Ubuntu 9.10 Diberi Nama Karmic Koala

Beberapa bulan sebelum Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope dirilis ke khalayak umum, Mark Shuttlewoth secara resmi mengumumkan nama kode untuk Ubuntu 9.10 yang dijadwalkan dirilis bulan Oktober tahun ini. Karmic Koala, demikianlah nama maskot Ubuntu 9.10. Koala adalah nama hewan khas benua Australia yang biasa hidup di atas pohon. Berikut ini adalah kutipan email pengumuman dari Mark Shuttleworth:
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the Karmic Koala, the newest member of our alliterative menagerie.

When you are looking for inspiration beyond the looming Jaunty feature freeze, I hope you’ll think of the Koala, our official mascot for Ubuntu 9.10. And if you’ll bear with me for a minute I’ll set the scene for what we hope to achieve in that time.

Server
A good Koala knows how to see the wood for the trees, even when her head is in the clouds. Ubuntu aims to keep free software at the forefront of cloud computing by embracing the API’s of Amazon EC2, and making it easy for anybody to setup their own cloud using entirely open tools. We’re currently in beta with official Ubuntu base AMI’s for use on Amazon EC2. During the Karmic cycle we want to make it easy to deploy applications into the cloud.
Desktop
First impressions count. We’re eagerly following the development of kernel mode setting, which promises a smooth and flicker-free startup. We’ll consider options like Red Hat’s Plymouth, for graphical boot on all the cards that support it. We made a splash years ago with Usplash, but it’s time to move to something newer and shinier. So the good news is, boot will be beautiful. The goal for Jaunty on a netbook is 25 seconds.