Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn is here -- Linux fans, download now!

• By Brian Fagioli

Not only is Ubuntu one of the most user-friendly Linux distributions, but it also gets many timely releases. Say what you want about it, but the overall experience is second to none. I would not hesitate to recommend Ubuntu to both Linux beginners and experts alike.

After we just learned the name of the future version of the OS (15.04) to be Vivid Vervet (it is coming in 2015), Canonical releases Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn today. Linux fans can download it now!

One of the most important aspects of a Linux-based operating system is the kernel. In 14.10, it is very up-to-date.

Canonical explains, "the Ubuntu 14.10 release delivers a v3.16 based kernel. This brings a significant number of bug fixes and new hardware support including expanded architecture support for Power 8 and arm64 platforms. It also includes support for Intel Cherryview, Haswell, Broadwell and Merrifield systems, and initial support for Nvidia GK20A and GK110B GPU’s. There is improved graphics performance on many Nvidia, Intel and ATI Radeon devices and also audio improvements with support for the Radeon .264 video encoder. Expanded platform support is enabled via support for 64 bit EFI boot on 32 bit EFI BIOS. This release also brings performance improvements in suspend/resume times".

Canonical touts the following additional changes:

• Unity has improved support for High-DPI displays.
• Firefox is updated to version 33 and Chromium is updated to version 38.
• Gtk updated to version 3.12. Qt updated to version 5.3.
• Support for IPP Everywhere printers is added, and printers shared from Ubuntu can emulate IPP Everywhere printers.
• LibreOffice 4.3 brings a lot of improvements including improved PDF support, new features in Writer, Calc and Impress (word processor, spreadsheet and presentations).

If you are ready to download, you can get it here. Since this is a final release, it should be safe for most home users; however, if you are using it for a business, you should always test first.

Source: http://betanews.com/2014/10/23/ubuntu-14-10-utopic-unicorn-is-here-linux-fans-download-now/

Ten years of Ubuntu: How Linux’s beloved newcomer became its criticized king

Ars looks back at the decade in Ubuntu, from Warty Warthog to 25 million users worldwide,by Scott Gilbertson Oct 22 2014, 9:00pm EDT

In October of 2004, a new Linux distro appeared on the scene with a curious name—Ubuntu. Even then there were hundreds, today if not thousands, of different Linux distros available. A new one wasn't particularly unusual, and for some time after its quiet preview announcement, Ubuntu went largely unnoticed. It was yet another Debian derivative.
Today, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, estimates that there are 25 million Ubuntu users worldwide. That makes Ubuntu the world's third most popular PC operating system. By Canonical's estimates, Ubuntu has roughly 90 percent of the Linux market. And Ubuntu is poised to launch a mobile version that may well send those numbers skyrocketing again.
This month marks the tenth anniversary of Ubuntu. As you'll soon see in this look at the desktop distro through the years, Linux observers sensed there was something special about Ubuntu nearly from the start. However, while a Linux OS that genuinely had users in mind was quickly embraced, Ubuntu's ten-year journey since is a microcosm of the major Linux events of the last decade—encompassing everything from privacy concerns and Windows resentment to server expansion and hopes of convergence.

Warty Warthog: What's an Ubuntu?

Enlarge / The default desktop of Ubuntu 4.10, Warty Warthog.

Wikimedia

Starting right from its launch, Ubuntu took a different approach to Linux, one that was perhaps best defined by its slogan at the time: "Linux for human beings." The word Ubuntu itself recalls the same idea, coming from the South African philosophy where it means, literally, "humanness." More broadly translated, it's "humanity toward others."


This distinction is more than simple semantics. It's what makes Ubuntu unique in the annals of Linux history.

The name, combined with the slogan, set Ubuntu apart from other Linux distros of the day. Its competitors tended to focus more narrowly on what developers and enterprise users wanted rather than what "ordinary" desktop users might need. Fedora, for example, takes a very different approach, aiming for users who are also developers and will contribute back to open source.
The focus on "Linux for human beings" set the tone and direction of the Ubuntu project from the beginning. Ubuntu never chased developers. It also did not seem interested in the server market. Instead, this distribution was aimed squarely at desktop users (of whom there were significantly fewer in October 2004) and Linux newcomers. The idea was to win over "ordinary" users from Windows.

