If you’re an Ubuntu fan there are some good screen shots of the latest Alpha release over at Phoronix.

Well you be wowed/amazed/shocked?

No.

What you see is the newer goodies offered by GNOME 2.22; something that can be seen in any Linux running that version of GNOME.

You will also see the "leathery" wallpaper, which honestly said looks pretty good. Not spectacular, but good.

To date my favorite Linux distro wallpaper is the one bundled with Fedora. You know, the one with the huge balloons. Ubuntu needs something like that.

Wallpaper issues aside, the screen shots do show that Ubuntu is very active with their development. While it’s tough to get even a scrap of info about Windows or OS X dev, Linux dev is easy to see. Literally.

Where the open nature of Linux really shines is when you can see alpha-release stuff like this. Being that Ubuntu is not a retail product for sale, it is 100% okay to show the early-early dev without giving away any corporate secrets because.. well.. there aren’t any.

What this does in the long run is make for a better product.

Let’s say for the moment that, for whatever reason, Ubuntu 8 sucks. Will there be a huge backlash by the Linux community? Not at all. Instead they rally together and fix it - fast. You’re not stuck with a substandard product for any long period of time. The dev team takes any/all problems reported, addresses them and keeps the engine running, so to speak.

If only big-retail OSes worked the same way..