17 ms·

Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Released

368 points by zeis 13y ago

roevhat 13y ago
Who will be upgrading from 12.04? :-)
- Icer5k 13y ago
  I'd imagine most people on 12.04 will stick with it until 14.04 comes out. 12.04 is an LTS release, and is supported for 3-5 years from the release date where 12.10 through 13.10 are normal releases, and are only supported for 9 months from release. However, anyone on 12.10 should be able to "do-release-upgrade" and upgrade themselves to 13.04.
  - harshadura 13y ago
    life is short, upgrade and feel it imo :-)
  - bad_user 13y ago
    I wanted to stay on 12.04, however 12.10 came with the option to encrypt your whole hard-disk straight from the installer with dm-crypt, which is much better than ecryptfs, at least when it comes to performance. And manually encrypting your hard-disk with dm-crypt can be quite painful. The downside of that is that 12.10 and non-LTS versions in general only get bug fixes for critical bugs, otherwise the bug fix is the upgrade to the next version, in this case 13.04. So you end up on the upgrade treadmill, whether you want it or not. I'm waiting for a month at least before installing any new Ubuntu version though. At release they tend to be a little unstable.
    - onosendai 13y ago
      12.04 and earlier versions always had the option for full disk encryption with dm-crypt, but you had to use the alternate install CD with the curses installer. It wasn't complicated at all. All they did with later versions was to roll the option into the standard live CD installer. Regarding bug fixes and the need to stay on the upgrade treadmill, it's much easier nowadays to stick with LTS versions since they implemented the LTS enablement stack (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack). Essentially it's the kernel and X.org of the current release backported to the LTS release, so you don't miss out on new hardware support while getting all the bug fixes and stability that come from the LTS. That being said, however, I'm finding 12.04 to be extremely buggy when you're using Unity+Compiz.
      - wpietri 13y ago
        I've got one box running 12.04 and one running 12.10. Unity+Compiz is definitely buggy for me on 12.04, but they managed to make it worse on 12.10. I really cannot fathom what is going on at Canonical. I get that they want a more friendly UI, because that will create a better user experience for a broader set of users. I even use Unity, and like where they're going with it. But can't they see that creating a flaky, unreliable experience is not actually helping? And that they're undermining Linux's major strength, a reputation for reliability? By all means, Canonical, keep innovating. But stop breaking shit along the way. If the goal is a better user experience, make sure you're actually delivering a better user experience before releasing.
        takluyver 13y ago
        Most people seem to say that 13.04 is smoother and more stable than 12.10. Canonical seem to have their ups and downs. I don't think desktop Linux has ever really had a great reputation for reliability, though.
  - kijin 13y ago
    Minor correction: 13.04 and 13.10 will only be supported for 9 months, but 12.10 will be supported for 18 months.
    - draugadrotten 13y ago
      Duh. That's obvious from the version numbers. Everyone knows that even dozens are supported 18 months and that prime number versions are only supported half of the time.
      - keithpeter 13y ago
        Ubuntu technical board decided to shorten the support window for the 'between LTS' releases from 18 to 9 months starting from 13.04. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/24/ubuntu_reduces_support_times/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/24/ubuntu_reduces_suppo... Number theory not required.
- nisa 13y ago
  Ubuntu backports newer kernel versions and xorg packages[1]. I hope this will land in precise soon. That's good enough for me + the additional ppa here and there. I won't be upgrading to anything non-LTS on any non home machine again. It's not worth the pain. 1: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack
- Zigurd 13y ago
  I did and am very pleased. Unity actually works. Suspend works. It's fast and smooth. My only problems were in installing it on a new laptop. I wanted to dual-boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu. No dice. Turn off signed booting, wipe the weird set of partitions Sony uses for Win 8 and then things went smoothly. I'm keeping the old machine for Windows 7.
  - Random_Person 13y ago
    Did you upgrade or format/install? I'm pondering it now. I've had quite a few system hangs lately and am wondering if I should even attempt the upgrade to 12.10
    - anoncow 13y ago
      Did an upgrade cycle from 10.04 through 11.10, installing every release. Did a clean install at 12.04. Have upgraded that to 12.10 and now 13.04. I will not say there were no issues, but I never faced data corruption or unable-to-boot issues during this time. What I did face though was random errors and broken packages. But I did not document those erors, so I cannot go into any specifics.
