Chris Alexander
A review
28th April, 2008
So, over the weekend (I did a lot of tinkering :P) I downloaded and installed the latest flavour of the Ubuntu operating system, Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
Installation was a breeze, it was simple for me as I just overwrote everything on the hard drive. The installation has been simplified slightly, making it a bit easier to do and some improved functionality like the location map being a bit more intelligent.
So, I booted it up, and entered quite possibly the fastest thing I have ever seen running on this machine. It’s a Dell Inspiron, at least 3 generations and 4 years old, so it doesn’t usually perform that well. This, however, runs like it’s on fire. Simple tasks and general apps are so quick to load, and the new Firefox 3 beta goes like there’s nothing left to do.
My other favourite features are the rather nice new background, but more importantly nice features like it using the full resolution of my external monitor (where Feisty used to run a 20″, 1600×1050 monitor at 1024×768 :P) and the all-improved password facilities - instead of having to enter the root password to access a dialog box with only one restricted function, you can access the whole box and then just “unlock” those functions to enter your password and continue.
All in all, Hardy Heron is a great long term support system, and I’m sure any minor bugs will be worked out in coming updates. I’m looking forward to 8.10, more features, and increased usability for newbies so that Ubuntu can spread itself to computer users everywhere.