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Ubuntu 11 10 Oneiric Ocelot Beta 1 is Released!

Not just Ubuntu Linux but almost all the GNU/Linux distributions (with few exceptions of course) make sure to release a new version of within like 6 month-cycle. And within these usual 6 months each distro has a slightly different beta release versions of their own ... but for Ubuntu Linux it usually start with "Alpha1" to "Alpha 3" and then two Beta versions (1 and 2)... then arrives the official release.

Whats new?

So, since Ubuntu has already released the Alpha3 few weeks ago, few hours ago the developers made the official announcement of the Ubuntu Beta 1!. As usual the Beta 1 comes with updated package versions + one major difference.

Starting with Beta 1, Ubuntu is letting the users download a DVD image thats about 1.5GB of size! which in comparison with the standard 4+GB ISO image.

According to the developers, this DVD image is actually the expansion of the ever growing, standard CD image thus this new DVD includes additional packages such as Inkscape, GIMP, additional language packages and more LibreOffice related files (clip-arts, templates, extension, etc) as well.

Other new features include...

*. Gnome 3.1.5 (which is on its way to the Gnome 3.2 thats going to be included in the official launch of the 11.10).

*. LightDM is the default display manager.

*. DajaDup comes pre-installed as the data backup manager.

*. New updates to the Ubuntu Application indicators system (including new power manager and a session indicator).

*. Top rated section added to the Ubuntu Software Manager + "major" speed improvements over .deb file installation according to the developers.

*. Major Core infrastructure feature: Now users of the 64-bit version of the Ubuntu Linux OS can install 32-bit packages without the need to use the separate "ia32-libs".

*. Kernel update to the version 3.0.0-9.15 which brings bug fixes and improvements.

As usual the Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, etc distributions have also released Beta 1 versions of their own which brings latest KDE 4.7 Plasma desktop and related package updates, Amarok 2.4.3, Muon software center, pastebinit support in Xubuntu are just a few to mention.

You can try out the latest version of Ubuntu Beta 1 from this download section of the release page. Good luck.

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Ubuntu Oneiric 11 10 Released Detailed Review and Tips

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Ubuntu 11 10 Oneiric Ocelot beta 2 Review

Well, its been quite a while since Ubuntu Developers started to roll-out the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 Oneric Orcelot and few days ago they released the beta 2 version. Now, Ive never used the 11.10 because it was too new and wasnt that much production ready, so to speak.

But after hearing the Beta 2 is out now we have like few weeks left and another RC left before the official launch of 11.10, I thought the Beta version 2 should be much closer to the official release of the long awaited 11.10 thus its about time that Id try to come up with a review.

So remember, all the feature that Im gonna talk about are the changes from the current 11.04 Natty release thus if youve used 11.10 since the beginning you may already experienced these features (so dont blame me dudes! :D).

The desktop is identically the same, except the "right-click" now is even simplified (the "Create new Launcher", which is useful as hell for some, is removed)...

Gnome 3 (also known as Shell) has a lot to do with Unity, still!

As most knows, Unity carries some fundamental difference the way desktop UI designs, etc. But it still uses a lot of Gnomes applications thus most of the differences that we see in individual applications such as in "System Settings", user management, etc are due to the changes in the Unitys implementation of the Gnome 3 applications.

Lets begin with some of the changes in the Unity interface changes...

*. "Dash" icon: Except for a single major change, the application launcher is almost the same as in 11.04 version and still it lacks some serious customization abilities.

Anyhow, the most noticeable change is the "Dash" icon, which is now sits on top of the launcher which used to be on the left edge of the screen.


As many others, I also think this is a good move since it helps to make the most out of the screen since if you use something like a small screen device, say a netbook, then every pixel counts!.

And when you click on the "Dash" icon then on the left-edge were greeted with a a "close/maximize" buttons (the minimize is disable which makes sense). So now you can easily close the window by using your mouse thanks to this without the need of the "Esc" button. 