Ubuntu was started by Mark Shuttleworth, who sold his company Thawte to VeriSign in December 1999 for $575 million. After a short vacation in space, he founded Canonical Ltd and started work on Ubuntu. Shuttleworth's announcement of the very first Ubuntu release defines the fledgling project as a "new Linux distribution that brings together the extraordinary breadth of Debian with a fast and easy install, regular releases... (and) a tight selection of excellent packages."

Those goals—fast and easy to install, regular releases with support, and a wide range of applications available—are the basis of what powered Ubuntu to the top of the Linux charts. Perhaps the most significant of these three goals, though, especially in terms of Ubuntu's focus on new, beginning Linux users is the first one: making Linux easy to install.

By 2004, Debian wasn't difficult to install if you had prior experience with Linux. For someone accustomed to the installation process offered by Windows XP or Mac OS X, however, it was, at the very least, intimidating. Ubuntu on the other hand was just as easy to install as Windows or OS X. You inserted the CD, it booted, and you double-clicked the installer. When prominent Apple supporter Mark Pilgrim switched to Linux, he chose Ubuntu. Pilgrim joked that it was the African word for "can't install Debian."

Dapper Drake: Rising to the top

Enlarge / The default desktop of Ubuntu 6.06, Dapper Drake, the only release to miss the April release date.

Wikimedia

Ubuntu stuck to its every-six-months plan, churning out progressively more polished releases from 2004 on. In ten years, it has only missed a release deadline once—6.06 Dapper Drake in 2006.


By 2008, Ubuntu established itself as the distro of choice for "switchers" moving away from Windows or OS X or even other distros lacking the ease of use Ubuntu offered. Ubuntu put a friendly face on the otherwise cryptic world of desktop Linux. It offered a simple installation process, the promise of easy updates, and a great selection of applications all available at the click of a button in the Ubuntu Software Center. In short Ubuntu achieved its goals.
Even those who don't like Ubuntu's take on the Linux desktop benefited from it over the years, as many of its defining characteristics, particularly the installation process and focus on a well-designed desktop experience. These traits became a priority in other projects, and the result of Ubuntu's efforts rippled out through the wider Linux world.

Intrepid Ibex: It's lonely at the top

Enlarge / The default desktop of Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex.

Scott Gilbertson

The move away from GNOME did not hurt Ubuntu's adoption rate. It remains the most popular Linux distro by a wide margin, which makes it, among other things, the most popular target for critics. Linux, like every other tightly knit subculture on the Internet, seems to hate a runaway success, especially one that violates so many of the subculture's taboos.

Violating unwritten Linux taboos became something of an Ubuntu sport over the years. And the critics were there at every turn, even right at the start. For example, as part of its initial launch, Canonical unveiled the Launchpad project hosting platform, but it did not release it under an open source license for another four years. This angered some who saw Canonical as saying one thing and doing another.

Then there were gripes about Ubuntu developers not contributing to the kernel. And then there was the brown theme. Then the purple theme. Then the window buttons moved to the left of the window. The changes got smaller, the nits got pickier, but they were no quieter or less vehement. There's always someone very vocally unhappy about what Ubuntu is doing.

Utopic Unicorn: Imagining Utopia

Enlarge / The default desktop of Ubuntu 14.10, Utopic Unicorn.

Scott Gilbertson

Arriving alongside the ten-year anniversary of the project, there's almost nothing new in the latest version of Ubuntu, 14.10. There's a kernel update, a few application updates, but nothing major from Ubuntu itself.
There is one bit of good news in the daily builds, though. Ubuntu has started work on a major change that will fix perhaps the biggest tarnishing marks in Ubuntu's history—removing the privacy-invading online search features.
One of the best parts of Unity is the Dash, a single search interface that will find apps, documents, music, images, and all sorts of other data on your machine. It's the cornerstone of the Unity interface. The first few releases of Unity focused on local search, but in 12.04 Ubuntu added a feature that enabled online searches as well.

