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Ubuntu's "Lucid Lynx" Enters Beta
ActionDesignStudios writes "The upcoming release of Ubuntu, titled 'Lucid Lynx,' has just entered the beta cycle. Alongside the usual desktop and server versions, a special version has been released that is designed to run on Amazon's EC2 cloud service. This release of Ubuntu does away with the brown 'Human' Gnome theme we've all become accustomed to, replaced by a new version Canonical says is inspired by light. The new release also includes much better integration with social networking services such as Twitter, identi.ca and Facebook, among others."
I really like what I see, but it is a little... counter-intuitive that they not only put the window controls on the left side of windows but put them in order of Maximize-Minimize-Close. No matter, I have everything maximized all the time anyways and on my Wind I've been using Maximus with Window-Picker-Applet.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Several gigs seems a bit bloated for a text based browser, but I'll give it a try.
Does this mean it has a new default browser? Or that it can run old handheld games? Unlike the last few animal nicknames for Ubuntu releases (Hardy Heron, Intrepid Ibex, Jaunty Jackalope, Karmic Koala), this name is already taken by tech products with at least a cult following. Or is it a way to force Apple to step away from the big cat naming scheme for Mac OS X 10.7?
...and the difference between 9.10 & 10.04 Beta are the window buttons, which are now on the top left corner. Seriously, there's a major flame war on this in the "Ubuntu Blogosphere". Don't these these bloggers have anything else to do, other than obsess over the placement of window buttons? (Which can be very easily reverted back to original way)
So now I'm not Human by default, but have to make a conscious decision to be Human. Just like real life.
That's funny, after upgrading I still have Human as an option. It's just not the default for new installs.
This must be some new definition of "does away with" which actually means something completely different.
Humans are now obsolete and will be done away with, is what it means.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
... and I like it!
Boot times are FAST on my laptop down to 27s (85s booting on 9.04)
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
I was excited about the Ubuntu One Music Store but then I found out it is gimped in Canada: indie artists only. So once again record labels keep my money out of their pockets! ;)
Shh.
This is possibly more insightful than it seems. Canonical seem to be pushing more and more in their own direction, rather than anything the Ubuntu community does. This is good for Ubuntu, but potentially bad for users as more and more changes are made to the GNOME interface, the browser etc etc.
"Anonymous could not immediately be reached for further comment." - International Business Times
...right now. I like it fine, though some changes (moving windows controls to the left side, took a bit of getting used to. The purple scheme sucks but is easy enough to change. There is still a problem with running a fixed IP, or at least there is some trick to making it work properly that I haven't learned yet. It does seem to boot a bit faster, but fast boot times are of little importance to someone who typically runs his computer 24/7. So far, I see no significant improvements, but more importantly, no noticeable degradations, yet.
gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string menu:minimize,maximize,close
I think that the dream of a mainstream community-based OS is dead now.
At least Fedora does not have these delusions of grandeur. It is a testbed for Red Hat, I'm OK with that. I don't want my OS to be interesting, for fuck's sake. I want it very predictable and unobtrusive. Is it too much to ask?
entropy happens
Masturbating Monkey
You didn't complain when Windows 7 entered beta or RC. This is tech news. Get used to it or head over to digg.
OMGZZZ!!! Lucid Lynx enters beta!!! is slashdot having a slow news day today?
Ubuntu enters beta every six months. It's news for those of us who like beta-testing Ubuntu.
Just because a story appears on Slashdot front page does not mean that you have to click "Read More" and then have to come up with something to comment. Go ahead and skip an article if you don't find it interesting. No seriously, go ahead. No one is going to stop you. You won't get an achievement saying "Did not comment on articlezor!".
I'm a big fan of Ubuntu, and I mostly run Ubuntu Server or Debian machines for my personal desktop usage. However, their habit of catastrophically breaking important features in their releases is really getting on my nerves. Wi-fi support, for example, has been fixed and re-broken repeatedly over the past few years. I think that this release takes the cake when it comes to breaking existing functionality, though. The first two known issues listed for 10.04:
#Because of the new alternatives system used for nvidia driver packages, the nvidia installer from NVIDIA's website currently doesn't work.
#The fglrx binary driver for ATI video chipsets does not yet support the X server in Lucid. As a workaround, users should use the open source -ati driver instead.
Both of these are pretty much show-stoppers, especially the ATI issue. Is a month long enough to sort out a problem this serious?
The new release also includes much better integration with social networking services such as Twitter, identi.ca and Facebook
Why should an operating system "integrate" with a social networking service?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Ubuntu enters beta every six months. It's news for those of us who like beta-testing Ubuntu.
And it's more important than that for those of us that like to stick with a LTS version of Ubuntu; this is the first Beta in a while.
Ubuntu enters beta every six months. It's news for those of us who like beta-testing Ubuntu.
I disagree, based on the current amount of time for which the beta has been out. Those of us who like beta-testing Ubuntu should have known this, oh, 4 or 5 days ago, when it happened.
For those of us who like beta-testing Ubuntu, this is olds, not news.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
so how can Fedora bl less user-friendly?
Update Manager and Software Center to start with.
Unlike Ubuntu, Fedora doesn't automatically install any of the un-free codecs you need and getting the drivers for ATI or nVidia cards is strictly up to you. And, I might add, although Fedora started out with a six month release cycle, it's more like nine now.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I don't want my OS to be interesting, for fuck's sake. I want it very predictable and unobtrusive.
