It’s interesting to see what’s happening with the latest Ubuntu (9.10, Karmic Koala), which is in Alpha 4 of testing. Firstly, I would like to point out that I think the releases are getting slightly worse as of recent, which may be partly due to the economic crisis and lack of good developers being fully committed.
The features page is getting a little bit embarrassing with things like kernel updates, driver updates, and other under-the-hood changes that have been made. Compare that with a release 2 years ago (Hardy) and you’ll see many more features that impact the user, instead of what we’re getting now which are meta features.
We all love how Linux is flexible, and with Debian we can add and remove packages as our hearts desire. Ubuntu has made Empathy replace Pidgin in the upcoming release. Is this the best way to be spending our time? There are so many things that are more critical than changing the default Instant Messaging client, like:
- Fast Search (since Tracker has been removed)
- Multiple Desktops in Compiz (Nautilus is blocking)
- Delta package updates to cut down on bandwidth (Idea has been around for a long time)
I Think this is a bad idea Empathy maybe a good program but i find Pidgin 100% better Empathy didn’t even have tabbed IM Windows so that put me off no plugins first thing i do on the Ubuntu Aplpha is install pidgin its just a lot cleaner and simpler to use, I know Empathy can also do softphone so they can combine 2 programs in to one but if its not broke don’t fix it.
I just installed 9.10 beta.. on the short list..
1. its great to see Gnome 2.28.
2. WHY THE HELL did they get rid of pidgin?? its superb and frankly superior in every way. That was an awful decision.
3. They have a new theme and Icon set, which is really slick.
4. Speaking of slick.. the boot time on my Dell XPS is about .45 seconds… thats awesome! makes me want an SSD
5. They REALLY browned it up for this one boys and girls. I mean BROWN!! you like brown? I got your brown right here.. what’s that you say? not enough brown??… hang on! There ya go a BIIIIIIIG heaping steamy pile of brown, just for you.
I tried Empathy and hated it I think this was a big mistake.