    - Zigurd 13y ago
      Both. Results were similar. But in the end I will work on the machine with a fresh install and put Windows 7 on my old machine. Migrating was painless, except for finding enough disk space on an external drive to move all my somewhat disorganized and sprawling file hierarchy.
    - EmlynC 13y ago
      I upgraded from 12.04 LTS and I had a few niggles - the configs for Compiz were messed up and the AMD proprietary driver wasn't working, oh and grub got nuked. Ultimately, blowing away the compiz configs (rm .compiz*), a dpkg --configure -a fixed the AMD driver and boot-repair from a Ubuntu LiveCD was a wonderfully simple way to redo grub. Not painless but not particularly difficult to fix.
buster 13y ago
Now what about releease notes? :-) (edit: some information is here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview ) Currently i am thinking of switching to LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) because i don't really like the way Ubuntu is going with Unity, Mir, upstart, doing too much stuff on its own. Anyone with experience from LMDE here? Is it stable? Pros? Cons?
- qznc 13y ago
  I switch to Korora for my laptop. It is basically the Mint of Fedora. Quite happy so far. My feeling is that Fedora has the better engineering, but Ubuntu has better polish. Korora puts some icing on top: good font rendering, Adobe Reader, Skype, nvidia drivers. Fedora stays closer to upstream than Ubuntu. They just package Gnome 3 for example. https://kororaproject.org/ https://kororaproject.org/
- dumi 13y ago
  I'm using openSuse. It's fast and stable. Ubuntu Gnome ( http://ubuntugnome.org/ http://ubuntugnome.org/ ) is also a good choice, but its not pure gnome as always.
  - Surio 13y ago
    openSUSE: Did you have problems with speed? Or nepomunk? I was eager to have a go when it came out (12.3), and has been a very raggedy experience for me so far. nepomunk constantly crashes, the system is veeery slow (on KDE at least) etc.
    - cbaleanu 13y ago
      I'm on 12.3 with KDE, the only problem so far was making it remember the dual-monitor setup I was using. Apart from that, all good. A nice improvement over Ubuntu 12.04 with which I had a lot more problems.
- fakeer 13y ago
  Used it sometime ago. It was good. Sane. Beautiful with quite normal decisions regarding what users want/need, contrary to Ubuntu's what we want users to want/need. Stable. Loved the way it worked just out of the box. And the best thing was it didn't depend on Ubuntu. I said this because I liked even Mint Desktop better than Ubuntu which it was based upon. Since then I've switched to some other OS.
josteink 13y ago
It does feel slightly odd to (finally) have arm listed as an available architecture for the images. And I say that as someone who has run Ubuntu on my "Android tablet". I guess I'm just not yet used to "proper Linux" being something you can download for embedded-type architectures and devices without heading to XDA first. Still. Definitely Good to see Ubuntu expanding support to the sort of devices which are actually new and interesting.
- 0x0 13y ago
  That's been a common sight for Debian users for ages :) http://www.debian.org/ports/ http://www.debian.org/ports/ http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/6.0.7/ http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/6.0.7/
- jcastro 13y ago
  Ubuntu's had ARM images for going on like 4 years now!
ThePinion 13y ago
I've been using it for a month and haven't regret a single second of it. by the way, Nexus 7 and other MTP device users: plug your device in and enjoy full read write support by default :)
- jaibot 13y ago
  Finally!
- Newky 13y ago
  Wow, thats a great new feature. This is one thing that really infuriates me about new android devices. Their lack of syncing support with linux boxes. Does anyone know if this support is something that can be backported to 12.04?
  - austinbirch 13y ago
    I had some success following this[1], though it didn’t seem to handle transferring lots of files at once very well. [1]: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/upgrade-to-gvfs-with-mtp-support-in.html http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/upgrade-to-gvfs-with-mtp-supp...
    - alanmackenzie 13y ago
      Thanks, that was an incredibly helpful link.
  - fixedd 13y ago
    Adding support was pretty trivial in the past, install a package and edit a config file. Just google your device + ubuntu and you'll more than likely find instructions.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  > Nexus 7 and other MTP device users: plug your device in and enjoy full read write support by default :) Is browsing/copying laggy or slow at all, like on Windows 7?
Nican 13y ago
Is it possible to make an update from 12.10 without having to reinstall the system? EDIT: "sudo do-release-upgrade -d" did the trick. I will keep updated on progress.