Here, here. Glad to see someone else who doesn't give a shit that an "OS be tightly integrated with/for social networking"? Why is staring at our electronic bellybuttons so frikkin' important??? Could we be more self-absorbed, here on Planet Hollywood? {grumble grumble... slinks back off to cave...}
Because in order of x sells from greatest to lowest, it is Sex, Vanity, then Convenience. Social Networking provides all three.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
As I have already commented, I think this is a horrible idea. Windows is not going to change its window buttons, I have to use Windows, and I dread this change. And, if you have to put the buttons on the left, the most-commonly-used button (the Close button) should be in the left corner, so that in the common case where I have a maximized window, it's easier to hit.
I went ahead and read through Mark Shuttleworth's comments about the bug. In summary: they want to try some new cool stuff, they want to shake things up and not be bound by the past, they have some ideas (not described) for ways to use the right-hand side of the menu bar. (He was even talking about moving the scroll bar away from the right side of the window, on the grounds that few people use it, and scroll wheels/touchscreen interfaces are becoming the big new thing. This doesn't give me the warm fuzzies either.) They are shipping the beta like this to see what actual reactions are to this idea.
I went ahead and listened to the podcast also (the relevant bit starts around 0:39 into the podcast). Ivanka Majic said many things, but IMHO did not adequately explain why they think this is a good idea. Some vague comments about how they are actually testing things. She said many commendable things, such as talking about how new users can find it really hard to even understand just what Ubuntu is. And she said something that sounded like her department was behind the "papercuts" project, of which I firmly approve. But if you are trying to understand what the heck is going on with those crazy buttons, you can skip the podcast.
So, if (like me) you dread these new buttons, the best thing you could possibly do is to actually get a copy of the Ubuntu beta and try it out; then post, not just opinions, but informed opinions supported by personal experience. "I tried to click on the Edit menu and closed my window" (if that actually happens to you) should be much more persuasive than "I looked at your screen shot and I can already tell I hate it".
By the way, check this out: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1430585
So, I'm planning to download the Ubuntu Beta ISO image, and install it (possibly in VirtualBox), and try the thing out. Then I will add my voice to those commenting on the new buttons.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Brown is replaced with purple and black by default. Good luck making a racist analogy with that.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
I know this is going to seem like trolling, but humour me here. What is it, that people honestly see in this distribution?
I used both Jaunty and Intrepid; Jaunty for probably two months. I've been using Linux for 15 years now, and I honestly feel that Ubuntu was, without any hyperbole, the single worst Linux distribution that I've ever seen. I absolutely hated it.
Why? Sound (ALSA) dropping out randomly and continually, kernel panics from nVidia drivers, and the completely non-orthagonal design, with Gnome being hard-welded to the rest of the system, were the three main reasons. I don't like Gnome at all, and when I tried to remove it, rapidly found that I couldn't. I generally use Ratpoison in either Linux or FreeBSD.
Then there's the horrid mess that is upstart, and the usual Debian tendency to change absolutely everything they can, purely for the hell of it, such that even basic things like setting up an fstab for the most part doesn't work. Hard drives get mounted some other way, that I wasn't able to find. Add to that, the "quiet splash," options in GRUB, which remove the ability to debug a faulty installation, leading to the infamous "black screen of death." I honestly felt that the overall design was seriously less transparent than Windows; and if I started really trying to change things, the entire system very rapidly started to fall apart.
Are people really so superficial, that a nice shiny Gnome theme (for the first few minutes before the system dies, at least) is the only thing that is considered important?
OK disclaimer first. I haven't seen it yet. I haven't seen a screen shot yet. I haven't read anything yet. I'm still running 9.04.
But I can absolutely see reasons to support this.
I recently enabled the Group and Tab Windows in Compiz.
I was staggered by the functionality and possibilities, but frustrated by the usability. Right click on title bar? Nothing. Anything in the Windowing menu (Top left under icon)? Err, nope. AFAICT, the only way to make any use of it is knowing the key stroke combos. It's like learning all over again! And this is the only way to control the GUI itself! No integration into the Windowing UI?
So, from my perspective, you need a way to control the newer MDI technologies, and if they stick it in the window bar where _/[]/X was, stick that same _/[]/X wherever you want.
Eye candy will definitely win some converts. If it's an opportunity for Ubuntu to lead and someone else to react, then what have you got to lose?
ws
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
Windows 3.x had that layout as well.
(+1, Disagree)
I've been enjoying Lucid a lot. The graphical finishes are really nice, and the social integration really is the first feature that I think makes Linux a nicer GUI to use than either Windows or OSX.
Can't wait for gnome-shell. Been playing with it a bit, and while not ready for prime-time quite yet, Linux is really moving into being a leader rather than a follower for the first time.
> At least Fedora does not have these delusions of grandeur.
Sadly they do. You can't install without a graphical desktop for example. What the heck is that all about? We used to laugh at NT for that. A SERVER wasting resources displaying a graphical login nobody will ever see! Of course with Fedora having a use by date shorter than some cheese you would have to be kinda daft to put Fedora on a server anyway.
One example: So after months and months of users bitching and moaning about the loss of the minimal install that would allow a text mode install they are going to put minimal back in for F13. But NetworkManager would drag in darned near everything so they left it out, which is sensible. What isn't sensible is they refuse to fix the original network subsystem to be enabled by default if NM isn't installed. So yes you can do a minimal install but you won't have a working[1] network. Not that you can really get rid of NM anyway, they are busy little beavers wiring NM into everything. No network manager, no Firefox, evolution or whatever IM client they are shipping now because all those and probably more refuse to go online unless NM is installed, running and says it is connected. Before they are done the clowns will probably have apache hardwired into NM. Network manager is just useless cruft unless you are on a laptop; why is there such an urge to make it indespensible?
[1] Yes once we realize what the problem is us old folks can figure out that "chkconfig network on ; service network start" will fix things but dangit in 2010 a working network shouldn't be something you need a wizard around to get working. Anything other than plug cable in, light goes on and the network 'just works' is horribly broken.
Democrat delenda est