E-Dribble

I’m no longer using linux for my day to day stuff, so I don’t have any tentativeness concerning upgrading whatever linux install is on the computer partition that I’m not using.  In the case of my laptop, it’s Ubuntu.  I had read that they had released the beta of 10 and since I could care less if the install was unusable after the upgrade, I upgraded from 9.

I have used it for a couple hours and no matter how much I explored, I can only find one change between the old and new.  This change, however, will alter the landscape of linux computing.  Years from now, after every distribution, in all OS camps have followed in Ubuntu’s steps, the four of you that read this will remember my heralding of a new era.

So what’s the change?  What incredible insight did Mark Shuttleworth have that is sure to forever change the way we compute?

Good Lord in heaven, can you believe what you see?  I couldn’t at first and I still have moments where I feel the need to pinch…  What?  You don’t see it?  Ok, just a second.

Now, don’t you feel stupid?  Now that you can see the sheer genius that is Ubuntu, you’re probably feeling pretty stupid now, aren’t you…  What?  You still can’t see the change that is going to forever change the way you compute?  Christ, do I have to hold your hand?

There you go.  The only noticeable difference I was able to distinguish was the fact that they moved the action buttons for your windows to the left.  Which is fucking genius.  Now, when you want to choose something under the file menu, you have over a 50% chance of accidentally choosing to close your application, and if you’re lucky, losing all of your work in that application.

I can just picture Mark Shuttleworth as he looks in the mirror, comparing himself to Steve Jobs, the master of huge changes that on the surface seem absolutely asinine only to become globally emulated within the next year.

Well, he got half of it down pat.