- chipaca 13y ago
  You shouldn't need the -d, because it's no longer the development release.
k__ 13y ago
Am I now able to install it in addition to an UEFI Win8 installation without any tricks?
csmattryder 13y ago
Doesn't seem to be any point for me [1], I don't use Python, or Libreoffice. And I use gnome-session-fallback, can't stand Unity, and just wish they'd give me an OOBE setting for having an 'old-school' Gnome 3 session! Although Linux 3.8.8 might well make me upgrade. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview
- Kurtz79 13y ago
  Don't update, then, and use whatever distribution suits you better. It's one the greatest things about Linux, choice. No change/upgrade will ever fit every user. I use Python, Libreoffice (not that these are really dependant of the new release) and I like Unity, can't wait to try it out.
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    You do not have to change distributions because you do not like the desktop, you can simply install another one.
    - dkuntz2 13y ago
      That's not entirely true with Ubuntu. With most other distros, yeah, you don't need to change everything else to change a DE, but because unity integrates with everything, which means that Gnome and Cinnamon don't work well with ye-standarde Ubuntu.
      - gizmo686 13y ago
        Its been a while since I configure my CPU, but I am currently running Ubuntu 12.10 (upgraded incrementally from 10.04), with an alternate desktop (Awesome). I have never* noticed a program not work because off this, including the applet icons. The main point to consider in this is that most of the programs that Ubuntu runs are not written, nor maintained, for Ubuntu. Therefore, they should work perfectly well with other desktops. The only incompatibility that Unity introduces is when you are actually using Unity. When you are using another desktop, a program that works in another distro should work just as well. If you install, for example, the package "mate-session-manager", you will install a traditional desktop, and still be running Ubuntu. There are many other desktops to choice from in the Ubuntu repositories. Admittadly, installing one not in the repos will be more complicated. * I have actually run into 1 problem (with java) arising from the fact that Awesome is a non-re-parenting WM. This rarely came up, and was solved by claiming to be running 'LG3D' as my window manager, as that is on java's hard coded list on non-re-parenting WM`s.
cpa 13y ago
Changelog: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview#New_features_in_13.04 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview#New...
stefanve 13y ago
I played with the beta and I have to say that it is way more polished than 12.04/12.10. I have played for many years with Linux (since early 1990s) but it was always to much of a hazel to use it as my main os. But since 12.04 I fully switched from OSX to Ubuntu the only thing I kind of missed was the polish of osx. 13.04 makes lots of things nicer and more fluid. I actually like Ubuntu better than osx. One thing left to do is to get some descent icons and getting rid of the default orange :)
- Shish2k 13y ago
  Speaking of which, one thing that most people coming to ubuntu from windows and OSX often don't spot (which I think you have, but I post mostly for the benefit of other readers) - Ubuntu, much as canonical has done a lot of custom work on it, is still linux. You can customise it in pretty much any and every way that you want. You can even not use Unity at all if you don't like it -- no reason to throw out all the great foundations and switch to a different distro just because you don't like one of the default UI settings :P (There are several valid reasons for switching from one linux distro to another, it just makes me sad to see so many "I don't like Unity so I'm moving to Gentoo" posts -_-)
  - kostya-kow 13y ago
    It is still possible to customize Ubuntu, but you cannot customize Unity itself. It is no longer the goal of canonical. Canonical is trying to make an OS for an average person, who doesn't care about customization. Power users (ie normal GNU/Linux users) are not their target audience.
    - willismichael 13y ago
      I went through a phase in which I wanted to be able to go to great lengths to customize the UI. Lately I've realized that in the end, virtually all of my "power user" use cases are served by the terminal and emacs. When it comes to the UI, I just want something with reasonable behavior, that allows me to launch apps, and generally stays out of the way. Now days when I set up a new linux machine it's mostly just a matter of doing the default install, using aptitude to get the same old utilities, languages, and apps that I always use, and copying over whatever I want to keep in ~/.bashrc and ~/.emacs
drstrangevibes 13y ago
does a proper arm release mean that samsung arm chrubuntu will be flawless?
dumi 13y ago
Anybody have the link for Ubuntu Gnome 13.04 release note or for download links?
- shritesh 13y ago
  Here you go, http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/raring/release/ http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/raring/relea... This is the closest to any release notes: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes#Ubuntu_GNOME https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes#Ubuntu_G...
