The performance improvements in Ubuntu 13.10, code-named Saucy Salamander, are “part of the plan to ensure that Ubuntu becomes the best environment for developing, testing, and running production services in a cloud. Speed is one of those things people measure,” said Mark Baker, Ubuntu server and cloud product manager.
Ubuntu 13.10 also comes with the latest edition of the OpenStack cloud platform, code-named Havana, which is also due to be released October 17.
The new Ubuntu will come with a fresh installer that is particularly efficient at loading the distribution over the network on bare metal servers, or as virtual machines in a cloud. The software can reduce the amount of time needed to install Ubuntu in a cloud to less than three minutes in many cases.