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:That's An Ambitious name?

[Kjella]

If "Utopic Unicorn" is an ambitious name, I'm afraid to see what comes next.

utopia = ideal, perfect state
unicorn = magical, legendary creature

I think you'd roll your eyes too if Apple or Microsoft came out with OS X 10.10 "Magic Perfection" or Windows 10 "Magic Perfection", respectively. It's the kind of name that makes you go "Okaaaaaaaaay, are you overcompensating for something?"

Re:A good reason to use Ubuntu

[BronsCon]

Actually reading the thread (I know, this is /. and that doesn't happen), the issue is that OwnCloud wanted the package removed from an *already released* repository, which Ubuntu refused, so as not to affect users actually using it, while providing three possible interim solutions. The end result was removal of the package from the repo of the next release. Problem solved.

Re:The bigger the lie

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who recently had to do hand-to-hand combat with Xubuntu 14.04 to get certain features working at all (like detecting a second monitor on the HDMI port), I can state that certain packages are going to be way more jam-packed with bugs than others.

HDMI support seems to pretty much suck, with Pulseaudio being a close second.

A few words for the developers of things like Pulseaudio and the maintainers of various distributions, most (but not all) of which end with "buntu":

I'm really not sure why a common sound subsystem is so hard that there have to be 10 of them and they all have to be incompatible with each other. The same goes for window managers. X11 has had the network terminal considerations of client audio, video, and input nailed down for the better part of 40 years. Why are these local-machine-only systems that are cropping up sucking so hard? It's got to be easier than X11, just by virtue of leaving out the intricacies of that whole "you might be processing this on a different continent from where the user is sitting" part.

Even Microsoft has their shit working better than this. Microsoft! You hate those guys! Fix your shit!

Re:Because wallpaper is what matters most

[jamiesan]

Aren't Curtains and Drapes the same thing? I thought we wanted to know if the Curtains matched the Carpet... and preferred hard wood floors...?

Anyone else not bother with the interm releases?

[Anonymous Coward]

I only ever install the LTS releases any more. I don't have time to waste upgrading the OS.

Consider how long Windows goes before a major version upgrade. The 6-month cycle of Ubuntu is too short.

As I have been saying for years, Ubuntu should do an LTS "core" released every 2 years or whatever long cycle. That core would not contain things such as Firefox, LibreOffice, etc. It would literally just be the core Linux services. Everything else can be upgraded on the fly with rolling updates.

Re:The bigger the lie

[armanox]

Pulseaudio bugs should be reported to a certain Lennart Poettering (you may have heard about him before) and became standard thanks to Red Hat. ALSA was fine, and OSS wasn't bad either (it was the licensing they didn't like IIRC).