Just another Karmic Koala

The other day, the same day it was released, I downloaded Ubuntu 9.10, Karmic Koala, and did a clean install on the Linux partition of my laptop. As you may notice if you follow this blog, I tend to do this every time there is a new Ubuntu release. It is so uneventful now (in terms of trauma) that I almost failed to mention it here. But I think it does merit mention, yet again, how refreshingly simple Ubuntu is to install and use. Each time I discover new aspects of Ubuntu, perhaps they are new features but since I don’t keep up with Ubuntu chatter I’m not aware of when they were added to the mix. And I learn one or two new things each time. For example, this time I learned how to get my Linux install to handle those region 1 and region 2 DVDs, of which I have many (the curse of starting one’s collection whilst living in the UK and then moving back to Canada), and it was so easy. Strictly speaking I don’t need Ubuntu to do that for me – we have a Windows desktop (now somewhat aging) on which we watch films. And I am not keen to support these restrictive proprietary formats even tacitly. But it is nice to know that if I had to, I could play the DVDs that I have purchased from reputable commercial outlets on the operating system of my choice.

For the moment I remain with a dual-boot Dell laptop running Windows Vista and, now, Ubuntu 9.10. Increasingly it seems less and less necessary for me to preserve my Windows partition. Perhaps when I find that I spend nearly 100% of my computing time in Ubuntu I will simply forget that I have Windows on this machine as well. And that may be the right time to jettison it altogether. Meanwhile I will continue to enjoy each new release of Ubuntu and, as ever, look forward to the next one.