Every six months you're guaranteed at least one entertaining post on the Ubuntu mailing list: Mark Shuttleworth's announcement of the next Ubuntu release. I don't know how he does it, but each announcement manages to relate the planned features of the next release to specific characteristics of the chosen mascot. This year, though, something is different.

In a post on his personal blog, titled “U talking to me?” – quote which may or may not have something to do with Taxi Driver – Mark Shuttleworth expressed his willing to do “something unified and upright, something about which we can be universally proud” in the next Ubuntu release, but he also gave us a hint about the codename which 14.10 will have: Utopic Unicorn.

Mark Shuttleworth joins us for a video podcast to discuss the upcoming 9.04 release, Ubuntu history, Linux on the desktop, impacts of cloud computing, Ayatana, the community and Ubuntu, Ubuntu and Canonical, Google Summer of Code, Ubunet, and much more!

When announcing Ubuntu 9.04, the Jaunty Jackalope, Mark Shuttleworth had hoped to make this next Ubuntu Linux release perform better and to boot "blindingly quick", in particular with Ubuntu beginning to appear on more mobile devices. Well, with Alpha 4 have been released earlier this month, are Canonical developers and the community in the right direction with making Ubuntu 9.04 boot quickly?

Mark Shuttleworth, the man at the helm of Canonical and Ubuntu, went into greater detail last week about his thoughts on making future Ubuntu releases more user-focused. In the past, Shuttleworth has made no pretense that he feels Apple has, historically, offered a superior user experience.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has big dreams for Linux. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's been following the progress of Ubuntu, which releases a major update every six months and keeps getting more and more user friendly. But user friendly is just the beginning. Shuttleworth wants Linux to be prettier too.

As you may have heard, Mark Shuttleworth announced his vision for Ubuntu 10.10 a few days ago.  Without prejudicing the more pressing release of Ubuntu 10.04 in a couple weeks, here are some thoughts on what Shuttleworth said, and what we can expect from Ubuntu 10.10 in October 2010.

Announced by Mark Shuttleworth, on the 20th of February, Ubuntu 9.10 (codename Karmic Koala) will be released this year on October 29th. Without any further introduction, let's have a look at the release schedule...

I’m a fan of Ubuntu Linux, and think that Mark Shuttleworth is a good guy. However, to many in the Linux community, the South African entrepreneur is a rock star, a god. What’s more, Ubuntu Linux is seen by many as the first, and only, Linux distribution that might have a shot at gaining market share on the desktop.