Ubuntu Archive

Yes, yes, it's that time of the year again - a new Fiona Apple album confirmed (which makes anything that happens between now and spring 2011 irrelevant and annoying), MorphOS 2.6 released (will be the next news item), and, of course, a new Ubuntu release showcasing the best of the best that the Free software world has to offer in the desktop world.

Who says the open source and Free software world only copy but never innovate? Over at Canonical's design blog - you know, the company which does nothing for the Linux world *cough* - someone named Christian Giordano has shared some ideas about how Ubuntu - and therefore, the rest of the Linux world - could make use of hardware sensors to better serve its users. Pretty interesting stuff.

"Maverick Meerkat is set to become the last version of Ubuntu that'll run on Oracle's Sparc, ending a four-year relationship. Also getting canned is Ubuntu running on Hewlett-Packard's Itanic 64-bit challenger. Meerkat is currently in feature-freeze ahead of October's official launch, and apparently nobody's stepped up to maintain the Linux ports to either Sparc or Itanium. The Ubuntu Sparc port has fallen out of use and updates have slipped, meaning it's fallen below the level of quality needed for an Ubuntu port. Ubuntu on HP's IA64 is in slightly better shape, but - still - nobody's actively maintaining it."

Mark Shuttleworth has just announced the codename of the next Ubuntu release after Maverick. Ubuntu 11.04 will be called Natty Narwhal. The name follows the usual Ubuntu naming tradition of the codename consisting of an adjective and a name of an animal starting with the same letter, and following an alphabetic order. Continue reading to know more about the Narwhal.

This is typically one of those things that could start to lead a life of its own if it doesn't get handled properly from the get-go. As it turns out, Canonical is interested in tracking Ubuntu OEM installs, and it has decided to do so by installing a tracking package on OEM machines running 10.04.

Based upon a recent email to the X.Org developers' mailing list, Canonical is nearing the point of one of their goals for Ubuntu 10.10 of a rootless X Server, or being able to run the X.Org Server without root privileges.

Canonical has explained why it has licensed H264. As it turns out, the license does not cover the distribution as a whole - since Ubuntu is entirely Free software, the license cannot be included. Canonical has licensed H264 so that it can offer it as an option to OEMs, just as it does with Flash, Fluendo, and some others. Since this is just an option for OEMs, it does not mean that every pre-installed Ubuntu system comes with the H264 license - it depends on whether or not your OEM decided to include it (good luck finding that out). And people actually promote this complicated spaghetti licensing situation.

The recently released 10.04 version of Ubuntu is the third Long Term Support (LTS) version Canonical has released. I installed this new version on four of my laptops (2 netbooks, 1 normal laptop, 1 portable desktop replacement), and here's my impression of it.

It's that time of year again: a new Ubuntu release (or Kubuntu, if that's your thing). Canonical has just released Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx. This is a long term support release, meaning its supported period is far longer than that of normal releases. It comes with the latest and greatest the Free software world has to offer, while also adding some Ubuntu-specific features, of course.

Common sense has prevailed (see bold text)! "The final decision on window controls for 10.04 LTS is as follows: the window controls will remain on the left, however the order will change to be (from left) close, minimize, maximise. The decision is based on the view that putting the close button in the corner will be most familiar to many users, even if the particular choice of corner is not."

"Canonical has announced the availability of the first Ubuntu 10.04 beta release. The new version of Ubuntu, codenamed Lucid Lynx, is scheduled to arrive in April. It will be a long-term support release, which means that updates will be available for three years on the desktop and five years on servers. Although the Ubuntu developers have largely focused on boosting stability for this release, they have also added a number of noteworthy new features and applications. One of the most visible changes is the introduction of a new theme - a change that is part of a broader rebranding initiative that aims to update Ubuntu's visual identity." It might just be me, but I find the new theme ghastly. Compare this to this (my desktop). Oh, and Metacity - I can has anti-aliasing?

Canonical has unveiled a complete branding overhaul, redesigning everything from the Ubuntu website to its logos and marketing material. However, what interests me more are the new Gtk+ themes, and even then, I'm not interested in the colour choices and the like. No - what stood out to me right away was not the theme itself - but the placement of the titlebar widgets.

With the flood of ARM-based netbooks and tablets upon us (keep watch outside, the flood can come any day now, promise!), Linux distributions are trying to be ready for The Great Coming of ARM. A problem with ARM hardware, according to Jamie Bennett, an Ubuntu Mobile Developer working for Canonical, is that many 3D drivers are non-Free; this poses problems for Ubuntu's Netbook Remix UI.

For the longest time, the default search provider in Ubuntu Linux has been Google, but this is going to change in the next release, Lucid Lynx, scheduled to release April 29. The change comes after Canonical has signed a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo!, so you can imagine who the new default search provider will be.