Intrepid Upgrade

Canonical released Ubuntu 8.10, code named Intrepid Ibex today. So obviously, I felt like I had to upgrade my Hardy Heron (8.04) T42 tonight, especially considering that Canonical have advertised this release as focused on the desktop and mobile computing so should be ideal for a laptop. As usual with recent Ubuntu releases, once the 1466 files my upgrade needed were downloaded, the rest of the process was a breeze and I am now writing this on a newly upgraded machine. Well done to Canonical for making it easy and idiot proof. So here are my first impressions, in no particular order:

• The Gnome theme is slightly more streamlined and looks good.
• I was expecting OpenOffice.org to be updated to v3.0 but that wasn't the case and Intrepid keeps v2.4. Hopefully, an upgrade to 3.0 will be available later.
• There is a new Create a USB startup disk option in the System, Administration menu. I'll have to try that out!
• There's a Recent Documents sub-menu in the Places menu. This will definitely come in useful.
• The Shutdown button that used to open a dialog box box has been replaced with a drop down menu that includes a Guest session option: makes it easy to lend your machine for a few hours to a friend without being worried about your files or having to set up a special account.

Everything else looks like Hardy but I'm sure I'll discover new changes as I use the machine more.