Some users found this incredibly useful. Others, myself included, found it incredibly invasive. The fact that Ubuntu suddenly started shipping with a privacy policy sent many a privacy conscious user scurrying to less "innovative" distros.

What has always been most troubling about the search features in Unity Dash is that they are enabled by default. Given that very few users change default settings—especially new users, Ubuntu's target audience—it effectively means that users may not be aware their data is being transmitted to Canonical's servers and then routed on to Amazon and elsewhere.

It's worth looking at the rest of what Shuttleworth wrote in that post, though. "You do trust us with your data already," he continued. "You trust us not to screw up on your machine with every update. You trust Debian, and you trust a large swath of the open source community. And most importantly, you trust us to address it when, being human, we err."

That last bit is especially relevant in this case, and it matters for two reasons. First, Shuttleworth apologized for the DMCA takedown notice, and it has never happened again.

More importantly, Ubuntu is reversing course on the Amazon search lens. Sally Radwan, Product Marketing Manager at Canonical, tells Ars that "the opt-in by default is not set to land in 14.10... [but] it is in the development pipeline for 15.04." That is, Amazon and the rest of the online search features will soon be opt-in (if you update from an existing install it will still be there, but it's disabled for fresh installs of the latest daily builds). In short, Ubuntu is fixing its mistake even if it has taken a little while.

Still, better late than never, because you do have to trust someone. Like it or not, Ubuntu or whatever your OS of choice is does have root access to your machine. Not literally of course, but it's effective access given that their code is running with root privileges on your machine and chances are you haven't reviewed it lately. You trust your distro to make sure that code is secure, stable, and acting in your best interests. You trust them to update it when something goes wrong.
You could look at Ubuntu's privacy fiasco pessimistically, as proof that Ubuntu is out to get you. Or you could take the more optimistic view: Ubuntu is willing to fix things when it makes bad decisions.

Ubuntu rebranded itself in 2010 and dropped the "Linux for human beings" slogan. It wouldn't be as catchy, but Ubuntu might do well to bring back its old slogan with a slight update: "Linux for human beings who make mistakes, but try to fix them."

Vivid Vervet: The mobile future

Ubuntu recently announced that next year's 15.04 release will be named Vivid Vervet. While Shuttleworth tends to focus on the animal names in his announcement, looking back over Ubuntu's history reveals that the word accompanying the animal is often the more defining element. From "Warty," which was all warts and all release, to Lucid, when Ubuntu seems to have developed a more distinct sense of visual and UI direction, to Vivid, which envisions a bright future.
Again, there is almost nothing new from Canonical in Ubuntu 14.10. The reason for that is the project has all available hands working on its Unity 8 mobile interface. The Ubuntu Phone is coming, and for now the desktop is taking a back seat.

Warty Warthog: The sequel

Any numbers surrounding the use of Linux are suspect simply because it's very hard to track by distro. But again, Canonical tells Ars that the company estimates there are "around 25 million Ubuntu desktop users," and Canonical claims to have around 90 percent of the Linux market.
And while this retrospective focused solely on the desktop, Ubuntu is no slouch in the server market these days. It now accounts for over 55 percent of all OpenStack deployments and, according to the company, around 70 percent of guest OSes "on major global public cloud environments."

It's far from done, but Canonical's mobile work-in-progress has some good ideas.

So even if Ubuntu Touch tanks and Ubuntu goes crawling home with its tail between its legs, it has an impressive home to return to. It's hasn't been a perfect ten years, but it's difficult to imagine where Linux would be today without Ubuntu. When it debuted in 2004, the most popular desktop was KDE 3.5, the default theme of which looked like a sad clone of Windows 95. Ten years later, Linux is everywhere you look, and most often it's Ubuntu Linux that you see.
For better or worse, Ubuntu has become the friendly public face of Linux. But as Shuttleworth wrote on his blog several years ago, "free software is bigger than any one project. It's bigger than the Linux kernel, it's bigger than GNU, it's bigger than GNOME and KDE, it's bigger than Ubuntu and Fedora and Debian. Each of those projects plays a role, but it is the whole which is really changing the world."