*. Buttons on the "exact left-edge": Thanks to the little movement of the "Dash" icon, now buttons are arranged on the very left-edge on the screen previously they used to just after the "Dash" icon. This helps to give a more sensible location + until you maximize a window youll see a the name of the app/window (or whatever that youre using) on the left-edge (as with below screnshot).

Note the "Text Edi" to the left where the "Dash" icon used to be...

Also when you use an application in full screen mode the buttons are hidden by default a and are only visible when you move the mouse pointer over to the top panel. This helps to give a much more cleaner and uncluttered look. So in general, I personally like whats gone with the "Dash" and the "Buttons".



*. The new "Alt-tab" UI: This is another beautiful looking "window switching" utility which was implemented sometime ago. But for some reason, while I was using it, if I had already an un-minimized window on my desktop screen then the "Alt-tab" display behind it which is not helpful at all since to serve its purpose it should always be on top of everything.

Other than that it looks beautiful and worked nicely.



*. New appearance Window: The appearance window section has also gone through some major changes and I gotta say it looks more polished and professional.


Arranging or adding images is really easy too but the themes have been reduced to four. The standard Ambiance theme + the Radiance version is there as the default ones and two version of the "High contrast" themes ... thats about it for themes.

This makes sense in a way and I guess having one or two themes by default helps the "branding" of Ubuntu but as long as you have a working internet connection around you... installing a new one is pretty darn easy nonetheless.

The Ambiance theme also has gone through few changes it seems. The tittle bar has lost somewhat its "3d-ness" as you can see with the below screenshot when comparing with the 11.04 version.

Perhaps the middle strip is a bit too "thick/sharp"...

*. Nautilus: The default file manager is Nautilus 3.1 thats also shared between Gnome Shell and Unity and the "Path-bar" is now black and looks ugly (at least for my taste). I dont know whether its the "arrow" or the squared version of the selected path on the "path-bar" or the new look-n-feel in the sidebar, but Nautilus looked really weird :D.

"Something is wrong with me... help!" :P...

I think that its the side-bar color that jeopardize things here since it doesnt go well withe the Black title and Pathbar ... so if they can do something about that + add a bit of a 3D separator to the side-bar... well I think it could solve some of the issues (any ideas??). 

*. All new Ubuntu Software Center: This is another major decision by Canonical to drop the Synaptic graphical package manager and replace it with the Ubuntu Software Center.


Now in the past USC was painfully slow and did require reasonable amount of system resource while installing applications, etc. But the new" one feels a bit faster and has gone through some major changes, at first I didnt even recognize her! (kidding).

Although the "Our star apps" takes a huge space out of that window which is waste since as long as I was using it didnt do anything other than displaying that "message". The only good thing about is that you can access all the "starred" apps by clicking on it. Other than that... thats A waste.

Users: Um, what exactly is your purpose again? | USC Star-apps Logo: "Well Im here for... oh you know, I mean I do that... that, but ..."

 Anyhow, when compared with the current USC in 11.04 the "Installed/Get/History" buttons are moved to the top and the categories are to your left and in the middle sit the "starred" apps. A quick reminder, if you want "Synaptic" back (heck you do :P) then simply search "Synaptic" and simply follow the on screen instructions to install it (ahh finally :D).

Other that the UI changes the performance is also improved but not by a huge margin, while I was using it. And I dont think they can make it as fast as Synaptic because USC is designed for achieving different goals (Mark did mention about "different ways of monetizing Ubuntu", nothing wrong with that anyway). But theres still room for improvement but for a start, this is not bad.

The preferences window and the menu are almost the same and nothing major to report there.

"ahh the same old me..."

*. System Settings: This is another area that has gone through some changes and it feels like youre inside Apple Mac OSX Lion :D. I actually liked the "old" interface in 11.04 but in a way this new window lets you access things much more faster.


And as said, most of the individual application changes inside the System Settings, such as Keyboard layout changing or user management is due to the Gnome 3 changes thus has nothing to do with Ubuntu.

The new "Screenshot tool" does something cool (highly relative :D). Now whenever you take a screenshot, itll output a camera shutter sound + will "white" the heck out of your screen too :).

Ehh... what was that all about! :D...

