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Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark Released

Canonical has made available the download links for Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark". It comes with a range of new features, changes, and improvements including GNOME as the default desktop, Wayland display server by default, Optional X.org server session, Mesa 17.2 or Mesa 17.3, Linux kernel 4.13 or kernel 4.14, new Subiquity server installer, improved hardware support, new Ubuntu Server installer, switch to libinput, an always visible dock using Dash to Dock GNOME Shell extension, and Bluetooth improvements with a new BlueZ among others.

20 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Unnecessarily complex name by smi.james.th · · Score: 3, Informative

    Aardvarks are cool animals though.

    And seriously, who even remembers the animal name? If I'm googling a specific release I almost always use the number, but if not then I use "Trusty" or "Precise" or whatever. I seldom even remember what the animal was.

    --
    One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
  2. Re:GNOME? by prefec2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why is this considered insightful? You think some features are missing, incomplete or implemented inconvenient? Fine. Name them and make a constructive proposition to change it. You do not like how GNOME is governed? Fine. Explain and aim for a change. You do not like GNOME? Fine. Don't use it. There are other options available. Unfortunately, you made a micro statement without giving a reason.

  3. Re:GNOME? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    More like Ubuntu? No Thanks. What a train wreck. They're still creating login problems and crap like that. Now I'm running Debian without systemd and life is good.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Re:GNOME? by spaceman375 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The insightful mod was granted by a user named "UnthinkingParrot"

    --
    On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
  5. Just moved to Mint MATE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... and not coming back

    1. Re:Just moved to Mint MATE by Yosho · · Score: 3

      Honestly, that's my preferred way of doing an OS upgrade anyway. In-place upgrades inevitably leave behind weird artifacts and have strange bugs. On a modern SSD, wiping a drive and reinstalling the OS from scratch takes maybe 30 minutes, and the only things I actually care about preserving are kept in my home directory, which is on a separate partition, and everything that I really care about is backed up to a NAS, too.

      --
      Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
  6. Re:Unnecessarily complex name by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's also an anagram to "A Dark Larva Turf". Also, as a bonus, "Aardvark" looks vaguely similar to "awkward", which is exactly the feeling that Ubuntu returning back to Gnome feels to me.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  7. Re: Unnecessarily complex name by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

    Maybe I should have gone straight for "Awful Awkward" above...

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  8. Re:Unnecessarily complex name by Hognoxious · · Score: 2

    how many people will remember instantly the correct spelling of "Aardvark"?

    Me, plus anyone who owns a taxi company.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  9. Re:Another great name, like Gimpy Goatfucker by leonbev · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Is anyone seriously competing to gain desktop OS marketshare from Microsoft and Apple at this point, though? Last I heard, all of the Linux distributions combined make up less than 3% of desktop OS installs for the past few years.

    At this point, it's more about refining the server side features and keeping the few diehards that use Linux as a desktop OS happy.

  10. Re:Time to switch distributions by bzipitidoo · · Score: 2

    I am giving PCLinuxOS a try. It doesn't use systemd. It has fewer packages, so get used to finding a project's home page, and building and installing source whenever you want something less common. I don't feel too sure of its network management. Messed up the connection to a public network that uses a web page redirect, and must have mangled its configuration very greatly, because afterwards, it wouldn't even connect to a wired network. First time, it didn't even find the correct WiFi network, listing a dozen different ones but not the guest one I was trying to use. Fortunately, the problem cleared with two reboots, and now it finds and connects to the public network, and connects with the wired interface when I use that. Other than that, so far PCLinuxOS works fine.

    These days, computers are so much more impressively fast and powerful, I'm thinking maybe I should give Gentoo a try again. 15 years ago, all the compiling took so much resources the system was busy and draggy doing that about 1/3 of its uptime.

    --
    Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  11. Re:GNOME? by dremon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Everything about GNOME Shell is missing, incomplete or inconvenient, by design. The defaults are just unbearable. I need to install 10 different extensions to get some basic usable desktop, and they are often either not maintained any more, crashing or simply not installing because of version conflict. I have to use tweak tool to enable some features that GNOME devs think (for some stupid reason) are not needed. So how's that good f or average user with little Linux experience? Even after all those tweaks and extensions it is slow, ugly and lacking in functionality. The default apps set sucks. Evolution? Oh please, what a joke.

