The new features & stability of Precise Pangolin is what I am looking forward to.
Clash of the Betas, wonder if anyone has installed Win 8 beta & Ubuntu 12.04 beta as dual boot?
Ubuntu 12.04 'Precise Pangolin' goes beta
Summary
Precise Pangolin will include the Unity desktop as well as lower power consumption capabilities and the 3.5 beta release of LibreOffice.
Topics
The Ubuntu 12.04 beta 1 release across Desktop, Server, Cloud and Core was announced by Canonical on Thursday. Precise Pangolin edition comes with features that lower the power consumption of Sandy Bridge-based Linux systems and the 3.5 beta 2 release of LibreOffice.
The beta is the first LTS release to come with the contentious Unity desktop, which was introduced with Ubuntu 11.04. Additionally, the default music player has been switched to Rhythmbox and support for ClickPad devices has been enhanced.
"12.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open-source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution," Kate Stewart, Ubuntu's release manager, wrote in an announcement. "The team has been hard at work throughout this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs."
A tool that Ubuntu Project founder Mark Shuttleworth has called "the future of the menu", named the HUD, has been introduced. The HUD provides a context-sensitive menu and search interface for Unity applications.
The beta release can be downloaded from Ubuntu's website. The final version is scheduled for release around April 26.
This story was originally posted on ZDNet UK.
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I recently needed a linux distro to do some trivial development and wanted to load Ubuntu. 10 minutes with Unity and I was already downloading Fedora.
I don't undertand the mentality of thinking that people seriously want to turn desktop computers into tablets. They are different devices with different purposes.
If at all humanly possible, the only thing worse than Unity is Windows 8.
I would really urge Microsoft and Canonical to look at Apple. While they are trying to introduce iPad-ish elements to Macs, they fully understand that Macs are Macs and iPads are iPads.
I don't undertand the mentality of thinking that people seriously want to turn desktop computers into tablets. They are different devices with different purposes.
If at all humanly possible, the only thing worse than Unity is Windows 8.
I would really urge Microsoft and Canonical to look at Apple. While they are trying to introduce iPad-ish elements to Macs, they fully understand that Macs are Macs and iPads are iPads.
Fedora has the god awful Gnome-Shell, that is more tabletish than a tablet. Yes there is gnome session fallback on fedora so it looks like gnome2, but you can also install it on ubuntu sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback.
I have been using Ubuntu for the past 2 years and I have to say that I am rather impressed so far. Unity is really easy to use, intuitive and colourful. The interface is designed to allow users to not have to use the mouse so much, with its easy to use search function and hotkeys. Ubuntu 12.04 is just great.
Well done Ubuntu community and Canonical for producing a masterpiece. It really shows off what Linux can accomplish with a little bit of love and attention to detail.
Well done Ubuntu community and Canonical for producing a masterpiece. It really shows off what Linux can accomplish with a little bit of love and attention to detail.
I've got to echo the sentiments above regarding the question as to why OS developers seem to want to make desktop OS's look and feel like tablet OS's. It makes no sense at all. I want to do do serious, creative work with a desktop. Having a user-interface geared for tablets just gets in the way and makes me less efficient. Just because Apple is moving in that direction doesn't mean it's correct. Sorry...but Unity s**cks...big time.
Unity is terrible. I really don't understand why the Linux community needs to change the interface so much when the earlier ones were less than stellar. In either case, I only use the old Ubuntu desktop and the new cli server.
Apple has been selling a lot of mobile devices, and must be selling to new customers. By bringing interface ideas back to the desktop they set it up so the mobile customers will be quickly comfortable with a Mac, should they need a full-featured computer. More quickly comfortable equals higher satisfaction and better word of mouth and Apple grows its Mac business.
Now Canonical probably figures, like almost everyone else in the world, that going mano a mano with Microsoft for the Desktop is a losing proposition. At the very least, the entire pc market is showing minimal and occasionally negative growth these days. But an end-around via mobile might be a more winning proposition. Shoot, just like RedHat did, maybe Canonical would consider dropping desktop releases as a waste of resources.
Phones and tablets have smaller screens. Does it make more sense to shrink the desktop or develop a great mobile interface and expand back to the desk? Besides, if a mobile interface gains 20 users at the cost of one disgruntled Ubuntu loyalist, do you make that call? I think you do, based on numbers and the understanding that the loyalists knows how to install the desktop of their choice.
Now Canonical probably figures, like almost everyone else in the world, that going mano a mano with Microsoft for the Desktop is a losing proposition. At the very least, the entire pc market is showing minimal and occasionally negative growth these days. But an end-around via mobile might be a more winning proposition. Shoot, just like RedHat did, maybe Canonical would consider dropping desktop releases as a waste of resources.
Phones and tablets have smaller screens. Does it make more sense to shrink the desktop or develop a great mobile interface and expand back to the desk? Besides, if a mobile interface gains 20 users at the cost of one disgruntled Ubuntu loyalist, do you make that call? I think you do, based on numbers and the understanding that the loyalists knows how to install the desktop of their choice.
...in LinuxMint. Enough wobbly windows and big buttons, let's get back to work.
Replacing a whole Distro installation just because you don't like the current desktop manager seems a bit like cracking a nut with a tank, there's no need now Gnome classic mode works well. Package managers now that's something else, can't get along with RPM, have tried a few times.
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