Summary:Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal)
is shaping up to be a controversial release, with a solution for
dual-booting with Windows 8 and a new online scope for Dash search
providing Amazon shopping suggestions.
GNOME and Windows 8 developments have resulted in some controversial
changes for Ubuntu 12.10 (codenamed Quantal Quetzal), which has now
reached the Beta 2
stage. Fortunately, solutions now seem to be in place in time for the
18 October release to proceed as scheduled. Canonical has generated
further controversy by introducing online scope results, specifically
from Amazon, into the Dash search.
GRUB 2 boot loader The adoption of the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) secure boot by Microsoft complicates the issue of running Linux and Windows 8 as operating system choices on multiple boot systems. Previously, Canonical had considered using the Intel efilinux loader
because of possible legal problems over the terms of the GRUB GPLv3
licence. Now these problems seem to have been resolved and present plans
are for Ubuntu 12.10 to use Microsoft-generated keys with a signed
version of GRUB 2.
The GRUB 2 menu has been streamlined, with boots from earlier kernel
versions now being assigned to a secondary page rather than listed on
the first page.
The login prompt
The login prompt now includes an option for remote desktop access, so
it's not even necessary to log into your local copy of Ubuntu. If
you've set up an Ubuntu Remote Login Account, the Remote Login gives
access to any remote machines you've added to that account, which appear
as entries in the login prompt.
The Nautilus file manager
The GNOME developers have decided to slim down the latest version
(3.6) of the Nautilus file manager, so that it sits more sensibly within
GNOME 3. Unfortunately, Nautilus 3.6 no longer provides the features
felt to be essential to Ubuntu, and so — as already reported in our Beta 1 preview — Ubuntu 12.10 sticks with Nautilus 3.4.
The 3.5 Linux kernel : As usual with Ubuntu, the Linux
kernel shipped with the new release is updated, to a tweaked kernel
based on the 3.5.3 upstream version. Key Linux kernel 3.5 features
include: improved support for DisplayLink monitors and the hybrid
graphics technologies mainly found in notebooks; performance monitoring
support through uprobes;
and the elimination of the cause of the 'leap second' bug. There's also
improved support for FireWire hard disks, while the move to X.org's X Server 1.13 should deliver a general improvement in graphics performance.
Unity 6.6 : Two of the biggest changes in Quantal Quetzal,
already introduced in Beta 1, are the addition of the Unity Dash preview
feature and the removal of the Unity 2D shell to simplify Unity
development.
The Ubuntu developers have been busy porting the OpenGL compositing manager, compiz — and therefore the Unity shell — to GSettings,
the GNOME high-level API for application settings. As a result, Unity
2D has been dropped because the metacity patches won't be ported, and
Unity 2D isn't maintained to port from gconf to GSettings.
New Dash, More suggestions : New online results have been
added to Unity Dash. Entries in the Dash search bar now generate results
from Amazon and Ubuntu One in a 'More suggestions' category in the Dash
display. For example, typing in 'Fir' (en route to 'Firefox')
also generates hits for a Kindle Fire and, among other odd results,
various music download links via the Ubuntu One cloud service.
Following the addition of game, book and magazine recommendations to
the Ubuntu Software Centre, this further move 'to the dark side' of
commercialisation has already provoked a strong response. Mark
Shuttleworth has responded to the criticisms in a blog posted on 23 September.
Canonical's motivation for adding online scope to the appropriate
lenses is that any Amazon purchase made via Ubuntu's servers generates a
small percentage of revenue for Canonical through the affiliates
programme, helping to fund further Ubuntu development.
The most recent news on this feature suggests that the final release may include an easy way to turn it off.
Software Updater :
The Software Updater has been simplified and removed from the
System control menu (accessed through the gear icon at the extreme top
right of the display). Software Updater is now treated like any other
application and is accessed via Dash. On launching, rather than
requiring the user to initiate checks by clicking on a Check button,
Software Updater now immediately checks for updates. The status display
is simpler and smaller and shows just a moving status bar. With checks
complete, details of the available updates are displayed. By default the
technical descriptions of the updates are not shown. To install any
available updates, users must confirm by clicking the Install Now
button.
This
status display appears immediately the Software Updater is launched.
Clicking Stop gives access to the Settings button without waiting for
completion of the update process.
Once the update process has completed, the list of available updates is displayed.
This message appears once the update process completes. The update settings can be accessed from here.
The
tabbed update settings (titled 'Software Sources') dialogue loses the
Statistics tab, but now includes an Additional Drivers tab. Additional
Drivers no longer appears in the System Settings panel.Messaging menu :
If there are no messaging related applications installed, such as
Gwibber or Empathy, the Messaging menu now hides. Chat status is
displayed via a new indicator at the bottom right corner of the
Messaging envelope icon. New versions for the bundled applications :
A new Linux distribution release is always an opportunity to update
to more recent versions of the bundled applications. In Ubuntu 12.10,
for example, LibreOffice is incremented to version 3.6.1.2 and —
although it's not installed by default — GIMP to version 2.8.
Conclusion : The indications from Beta 2 are that the
release of Ubuntu 12.10, scheduled for 18 October, may make more of a
splash than initially expected. According to the release schedule,
further development freezes with the second beta, from which point only
bug fixes and polishing should occur before the final release. However,
there may be further adjustments to features such as the Amazon results
for Dash search. Look out for our review of the final release in
October.