    What is the target audience for GNOME? Linux hardcore users like me? I don't need the idiotic simplicity, I need a functional customizable, beautiful desktop. Users with little PC or Linux knowledge? I bet they'll run away from it first hour of use. With the dynamic desktops and lack of minimize button.

    Now, suppose they learned somehow about extensions.gnome.org. They go there and try to install some - NO. You need first the browser extension. Alright, got it. Can be proceed? NO. You need some bullshit crap called chrome-shell which installation instructions far from obvious for average user.

    It's fucking pathetic. I am Ubuntu user for 12 years, quite loved Unity (despite the bugs and rough edges it's perfectly usable desktop), now switched to Kununtu and never looked back. It's amazing, far more into the Linux Desktop 2017 than any GNOME disaster would ever be.

  12. Re:Unnecessarily complex name by Junta · · Score: 2

    I only ever bother to remember the version number, since that's nice and easy .(04 or 10 for april and october respectively).

    They can enjoy their cutesy codename, but much easier for me to remember the numbers since they are date based.

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  13. Lots of potential, but not there yet by Duncan+J+Murray · · Score: 3, Informative

    While I don't use Gnome nor Unity, there were aspects of both that I think are impressive. I'd always thought that if someone managed to combine Gnome's speed and integration with Unity's practicality, HUD and ease of use, it'd be a great desktop.

    Unfortunately, this is more gnome3 with a nod to unity, than their lovechild. Gone are global menus, the HUD, application key shortcuts, application categories and the elegant window decoration integration* in Unity.

    Some of these things still live on in ubuntu-mate mutiny layout, which I think has more of a shot of retaining Unity's features while dropping the bloat.

    *by which I mean integrating the window decoration and menu beautifully into the DE when in full screen mode.

  14. Re:GNOME? by lexman098 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It sounds like you just don't like the default settings, extensions, or apps. That's not really a problem with gnome IMO. It provides a good platform for getting things right, and it's up to the distros to tweak it accordingly. Ubuntu has taken a step towards doing that with giving you Dash to Dock by default.

  15. Re:GNOME? by prefec2 · · Score: 2

    This is just not true. A basic set of plugins come with Ubuntu and they work fine on my machine. You say it is unbearable. Can you make that specific?

    Your other points are rather an issue with the bundling of the distribution. However, if you want to configure everything personally, there is a solution. Use KDE. There is even for Ubuntu-lovers a Kubuntu available.

  16. Re:Debian? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You jest I know, but I am running OpenBSD on my laptop machine and life really is good. It works perfectly.

    I tried to run OpenBSD on a laptop and it didn't work for me because they had rejected a perfectly legit patch someone had contributed back to make my NIC work on the basis that it wasn't OK to include it because the values the patch was based on came from Linux, in spite of the fact that it's been well-established that if all you got were values, it's OK to get the info from Linux. I tried to apply the patch myself, but it was too old, and I couldn't figure out how to make it work because I'm not much of a programmer. So then I installed Debian and now I can use that laptop.

    The biggest problem with OpenBSD is attitude, and the second-biggest problem is lack of driver support, which is caused by overabundance of attitude.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  17. Re:GNOME? by Paradroid888 · · Score: 2

    I've recently started using Ubuntu Gnome and am surprised that the Gnome desktop is both original (it doesn't just straight rip off old versions off Windows or the Mac like other DE's), and very pleasant to use. I think it's great.

  18. Re:game compat? by AvitarX · · Score: 2

    It works pretty well, slight slowdown.

    https://www.phoronix.com/scan....

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    Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  19. Re:GNOME? by lexman098 · · Score: 2

    I'm not sure you fully understand the problem that gnome is trying to solve. It's OK to develop a base to add on to. That's how software development works. Pushing customization and extensions out to the distros is the *right* thing to do. No one will ever agree on defaults/customizations, so not spending lots of time on that for the default gnome3 is just more efficient.

    FWIW I just switched from Windows to Ubuntu on my office computer and I tried Budgie, Mate, KDE, and Gnome3. I much prefer gnome3. This is mainly due to the full screen app selector and window picker (also I love the hot corner) and awesome extension support (love "Workspaces to dock").