Source: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/10/ten-years-of-ubuntu-how-linuxs-beloved-newcomer-became-its-criticized-king/1/

6 Best BURG Themes and How to Install BURG Themes in Ubuntu

I've been frustrated with the new boot loaders contained in Ubuntu Mate and others lately. So here is an old post on how to customize the bootloader menu with Burg. An update for Ubuntu 14.04 is posted after.

BURG is basically a boot loader for Linux based on GRUB. Burg has a highly configurable menu system which works in both text and graphic mode. Simply put, BURG can be extensively customized and there are a number of good quality BURG themes available all over the web for free. Lets find out the best among them and also see how to install BURG and the following BURG themes in Ubuntu 11.10.

• Lightness BURG Theme by SWOriginal

• Dark Shine BURG Theme by SWOriginal

• Autumn BURG Theme

• Abstract BURG Theme

• Radiance BURG Theme by Shafin

• Fortune BURG Theme by OrphanShadow

Super Boot Manager Lets You Install/Manage all the Above BURG Themes & More!

• Many BURG themes listed above has specific scripts to install it as your default BURG theme. But Super Boot Manager has all the above themes listed in it and it is quite easy to install and change BURG themes in your Ubuntu 11.10 using Super Boot Manager.

• Warning: Playing around with GRUB bootloader can be tricky and can sometimes cause irrecoverable damages, you should know what you are doing.

• Lets install BURG in Ubuntu 11.10 first of all. Do the following in Terminal.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/burg 
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install burg burg-themes

• Done. Now install BURG to your MBR(Master Boot Record). Substitute 'hd0' with appropriate drive information in the following command if needed(you don't have to do that under normal circumstances).

sudo burg-install "(hd0)"

• Now, update BURG.

sudo update-burg

• There are some pre-installed BURG themes that comes with the package, you can test them and install them using the following command.

sudo burg-emu

• F2 to browse through themes and F1 to see full list of options. Done.

Install Super Boot Manager in Ubuntu 11.10, Linux Mint 12

• Do the following in Terminal.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ingalex/super-boot-manager 
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install super-boot-manager

• Done. Now launch Super Boot Manager and select Burg Manager - Themes.

• Select the theme you like and double click on it. That particular BURG theme will be automatically downloaded now. Apply the changes and you are done. 

Theoretically speaking, this should work. But unfortunately, I had to use 'sudo burg-emu' command (from above) every time to change to the theme just downloaded using Super Boot Manager app. Good luck and thanks for reading.

Source: http://www.techdrivein.com/2011/12/6-best-burg-themes-and-how-to-install.html

UPDATE
BURGbootloader setup and configuration tutorial - Ubuntu 14.04

BURG on Ubuntu... let's get this going

Hi, this is a quick and easy tutorial on setting up BURG in Ubuntu linux. This tutorial is written specifically based on Ubuntu 14.04.

Warning : Changing the bootloader can be a dangerous operation if unexperienced. If you fail setting up the bootloader correctly your operating system may not boot. Continue with this tutorial at own risk.

Basic install

1. Firstly, we're going to want to add the repository for burg, then install it. Open a terminal ( Ctrl + t ) and execute the following commands.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/burg
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install burg burg-themes

2. Now that we have BURG installed, it's time to configure it as our bootloader. Execute the following commands ( remember to substitute "hd0" with your correct boot drive ).

sudo burg-install "(hd0)"
sudo update-burg
sudo burg-emu

After executing burg-emu, a preview of your bootloader should open. Your bootloader should now be installed and setup as default in front of GRUB. You can, at this point, optionally reboot to test it out.

Depending on your install of Ubuntu, you may have more than one boot and one recovery image. These will all display on boot unless disabled. If you are not getting redundant options when you run sudo burg-emu , skip to the next part of the tutorial.
Fix redundant options:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

Open grub customizer after install and disable all images that you don't want as boot options. Run  

sudo burg-emu

to check your changes.

