Yesterday, Canonical issued the stable Ubuntu Linux 11.04 build. It has brought out a bunch of new features and interface tweaks that’ve freshened up the overall aesthetics while improving usability. One of the most striking changes is the new Unity desktop environment (requires 3D acceleration) that puts a Dock-like application launcher to the left edge of the screen.
You’ll find icons of your favorite applications here with the familiar glowing dot next to the icons of currently running tasks. It’s a lot like the Dock from Mac OS X enhanced with Windows 7-like tweaks. Author Marcus Pollice
shed more light on the Bright side of News blog.
For each window / application you have open, an indicator gets added to the left of the respective symbol. The number of indicators is dependent on the amount of windows opened in the program. Another indicator to the right of the icon is added to the currently active window. When the active application has multiple windows open and you click on the icon in the launcher, an overview of all the available windows of this application is shown.
The dock automatically hides upon launching an application and slides back into view when your mouse pointer reaches the left edge of the screen. It also doubles as a task switcher in that minimized apps are brought foreground by clicking on their icon. Sounds familiar?
The Ubuntu Linux dock includes shortcuts to the home folder, the software center and built-in Ubuntu One cloud service. Other notable changes include the latest Linux 2.6.38 kernel, the latest Firefox 4 and a Microsoft Office alternative called LibreOffice 3.3.2 which has replaced OpenOffice.org.
I have updated my triple-booting Mac mini to the Ubuntu 11.04 build yesterday without a hiccup, using the built-in software update to bring my system up to date. It took the machine about 45 minutes to download and install the updated version and it (fortunately) kept my triple-boot setup intact.
