It’s about that time of year again when a new Ubuntu release hits the universe. But what does this mean for the great majority of the operating system’s users, not the developers and programmers, but the Ordinary Ubuntu Joe?

Firstly, and probably least importantly but most poetically, version 11.10 has a new name: Oneiric Ocelot. You’re probably wondering what it means. Well, and ocelot is a wild cat from Central and South America – they used to be very popular as pets and Salvador Dali the surrealist artist kept on. They are sometimes known as the dwarf leopard. Oneiric is an adjective meaning dreamlike or pertaining to dreams (from the Greek word for dream, of course). So, dream leopard.

Gone are the days when only IT professionals use a Unix-like operating system, now you’re likely to find them computers used for every day things like checking bills on O2 or watching videos on YouTube. This has influenced the direction which the new release has been taken as the most work seems to have been expended on the Unity Desktop. This is the new laptop friendly desktop system that was introduced in June last year. Functionality has been improved and a few bugs have been ironed out. The speed is much improved as well.

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