Install BURG theme

We alreadly installed some default themes earlier. To check them out and/or enable them, run

 sudo burg-emu

then click F3.
To install a third party theme:
Copy your downloaded theme to /boot/burg/themes then update burg.

sudo update-burg

You should now be able to preview and enable your theme from the burg-emu theme menu.

Fix resolution issue

On some installs, BURG does not automatically scale to the size of your monitor. We will configure it manually in the following.
First, we'll need to install super boot manager. At the time of writing, the repo has not deployed it for Ubuntu 14.04. We'll use a little trick to get around that.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ingalex/super-boot-manager
sudo sh -c "sed -i 's/trusty/raring/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ingalex-super-boot-manager-trusty.list"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install super-boot-manager
sudo apt-get install -f

Now finally, launch super boot manager.
Choose Burg-manager > parameters > change resolution . You can also change the Default boot device as well as make some other nice customizations with this program. Run sudo burg-emu to check the results of your changes.

Source: http://develop.alpdesigns.ch/pages/ubuntu/brug-and-theme-configuration.html

Ubuntu MATE Sees Its First Release (14.10)

Author: Andrew | Date: Thursday, October 23, 2014

Along with the other flavors, Ubuntu MATE 14.10 was released today. This is an unofficial (it will most probably become an official Ubuntu flavor in the near future) MATE-based Ubuntu flavor, "ideal for those who want the most out of their desktops, laptops and netbooks and prefer a traditional desktop metaphor", which had its very first stable release today.

MATE is a GNOME 2 fork which lets you use the old GNOME 2 desktop interface and applications but it also allows you to use new applications so for instance, you can use Gedit 3 if you want, etc.

Like the old GNOME 2, MATE (and thus, Ubuntu MATE) offers a traditional desktop layout with two panels and is highly customizable: themes can be installed or changed from the Appearance dialog (and there are quite a few themes available by default), the panels can be resized and they support autohide and a multitude of applets, the notifications position can be changed and so on:

Control center, window preferences and notification settings, with a test notification

Panel applets

One of the many themes shipped with Ubuntu MATE 14.10 by default

Ubuntu MATE 14.10 includes the latest MATE 1.8 which, compared to MATE 1.6 (available in the Ubuntu 14.04 repositories) includes support for Metacity as window manager, side-by-side tiling and more.

While it includes the default MATE applications such as Caja (file manager), Pluma (text editor) and so on, Ubuntu MATE 14.10 ships with some applications you'll also find in other Ubuntu flavors, like Firefox, Pidgin, Thunderbird, Transmission, LibreOffice, Totem or Rhythmbox, so users coming from Ubuntu w/ Unity should feel at home from this point of view. Also, for the display manager, LightDM is used by default, with the GTK greeter:

Furthermore, Ubuntu MATE uses the default Ubuntu icons and a GTK theme based on Ubuntu's Ambiance so besides the traditional desktop layout, things should look pretty close to Ubuntu's defaults.

It's important to note that because this is the first Ubuntu MATE release and it's not a LTS, the Ubuntu MATE team is going to make Ubuntu MATE 14.04 LTS ISOs available "shortly after Ubuntu MATE 14.10 is released", mentions the Ubuntu MATE FAQ.

Download Ubuntu MATE 14.10

Before installing Ubuntu MATE 14.10, make sure you checkout the official release announcement.

Download Ubuntu MATE 14.10

 

Source: http://www.webupd8.org/2014/10/ubuntu-mate-sees-its-first-release-1410.html

Ubuntu Flavors 14.10 Officially Released (WebUpd8.org)

 Author: Andrew | Date: Thursday, October 23, 2014

All the Ubuntu flavors reached version 14.10 today. Let's take a quick look at what's new in Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME and Kubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn).

Xubuntu 14.10

Xubuntu is an Ubuntu flavor which uses Xfce, a fast, light desktop environment.

