The revolutionary, Ubuntu 9.10, also called Karmic Koala, will reach end-of-life by April 29, an Ubuntu community representative said today.

This comes as Ubuntu 11.04, also called Natty Narwhal, approaches its first beta release on March 31. The final 11.04 version will be released on April 28.

No more patches or fixes will be delivered, so you might as well upgrade to version 10.04 (and then on to 10.10), or to 11.04 beta. The upgrade options and process details are available on Ubuntu's Karmic update website.

The OS Release Candidate became available for download right after Microsoft WIndows 7, so it put up some good competition. Built on the latest Linux 2.6.31.1 kernel, Ubuntu 9.10 offered a faster boot and an improved user interface over 9.04, which was called Jaunty Jackalope.

It also came at a time when netbooks were hot, and the Netbook Remix Edition was popular with netbook users. The best thing about the OS was a massive driver update. A wider range of devices outside just printers worked with the OS. Netbook Remix will be nixed starting with Natty, which the UI now built into the desktop Natty OS.

The Ubuntu 9.10 came in the GNOME, KDE and XFCE desktop environments. With Natty, we'll have to entertain ourselves to Ubuntu's flashy new Unity 2D/3D interface. Supposedly better, but we'll see.

If you didn't notice, there's a big UI battle going on the blog of Mark Shuttleworth, who is defending Unity. The frail soul is asking to relate app indicator APIs to external dependencies.

Anyways, Ubuntu 9.10, rest in peace. You were revolutionary, and who cares if you couldn't beat Windows 7 in the OS battle. The ride was fun while it lasted.