And as many knows, Ubuntu 11.10 comes with a backup software by default called DejaDup which you can access via the System settings which will be appreciated by many for its simplicity and usability.

Other minor changes includes such as: the default image viewer is the one comes with Gnome desktop thus if you wan to crop, etc then youll have to use the Shotwell (which is also installed by default).

LibreOffice still comes without the "indicator menu" support. If they cant find a work-around that... it could be a bit disappointing when 11.10 comes out.


Oh one more small thing, the Terminal window now has a small White strip around it (as in the below screenshot) which looks awesome!. Since this is still one of the most widely used utilities in GNU/Linux... I think most would love it.


The "System Settings" menu has also received few new options. Now you can use it to configure network printers, add a web-cam software (which will take you to installing the Cheese web cam utility in USC), access display settings (another useful update) and startup applications and can configure attached devices directly from the menu as well.


The Shutdown menu is also changed quite a little which now lets you reboot as well.


How was the performance??

Well, I didnt measure the seconds but things were noticeably faster (startup/boot, etc) and the new LightDM theme also loads fast (looks good too). If you use AMD fusion chips, then 11.10 comes with the latest builds of the Kernel 3.0 which brigs enhanced support for these never chips (including ARM). Im also quite pleased with the open-source ATI/AMD GPU driver which worked really well under Compiz without any issues whatsoever + it detected my monitor this time correctly.

As always, if you want the best performance, then I highly suggest that you install the proprietary driver.

But Im not entirely happy with the ACPI since the Fan on my netbook kept running in  a decent speed (even while I wasnt doing anything at all) but I cannot blame this on Ubuntu since it could be some issue with the Kernel and most probably is related to my hardware specifications.

To be honest Ive been one of these that criticized the Unity desktop for sometime but after using it for sometime + when looking at the changes in the 11.10, although they arent that "huge", but from a users perspective these small changes do make a difference and I actually love the Unity desktop. 

But as with Gnome Shell, Unity has its issues and some absolutely hate it (which is totally understandable, but for me personally it only needed just a little getting used to).

But if youre an average computer user or someone whos new to GNU/Linux and still learning about Ubuntu and other stuff from scratch and looking for a professional looking GNU/Linux distribution thats slightly faster than the predecessors + which is user friendly too: then I gotta say that I was a bit wrong about the Unity interface and even though its still at its beta stage, yet, I think Ubuntu 11.10 looks really good.

So if you cant even wait till its out officially... then other than installing it in commercial environment I think its really stable (although Nautilus 3.1 crashed ones, yikes!) enough that you can give it a try, safely :). Good luck.

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Ubuntu 11 10 Oneiric Ocelot is Just 2 Seconds away from Instant Boot!

Yup, according to the tests done by crn.com experts, the recently released Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot Alpha 2, although, still in the earlier beta versions still its significantly faster than the current 11.04 Natty Narwhal!.

There are few ups and downs at the moment since its in alpha stage but in their own words...

"...judging by its early �alpha� version. It has the fastest boot-time we�ve seen on an HDD-based PC, shows snappy performance between applications..."

Although not entirely sure if the adaptation of the Kernel 3.0 RC+ has anything to do with it but it seems that the removal of GDM and replacing it with LightDM has done the trick. In any operating system, one of the early-loaded GUI services is the log-in manager, and since...

LightDM...

GDM has been criticized by many developers saying that it has about 50,000 pieces of codes while LightDM only has 5000, thats at least 10x lesser amount of software code thus it should have helped.

Anyhow in their test PC (Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 at 3.00 GHz and a usual hard disk, not a SSD drive, other hardware unknown) the Ubuntu 11.10 alpha was able to boot up (from the moment of switch on to log-in screen) within just 12 seconds!.


Thanks to Google Chrome type operating systems, there is now a "standard" that says any OS that has about 10 or lower seconds of boot up times is considered as an operating system with an instant boot, so in that sense, Ubuntu 11.10 is just 2 seconds behind and most importantly it has been able to achieve that not using a SSD drive (which is significantly faster) but by using a SATA HDD!.