Changes in Xubuntu 14.10:

• the display dialog has been updated and it now allows arranging multiple displays by drag and drop;
• the Xfce power manager can now control the keyboard-backlight and features a new panel plugin, which shows the battery status, other connected devices with batteries and controls the display backlight brightness;
• Setting-related menu items earlier available only under Settings manager are now shown and searchable in Whisker Menu;
• the alt-tab dialog can now be clicked with the mouse to select a window;
• updated GTK themes with various changes, including GTK 3.12 support;
• changed desktop icon size to 48px, desktop tooltip size to 64px;
• the number of desktops was reduced to 1 by default, but this can easily be changed (Settings > Workspaces);
• saner defaults for DPMS timeouts;
• enabled lock-screen on suspend and hibernate;
• Light Locker is enabled and will lock on suspend, but not auto-locking after being idle;
• to allow users to use pkexec instead of gksu(do), appropriate profiles are now included for Thunar and Mousepad;
• enabled clutter as default videosink in Parole;
• updated panel layout for login screen;
• enabled minimize and maximize on GtkHeaderbars;
• XChat is no longer included by default;
• Inxi, a tool to gather system information, is now included by default.

Here are screenshots with some of these changes:

Added minimize and maximize buttons for apps using header bars

Inxi, a system info tool

Xfce4 Power Manager

New Xfce4 Power Manager panel plugin

Xubuntu 14.10 login screen (LightDM GTK greeter)

Display settings

Running Thunar via pkexec

Also, Xubuntu 14.10 uses magenta highlights:

According to the release notes, this change (which they refer to as pink but it looks closer to magenta to me) was made to celebrate the 14.10 codename "Utopic Unicorn" and to demonstrate the easy customizability of Xubuntu.

That's because this change wasn't made to the theme - the pink/magenta highlights are applied via Theme Configuration (gtk-theme-config) and is used no matter what theme you're using. You can easily change this and other theme colors from Settings > Theme Configuration (simply turn "Highlight Colors" off to turn this off):

Download Xubuntu 14.10 | official release notes

Ubuntu GNOME 14.10

Ubuntu GNOME tries to bring a pure GNOME experience in the Ubuntu "family". It uses GNOME Shell by default and this release ships with a combination of GNOME 3.10 and 3.12.

Ubuntu GNOME 14.10 includes GNOME System Settings / Settings Daemon 3.12

Changes in Ubuntu GNOME 14.10:

• many GNOME components, like GNOME Shell, GTK+, GNOME Control Center, etc. have been updated to version 3.12 which brings improvements (compared to 3.10, available in Ubuntu 14.04) such as:
• proper HiDPI support;
• improved network menus;
• Jumplists (also known as Quicklists in Unity) support;
• a geolocation indicator was added to the status menu
• refined animations;
• window previews are now keyboard navigable;
• allow specifying monitor for OSD;
• GNOME Online accounts has better Facebook and Google support and also, it now supports Pocket (a web service that lets you save videos, articles and pretty much anything from the browser for later use)
• Google Cloud print support;
• updated Adwaita GTK theme: new style for tabs and buttons, etc.;
• GTK 3.12 introduces restyled tabs and "popovers", an overlayed bubble interface element;
• for more information, see our GNOME 3.12 article (but keep in mind that some apps, like Nautilus, Totem or Gedit are still at version 3.10.x).
• GNOME Maps (3.12.2) and GNOME Weather (3.12.1) are now installed by default.

Here are a few Ubuntu GNOME 14.10 screenshots:

Download Ubuntu GNOME 14.10 | official release notes

Lubuntu 14.10

Lubuntu is a lightweight Ubuntu flavor which uses the LXDE desktop environment, useful for old computers.

For Lubuntu 14.10, there's basically no changelog available - besides updated artwork, the wiki page mentions that many LXDE components have been updated with bug fix releases and that Lubuntu 14.10 is a "general bug fix release as we prepare for LXQt".

Download Lubuntu 14.10 | official release notes

Kubuntu 14.10

Kubuntu is an Ubuntu flavor which uses the KDE Plasma Desktop as the graphical environment. Even though it's now sponsored by Blue Systems and not by Canonical, Kubuntu is still an official Ubuntu derivative.

For 14.10, there are two Kubuntu ISOs available for download: Plasma 4 Stable and Plasma 5 tech Preview.

The Stable Plasma 4 ISO includes KDE Applications and Platform 4.14.1 - check out the changes here: 4.14.0 | 4.14.1.

