What's New In Kubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Jaunty Jackalope (Lepus-temperamentalus) or The Warrior Rabbit as it is also known is said to be a legend although some say it is a myth. The Warrior Rabbit is also a character in Samurai Warrior a C64 computer game. Canonical the company is known for its unique working titles for new Ubuntu version and 9.04 is no difference.

In September 2008 they released a news release announcing 9.04. They are promising faster boot times. Whether it is standard boot or resume booting should be faster all round.

They also will move to a distributed version control system. Ubuntu will be moving to bazaar, which should make it easier for developers to work in a bigger community environment.

For me the promise of a faster boot time and resume is what I was waiting for. Resuming just takes too long to really be able to use it to its full potential.

Kubuntu 9.04 will have KDE 4.2 which has some of the little problems that KDE 4.1 had fixed. It also looks different again from the 8.10 release as more artwork was added. The desktop now has a “spotted” background. KDE 4.2 offers new and improved applications.

Plasma, Kwin, and the KDE workspace have been refined. For the people that like the eye candy, they have improved existing and new plasmoids, which is what the desktop widgets are called in KDE.

The focus for the Kubuntu team will lay on producing a clean and smooth KDE4 experience in 9.04.

New and Improved Applications

Konversation will not be included any more. Konversation is the IRC client in Kubuntu. Quassel will be its replacement.

Amarok 2 will be in this version of Kubuntu. I've been using Amarok 2 for a while now and must say it's a great improvement. (See the second screen shot below.)

If you haven't used it before then you might not know that Kubuntu 8.10 didn't have Digikam anymore. Digikam is the photo management tool in KDE. It’s an awesome program I have been using ever since I started using Kubuntu. Digikam didn't release a KDE4 version before release of Kubuntu 8.10 so it was left out. In Kubuntu 9.04, Digikam 0.10.0 is introduced. Finally, the KDE4 version of Digikam that we have been waiting for will be included. That’s great because it's one of the best photo managers for Linux out there.

It looks like Kubuntu Jaunty Jackalope or 9.04 will be one of the best KDE4 releases to date.

April 23, 2009: Jaunty is released see my new article here.