Ubuntu 14.10 Released With Ambitious Name, But Small Changes

Ubuntu 14.10, dubbed Utopic Unicorn, has been released today (here are screenshots). PC World says that at first glance "isn't the most exciting update," with not so much as a new default wallpaper — but happily so: it's a stable update in a stable series, and most users will have no pressing need to update to the newest version. In the Ubuntu Next unstable series, though, there are big changes afoot: Along with Mir comes the next version of Ubuntu’s Unity desktop, Unity 8. Mir and the latest version of Unity are already used on Ubuntu Phone, so this is key for Ubuntu's goal of convergent computing — Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu desktop will use the same display server and desktop shell. Ubuntu Phone is now stable and Ubuntu phones are arriving this year, so a lot of work has gone into this stuff recently. The road ahead looks bumpy however. Ubuntu needs to get graphics drivers supporting Mir properly. The task becomes more complicated when you consider that other Linux distributions — like Fedora — are switching to the Wayland display server instead of Mir. When Ubuntu Desktop Next becomes the standard desktop environment, the changes will be massive indeed. But for today, Utopic Unicorn is all about subtle improvements and slow, steady iteration.

Comments

Re:Spyware status?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ubuntu Dash still sends searches to Canonical by default. As before, you can disable on-line searches in the System Settings panel.

Re:The bigger the lie

[BronsCon]

115,000 open bugs in how many different packages/projects that comprise the entirety of the OS? A hair over 70k, so averaging less than 2 bugs per package. And of those 70k packages, how many are installed on a default Ubuntu desktop system? On my server, there are only 660; that's including server packages that a desktop wouldn't have and excluding desktop packages that my server doesn't need, so I don't know if the desktop install has more or less.

Statistically, assuming even distribution of bugs across all packages in the system, I should expect to be affected by about 1100 bugs. There are some real questions that need to be asked, though. For instance: How many of those bug reports are actually valid? How many were fixed upstream and simply never closed? How many are stupid shit like "this text should be in that font" versus the number that actually impact performance or productivity? And, most importantly, how does Ubuntu compare with other distros, offering fewer packages overall, in bugs-per-package?

Re:"not so much as a default wallpaper"

[qubezz]

If you want a significantly modernized UI that hasn't been designed for dummies, have a look at KDE Plasma 5. Kubuntu was simultaneously released in 14.10 flavor, and there are tech preview ISOs available now with the new desktop. It has a new wallpaper, also.

Re:Anyone else not bother with the interm releases

[Chandon Seldon]

The main reason for a six month release cycle is to provide drivers for new hardware.

Since hardware drivers are integrated with the kernel and window system, supporting new drivers requires upgrading the core system.

If aren't upgrading your hardware constantly, there's no reason to update beyond the latest LTS. If you're buying this week's Nvidia card or a laptop with a new wireless card, then you'll want to use the latest Ubuntu release to get support for it.