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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 27 Feb 2009 at 15:49

Ubuntu gets "new look" for Karmic Koala

Ubuntu is ugly. It's so ugly that replacing the desktop with a picture of Gary Neville has no effect whatsoever. Mighty Mark Shuttleworth has clearly realised that having an operating system that looks like roadkill isn't going to convince the general population of its worth and has pencilled it in for six months of intensive plastic surgery, the fruits of which should be seen in Karmic Koala. Alas, Gary Neville he can do nothing about.

hywelt wasn't entirely convinced by the Linux makeover. "Shiny for the sake of it is usually bad. Ubuntu doen't need to out-Aero Vista or out-Aqua OS X. I think Ubuntu's in a unique position to be able to see that Apple has been there and done it and is, in fact, reining in the shiny a little."

forquare1 also had his reservations. "Linux doesn't need to be shiny, it needs to have a range of commercial tools. If the likes of Adobe put CS on to it, or Microsoft put the whole Office suite on to it, then businesses would take on Linux... On the other hand, shiny might bag Linux some Mac users."

Resident forum lizard gindylow also thought this was a step in the right direction. "Ubuntu seems to be dragging itself closer to mainstream acceptability, but it's painfully slow to watch. The next bridge will be not just getting mainstream driver support but mainstream software support. A real hornet's nest I'm sure, since so many hardcore Linux users want only freeware."

Speaking of free, we're off to charge the doors of Dennis Towers in a futile bid to see the sun. See you all next week.