Another key improvement is the Ubuntu Software Center since Ubuntu decided to remove Synaptic from the official CD/DVD (but still available through the official repositories), starting with the 11.10 version.

Its about time that they started to pay some serious attention to improving the USC, because from the beginning USC requires a lot of system resources (CPU actually, although RAM usage is not that high, pretty much closer to Synaptic according to my experience anyway) and the new improved USC in the 11.10 Alpha 2 seems to be quite responsive and fast than the one in the 11.04. 

Anyhow its really interesting what this means at the end because as any developer knows, since Ubuntu has no interest in targeting the "hacker" and rely on the "actual PC users", which I think will help them immensely in the future because its this change of "attitude" (for good or bad) that has put them up there at the top.

If I remember correctly it was actually Ubuntu who was one of the first GNU/Linux (is it really?) distributions to speed up the boot up times where in the past GNU/Linux was painfully slower as well. 

Anyhow, this should send some "alarms" across other distributions (or may be not) + we also have a little Gnome OS thingie going on at the moment, so it should be really interesting whether the other distributions have the ability to compete against this "Ubuntu trend".

Because a trend is a far more powerful tool which, if properly used can easily let you pass through the popular "players" easily, which can be seen a bit too much to dream about right now (oh I didnt made up that statement all by me own, saw something similar somewhere recently :D). But the rest assured, whether you love or hate Ubuntu, interesting times ahead, it seems.

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Ubuntu 11 10 Oneiric Ocelot Beta 2 is Released!

Its been like 2 or 2.5 weeks since Canonical released the Ubuntu 11.10 beta 1 and few hours ago theyve released the last of the "testing versions", the 11.10 Beta 2!. This is the last of all "tests" and all that remains is the official release of the Oneiric Ocelot, scheduled at 13 October 2011 (man Im so excited!, I can criticize, etc... a lot to write about :P).

With this release theyve finally made it possible to fit it inside a standard CD (about 695MB for the 32-bit version) and more ARM architecture support has been added (via different disk images). Below are few of the new updates in the 11.10 Beta 2 version

*. Gnome 3 has been updated to the latest beta 3.1.9 which is on its way to the official Gnome Shell 3.2 released. A quick remainder for those of you whove been just woken up from your hibernation sleep ;-), remember, Gnome 3 is well supported in Ubuntu but it is not included in the default CD disk image. But you can install it via the online Ubuntu repositories nonetheless.

*. Includes the Kernel 3.0.4 version.

*. Comes with the Mozilla Firefox 7.0 beta 6.

*. And Thunderbird 7.0 beta 3.

*. Synaptic is removed (as most knows) but also the default video editor PiTiVi has also been removed.

*. LightDM with a new theme.

*. Banshee 2.2.0.

*. Shotwell 0.11.1.

These are the usual main apps to remind and as usual the Ubuntu Software Center is also updated with some bug fixes, etc as well. All the other official Ubuntu derivatives such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, etc have also released their Beta 2 version simultaneous to this release too.

As mentioned, from now, since the CD disk image fits into a 700MB CD, now you can download the beta 2 and use it as a LiveCD rather than the USB version with some of the previous "alpha and beta" versions.

If interested, you can get it from this official release page. Good luck.

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Ubuntu Oneiric GUI Options Gnome Shell Gnome Fallback and XFCE

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Ubuntu 11 10 Oneiric Ocelot Alpha 3 is Released!

Well, it took a bit long than predicted but few hours ago the Ubuntu Linux developers officially announced the availability of the Ubuntu 1.10 Oneiric Ocelot Alpha 3, finally!. But before you jump into the downloading section please be aware that these images are over sized thus wont fit in the usual 700MB CD + are developers snapshots only.

So, unless youre a developer or a bug-tester, etc please dont use them and expect a stable environment since they arent even at the beta stage yet (which should be the next release actually). And as usual, simultaneously to this release other Ubuntu projects such as Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu and Lubuntu Oneiric Ocelot (including the Ubuntu server version) Alpha 3 images are also available.

Main changes...