Here are a few Kubuntu 14.10 screenshots (mostly with the Plasma 5 ISO since the default Kubuntu 14.10 with Plasma 4 looks pretty much the same):

Kubuntu 14.10 with Plasma 5

Kubuntu 14.10 with Plasma 5

Kubuntu 14.10 with Plasma 5 (with Breeze window decorations - Oxygen is still default though)

Kubuntu 14.10 with Plasma 4

Download Kubuntu 14.10 (includes the official release notes)

For changes shared between all the Ubuntu flavors (Linux kernel changes, etc.), see our Ubuntu 14.10 article.

Source: http://www.webupd8.org/2014/10/ubuntu-flavors-1410-officially-released.html

Ubuntu 14.10 is now available for download. This release doesn't ship with any new Unity features and it includes mostly bug fixes. Still, there are some under the hood changes and of course, updated applications.

Unity 7

As you probably already know if you've been following WebUpd8 or basically any Ubuntu-related blogs, Ubuntu 14.10 ships with almost no noticeable visual changes: there are no new Unity (Unity 7) features, the default applications, even though some were updated, look the same and so on. There's not even a new default wallpaper.

Even though there are no new Unity features, the default Ubuntu desktop shell did receive various improvements, especially on the HiDPI front: the lockscreen, Dash filters and previews and other bits were updated with proper UI scaling based on current monitor scaling:

Also, Unity can now suspend, shutdown, hibernate or start the screensaver when the screen is locked, using the Suspend, Sleep, Hibernate and PowerOff hardware keys.

And of course, Unity also received quite a few bug fixes - see THIS page for a complete changelog.

systemd status in Ubuntu 14.10

Back in February, Mark Shuttleworth announced that Ubuntu will be switching to systemd (a system management daemon for Linux). Mark's blog article on Ubuntu switching to systemd, called "losing graciously", denotes that he wasn't very happy with this, and systemd will made it in Ubuntu mostly because Debian switched to it.

With this release, systemd is available in the repositories and Ubuntu can boot with systemd. However, systemd is not used by default in Ubuntu 14.10 because the transition from upstart is a pretty tedious task: many packages only have upstart jobs and they need to be updated to provide corresponding systemd units. That's why it's not yet known when Ubuntu will switch to systemd by default.

Linux Kernel changes

Ubuntu 14.10 uses the Ubuntu Kernel 3.16.0-23, based on the upstream 3.16.4 Linux Kernel. Here are the major changes since Linux Kernel 3.13, which is used in the previous Ubuntu release (14.04):

• zram is considered stable with Linux 3.14; zram received LZ4 compression support;
• stable support for Intel Broadwell CPU graphics (3.14);
• the SCHED_DEADLINE scheduling class was added to the Linux scheduler in version 3.14 of the Linux kernel mainline;
• faster resume from suspend;
• EFI mixed mode support: 64-bit kernels can be booted from 32-bit firmware (with Linux 3.15);
• various Nouveau improvements, including initial NVIDIA Maxwell GPU support, initial GK20A and GK110B GPU support as well as support for allowing to change the frequency of the GPU from the BIOS predefined values for nv40, nvaa, and nve0 clock types;
• Radeon performance improvements through improved APU power management have been enabled in some APUs;
• Intel Cherryview graphics support;
• NVIDIA Tegra PRIME support;
• Broadwell support for the Intel P-State driver (3.16);
• various other improvements to audio and sound, btrfs and ext4 improvements, better support for newer laptops and much more.

You can read more about all the important Linux kernel changes here: Linux 3.14 | Linux 3.15 | Linux 3.16

Applications / packages

Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) ships with Firefox 33, Thunderbird 31.2.0, LibreOffice 4.3.2, Nautilus 3.10.1, Totem 3.10.1, Gedit 3.10.4, Brasero 3.10.0, Eye of GNOME 3.12.2, Empathy 3.8.6, Rhythmbox 3.0.3, Transmission 2.84 and Shotwell 0.20.1. Also, Ubuntu 14.10 includes Mesa 10.3.0 and Xorg server 1.16.0.

