install NeoGrub. Go to “Add/Remove Entries”, go to the NeoGrub tab and select “Install NeoGrub”. This adds the “NeoGrub Bootloader” option to the Vista bootloader. Then choose Configure – this launches the NeoGrub menu.lst file, location at C:\NST\menu.lst. Use Notepad or Wordpad to open the file, and then paste in the boot entries that we copied from Ubuntu.

Save and exit, then reboot the machine. The system will come up with two boot options. Select “NeoGrub Bootloader” and then the Linux boot options will load. Choose the relevant option and the system boots into Ubuntu.

Over 4 years in the making of Canonical’s Operating System, Ubuntu 9.04 (jaunty jackalope) has released the first and final beta, after successful public testing of alpha 1 thru 6. I have to say, Ubuntu has come a long way. This version is the first one (for me at least), that installs without a hitch, and everything is working at first try.

The biggest pain was always to get the network working. Since one needs the Internet to research issues and find solutions, once connected everything seemed workable.

There are several detailed reviews out there, I won’t get another one here. Just google for it and you shall find plenty. What I want to give you is the bottom line.

• This release is fast. Especially if you opt for the new filesystem, ext4. Pay attention during install, as it’s not the default yet. Phoronix has posted a very good comparison. Check out their Real World Benchmarks of Ext4.
• Second, the network manager is much more user friendly and stable.  Wireless connections are a breeze. And my cisco vpn is up in no time, after installing the appropriate vpn adaptor.
• And there some are more themes, backgrounds and screen savers and they have gotten some more customization options.

So what’s next? What else do we wish for? For me, next to new features (which is always nice), I rather have a fast, stable and good looking OS. Let’s be honest, Vista and MacOS still look better. Even though Ubuntu has made leaps in UI design, it’s still trailing behind. I feel once that gap is closed, Ubuntu will be a challenger for the mainstream OS.

Keep up the good work!