*. Comes with the Kernel version 3.0.0-7.9 since the 11.10 will be using the recently introduced Kernel version 3.0 RC (well it aint that recent anymore!) which also brings some new features (even though according to Linus its just a "numbers game") such as better compatibility with AMD Fusion chipsets, ARM support, etc. 

*. Updates and bug fixes for Compiz and Unity desktop (including the new Alt-Tab-Style), enhanced performances, etc. So hopefully Compiz will be less buggy and "crash-y. Especially on netbooks or any other PC/Laptop with both Nvidia and ATI/AMD GPUs.

Unity Alt-Tab-Style...

Intel seems to do better at the moment thanks to their a bit open-source friendly approach (although some of their GPUs have "missing" technical documentations which makes developing open-source drivers hard as with proprietary AIT/Nvidia).

But as a general knowledge, although Intel GPU are a bit slow and lack support for enhanced 3D, etc in comparison... but for GNU/Linux users, they usually work better than ATI and Nvidia with OpenGL rendering and other under other advanced 3D settings anyway. 

*. 11.10 Users now can enjoy the latest Gnome version 3 (3.1.4 to be precise), although not included in the ISO image but youll have to install it using the repository. And theyre also on their way to making the Gnome 3.2 upcoming major release available simultaneously to the future launch of the 11.10.

*. Thunderbird 6 is the default e-mail client, although not everyone is a fan of it yet its pretty stable and rich-in features nonetheless.

*. Updated Gwibber micro-blogging client with few performance and GUI enhancements. 

*. Mozilla Firefox 6 beta comes as the web browser. Although Mark said in an interview recently that in the future Ubuntu might be switching to Google Chrome!. 

*. Improved Ubuntu Software Center : Since we all know that 11.10 uses only USC and does not come with Synaptic. But the problem with the USC in 11.04 or latter is that its dauntingly greedy on system resources thus can easily slow down the PC/Laptop. So obviously the Ubuntu developers are pretty busy at the moment making it faster and less buggy.

With Alpha 3, apart from its performance enhancements, itll also include a new "top rated" section + now we can edit/delete our reviews later times as well.

Also concerning Kubutnu fans, this image includes the latest builds of KDE 4.7 desktop with a new Oxygen icon theme, a whole new KPEM with Kmail 2, Amarok 2.4.3 + a lot of other Kubutnu related packages are updated as usual.

But they also emphasis on that all new KPEM suite, since its really new and all that they advice you to backup all your contacts, etc before migrating into the new KPEM suite. 

And the other major news is that, starting with Kubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3, Kubuntu will be using the Muon suite which is another more simplified and beginner friendly software GUI, as the default package handler. 

Muon Software manager (looks a lot like the Ubuntu Software Center doesnt it? :D)...

Edubuntu will also be using Unity as the default desktop environment + if your hardware isnt capable of handling the Unity 3D then the fallback mode will be the Unity 2D that uses Metacity as the composting manager rather than Compiz. As mentioned about, other desktop solutions such as the recently "integrated" Lubuntu, etc are also updated to their latest package versions.


Few precautions ...

Not all of em but most of these ISO images wont fit inside a 700MB CD as mentioned before. So youll have to either use a DVD or a USB as the booting device. And theres also seems to be a bit of a big issue with the Ubuntu server installation concerning encrypted volumes which can even lead to a permanent loss of your data on an encrypted volume/partition! (get more information about this bug from here). Again this seems to be with the Ubuntu server images only.

Anyhow as said, the Ubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 is certainly not recommended for those of you who wants a highly stable environment/OS and is only aimed at developers and tester only. So, other than youre ready to take few risks + if youre a bit new to Ubuntu or GNU/Linux in general then Id like to humbly advice you to stick with your current "working" version :).

But at the moment it seems that the Ubuntu developers are really giving it a go since theyve already make some big improvements on the boot-time of 11.10 Alpha 2, so if you want to get a taste of all the new things and features/improvements, etc then other than upgrading your current 11.04, I think youd be better off doing a fresh installation (at least in my experience anyway).

Go to this official downloading page for getting all the available ISO images. Goo luck.

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