Also, since the final Ubuntu 14.10 beta, GTK was updated from version 3.10 to 3.12 (3.12.2).

Why GTK 3.12 and not the latest 3.14? Well, that's because GNOME 3.14 was released after Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn had its feature freeze. As for the GNOME applications like Nautilus, Totem and Gedit, they are still at version 3.10 because they need to be patched to properly support Unity and with the work required to get Ubuntu for Phones ready, the developers didn't have time to update them for this release.

Other changes

Other notable changes in Ubuntu 14.10 include:

• Improved hybrid graphics support:
• nvidia-prime and gpu-manager now support GDM (these changes were backported to older Ubuntu versions, but without the GDM patch that allows this);
• added support for "gpumanager_uxa" and "gpumanager_modesetting" boot parameters, so that there is an option to force NVIDIA Optimus systems (that don't work well with Intel/SNA) to use either Intel/UXA or modesetting);
• allow RandR offloading even without bbswitch;
• Netflix now works without any extra plugins in Ubuntu 14.10 (the changes were backported to Ubuntu 14.04), the only requirement being Google Chrome;
• Pidgin comes with Unity support thanks to a new Unity integration plugin (can be enabled from the Pidgin Plugins > Unity Integration) - this includes (both are optional) Messaging Menu integration and Unity Launcher unread messages/conversations
• Applications using client side decorations (header bars) look better under Unity with Ubuntu 14.10, but they are still not fully supported: for instance, CSD applications have no shadow, but at least the header bar looks as it should now and the windows can be resized.

Client side decoration apps (not installed by default) under Unity in Ubuntu 14.10

Also, with Ubuntu 14.10, an Unity 8 ISO called Ubuntu Desktop Next is available a preview for "the adventurous and curious [who] want to get a preview of what's coming on their desktops soon". Unfortunately, I couldn't get Ubuntu Desktop Next 14.10 to work and I've tried it on two different computers - there's a bug with the password but that's easily fixable as explained on the Ubuntu wiki however, upon logging in, the desktop didn't load in my test.

If you want to give Ubuntu Desktop Next a try, you can download it from HERE.

Download Ubuntu 14.10

Overall, Ubuntu 14.10 looks (and on a side note, it's also basically just as stable) pretty much the same as Ubuntu 14.04 LTS so if you only care about that, there's no reason to upgrade. 

Ubuntu 14.10 is for you only if you want to take advantage of the latest under-the-hood improvements and/or you can't live without the latest version of your favorite applications (non-GNOME core apps - because most of those are still not the latest version, though some were updated) and you don't want to use PPAs.

However, keep in mind that Ubuntu 14.10 is only supported for 9 months and after it reaches end of life, you'll have to upgrade to Ubuntu 15.04.

Download Ubuntu 14.10 (includes the official release notes - make sure you read them before installing -, and download links for all Ubuntu flavors)

Are you using Ubuntu 14.10 already (what's your experience with it so far?) or do you plan to upgrade?

Download Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn final

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UtopicUnicorn/ReleaseNotes


Source: http://www.webupd8.org/2014/10/ubuntu-1410-available-for-download.html

Netflix support comes to Ubuntu through Chrome

We told you it was coming, and now it's here! Canonical announced today that its popular Linux distro Ubuntu now supports Netflix playback through Chrome. If you're running a fully updated install of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS or later you can simply go install Chrome 37 right now and immediately start enjoying Netflix. (Provided you're a paying subscriber, of course.) There's no word on if or when support might be coming to other browsers, so sorry Firefox fans. That being said, Mozilla is one of the main contributors to Network Security Services, which is key to Netflix support on Linux, so it probably won't be too far behind.
SOURCE: Ubuntu Insights

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/10/netflix-support-comes-to-ubuntu/

This works on all Linux distros that have the latest Chrome and nss version 3.16 or greater, including Fedora, Arch, openSUSE, Mint, and others. This was promoted as being Ubuntu only, which is not only untrue, it gives the mistaken impression Ubuntu somehow made this happen -- it was entirely due to Google's work on Chrome and including some new content to allow Netflix to work.