UBUNTU 16.04: YOUR NEXT OS?

As the Ubuntu release bandwagon rolls into town, Mayank Sharma helps you look past the fanfare and decide whether you should take the plunge.

As the Ubuntu release bandwagon rolls into town, Mayank Sharma helps you look past the fanfare.

Every six months, the Ubuntu developers and ardent community of users and fans celebrate the arrival of a new release with almost religious fervour. The hoopla around the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS release is no different, except for the fact that this one ushers in enough changes to actually do justice to the adulation.

The Ubuntu distribution (distro) is at the cusp of introducing a major overhaul with lots of changes to the back-end infrastructure that will have a direct bearing on the rendition of the desktop. The primary thrust behind the makeover is Canonical’s aspirations to take the project beyond the confines of the desktop. If you recall the ‘successful failure’ of the Ubuntu Edge Kickstarter campaign — which demonstrated that Canonical had been toying with the idea for several years — well, it finally came to fruition with the launch of Ubuntu-powered phones in 2015.

While the jury is out on whether the Meizu MX4 and the BQ Aquaris smartphones managed to impress the non-Ubuntu users, the upcoming line-up of Ubuntu-powered devices — starting with the BQ Aquaris M10 tablet — have the potential to attract people unfamiliar with open-source software. In addition to its innovative user interface, the tablet’s most impressive functionality is its convergence feature, which allows the tablet to transform itself into a full-fledged desktop operating system as soon as you plug in a keyboard and mice.