If all goes according to plan, the first alpha release for Ubuntu 9.04 (the Jaunty Jackalope) will be released tomorrow. It's not even been one month since the release of Ubuntu 8.10, but this first alpha release will show early signs of what we can expect to see in this next Canonical-sponsored release -- albeit many of the features are still in planning. In this article we will provide a glimpse at what Ubuntu 9.04 should hold in store to captivate Linux desktop users.

The focus on Ubuntu 9.04 will be on boot performance, but perhaps not the wider performance issues at hand with Ubuntu. Late last month we delivered benchmarks of Ubuntu 7.04 through 8.10 and had found the performance to get slower with time, at least with the test system we had used. Other readers and Ubuntu users have since chimed in on our forums and elsewhere with many feeling that Ubuntu has been indeed been getting sluggish on the desktop in the more recent releases. In addition, earlier this month we had delivered comparative benchmarks of Mac OS X 10.5 and Ubuntu 8.10 and had found that the Apple operating system had the upper hand. Finally yet importantly, we have looked at the X.Org and Mesa performance with both the Intel drivers and ATI drivers going back to the Feisty Fawn.

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