Ubuntu 11.10 Is Called The "Oneiric Ocelot"

While Fedora 16 might be codenamed Bacon, Mark Shuttleworth has announced the codename for Ubuntu 11.10 and it's to be called the "Oneiric Ocelot" release.

Succeeding the Natty Narwhal (Ubuntu 11.04) and other releases like Maverick Meerkat, Lucid Lynx, Karmic Koala, and Jaunty Jackalope, the Oneiric Ocelot is perhaps the oddest Ubuntu codename yet. However, as Mark describes in the blog post, coming up with an "O____ O____" codename (to follow their existing naming scheme) that at the same time has a fitting meaning, can be a bit of a challenge. This leaves it to be Oneiric Ocelot.

What we want is something imaginative, something dreamy. Something sleek and neat, too. Something that has all the precision of T S Eliot’s poetry, matched with the "effable ineffability" of our shared values, friendship and expertise. Something that captures both the competence of ubuntu-devel with the imagination of ayatana.

Which leads us neatly to the Oneiric Ocelot.

Ubuntu 11.10 will focus upon improvements to the 2D/Qt and OpenGL versions of their new Unity desktop interface, cloud server improvements in readying for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, etc. It may also feature the first bits of Wayland.

Natty is a stretch release: we set out to redefine the look and feel of the free desktop. We’ll need all the feedback we can get, so please test today’s daily, or A3, and file bug reports! Keep up the discipline and focus on the Narwhal, and let’s direct our daydreaming to the Ocelot.

The Ubuntu Developer Summit for Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" is happening this May in Budapest, Hungary. I'll be there for any performance testing and graphics/hardware related discussions.