Released on April 19 through the world, Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn has arguably become the best version of the world’s most exciting distro yet. This Ubuntu release has introduced major changes which was unanimously felt needed by users all throughout the world.

Great New things in Feisty

• The Ubuntu 7.04 installation setup has been much improved. Included ability to import settings from existing Windows installation. It does it job well but cannot directly import emails from Outlook. Ability to import settings also from an existing Ubuntu or other linux distro installation is however lacked. The default desktop is clean and stable as always.
• The Restricted Drivers Manager makes installation of non-free hardwaredrivers much simpler and effective. It makes it very easy to manage proprietary driver managers. Graphics drivers like that nVidia and ATI can now be installed with point and click.

• Automatic Codec installation is arguably the best feature of Ubuntu Feisty. Unlike its predecessors, now when you double click an mp3, or an mpeg codec Ubuntu opens Totem and instead of an error message (as in Edgy, Dapper), it displays a dialog box informing that the required codecs are not installed and offers to direct to codec installation which is easy and intuitive. And yes it does warn about non-free codecs ;

• The inclusion of GNOME Control Panel is good but what beats me is that why it is not in the menu. However to easy enough to add in the preferences sub-menu. Go to System-> Preferences-> Main Menu (formerly Alacarte Menu Editor) oll in the left pane to the preferences and enable the GNOME Control Center. However the control center is not as good as yAST or Mandriva/PCLinuxOS Control Center. But gladly the old menu structure for System Administration is still involved and does the job.

• All the FAT/32 and NTFS partitions are automatically mounted after installation and no such hassle of /etc/fstab. Write support of NTFS not enabled yet but personally it is a good idea due to the possibility of screwing up the Windows installation. However it is also easy to manage: Simply install the ntfs-3g and ntfs-config packages by installing the ntfs-3g and ntfs-config in Synaptic or apt-get them and enabling ntfs write support by Applications-> System Tools-> NTFS Configuration Tool.
• It is very easy to set up 3d desktop effects with 3D cube and watery effects simply by going to System->Preferences->Desktop Effects.

• This Ubuntu version is stable and with rock solid and dependable performance.

In Conclusion

In all Feisty turned out to be an excellent distro which I would like to recommend to anyone. In has minor annoyances like the built-in CD writer in Nautilus is simply not good enough(but it is very easy to install Gnomebaker, a good alternative). Moreover, I think it is finally time that the default look needs a change. I initially liked the Human Theme in Dapper but everything needs change at some point.
Personally I believe Ubuntu requires a music player like Amarok in Kubuntu (you can install Amarok in Ubuntu but will require to install he Kubuntu-desktop package, I mean a better GNOME equivalent). Also the Movie Player’s, and the Sound Juicer’s interface needs overhauling.

* In many SiS chipset (like mine’s SiS 620), the mouse did not work at all in Feisty but the problem was solved through a kernel update. For more information read this post.