Ubuntu 11.10 will be called Oneiric Ocelot

Canonical, proving yet again that its idea of prime bed time reading is leafing through a thesaurus, has officially named Ubuntu 11.10 as 'Oneiric Ocelot'. Feature-wise, there is nothing new to report: 11.10 will introduce Qt support, and the Unity 2D window manager for low-power devices.

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical, has a fantastic blog post that discusses how the developers of Ubuntu arrived at Oneiric Ocelot. Oddball Octopus was almost chosen, because it has been eight years since Ubuntu was first conceived. Osculant Orangutan was mooted too, due to the welcoming nature of the Ubuntu community.

The ocelot, which is a cute wild cat, was eventually chosen -- apparently because it represents the "discipline" that will be needed to drive innovation in Ubuntu 11.10. Oneiric, if you're wondering (leave a comment if you've ever used 'oneiric' in conversation), means 'dreamy.'

In other news, Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, which is due to be released in April, recently reached Alpha 3.

Tags: linux, mark shuttleworth, MarkShuttleworth, natty narwhal, NattyNarwhal, ocelot, oneiric ocelot, OneiricOcelot, osupdates, ubuntu, ubuntu 11, ubuntu 11.04, ubuntu 11.10, Ubuntu11, Ubuntu11.04, Ubuntu11.10