StavrosK 13y ago
Does anyone know if this will run on the Raspberry Pi (at least the Ubuntu Mini version)?
- fakeer 13y ago
  Any particular reason or use case for this? A friend has received his Pi yesterday, hasn't set it up. Can ask him to try it :-)
- shrikant 13y ago
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/848154 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/848154 Looks like it never will, unless there's a Raspberry Pi with an ARMv7 (or up) arch. Is there any particular reason you want it though? I use Raspbian on mine, and it works just fine. I couldn't be arsed with a GUI though, since the RasPi is just too underpowered to run a GUI alongside all the other crap I have running on it.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Not really, just because of familiarity with Ubuntu Server. Raspbian has been pretty great so far, no complaints here.
- rdale 13y ago
  No it won't because the Raspberry Pi uses an older ARMv6 CPU type that isn't supported by Ubuntu.
- dbond 13y ago
  Raspberry pi has an arm6 chip I think and the minimum for ubuntu is arm7. It could be done but the OS would require considerable modification.
vy8vWJlco 13y ago
They supposedly address the privacy bug: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/04/ubuntu_13_04_review/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/04/ubuntu_13_04_review/
- vy8vWJlco 13y ago
  Well, I wish I saw the other review (or downloaded it) before getting my hopes up. It looks like they didn't fix f*ck all. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/25/ubuntu_13_04_review/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/25/ubuntu_13_04_review/ Note to self: continue to expect the worst in people. (Edit: no malice understood, just brooding...)
  - takluyver 13y ago
    There's a simple off switch for all online results in the dash, and it works. The dash is being improved so you can disable individual result sources, but that work wasn't ready in time for this release. I don't think there's any particular malice in the delay.
Skalman 13y ago
They still haven't updated the main page, nor the download page - http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop still suggests to get Ubuntu 12.10.
Keyframe 13y ago
I was looking around youtube for unity videos and found Richard Stallman talk about Ubuntu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc
drivebyacct2 13y ago
Seriously, can anyone tell me if they fixed the partitioner? I spent enough times dd-ing and rebooting before giving up. :(
- apawloski 13y ago
  I haven't had a problem with the partitioner in years. What was your experience?
  - drivebyacct2 13y ago
    There were a number of dupes of this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1080701 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1080... Looks like it was fixed at the last second.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
esennesh@lap282:~$ sudo do-release-upgrade Checking for a new Ubuntu release No new release found
- salmanapk 13y ago
  Same. Local mirrors not updated yet I guess.
- kodisha 13y ago
  Their timing, especially for us in Europe is really bad. If they announce update it should be available for us before we start doing actual work.
  - sold 13y ago
    They didn't announce the new version. The post is premature.
    - sold 13y ago
      Now they did.
- wpietri 13y ago
  This now is working for me.
simplysaru 13y ago
Three Words:-Fast, Stable and Brilliant
Osmium 13y ago
In case anyone else was wondering what the difference was between the Mac and non-Mac releases is: http://askubuntu.com/questions/37999/what-is-different-about-the-mac-iso-image http://askubuntu.com/questions/37999/what-is-different-about...
legierski 13y ago
Can't wait to get back from work to update from 12.10 !
niggler 13y ago
What happens after the Z release (coming up in 5 years)?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- autotravis 13y ago
  Aardvark
- jfoster 13y ago
  Perhaps they start from A again. If they really want to challenge themselves they should start with Aa.
- teach 13y ago
  An 'A' release, probably. I suspect they'll be like hurricane naming in that regard.
- lacker 13y ago
  Aahing Aardvark
  - anoncow 13y ago
    Oohing Oompaloompahs
smithzvk 13y ago
Why do they still recommend 32 bit for everybody? I have been using 64 whenever possible. I wonder if any weird behavior can be attributed to it?
- mclemme 13y ago
  Been using 64-bit for the last 5-6 years I think, never experienced any major issues with it. Only weird isses I've had were browser plugins (java and flash), which were a bit dodgy on 64-bit, but that was years ago.
- columbo 13y ago
  It's actually just poor wording: http://askubuntu.com/questions/1441/why-does-ubuntu-download-recommend-32-bit-install http://askubuntu.com/questions/1441/why-does-ubuntu-download...
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  A few drivers and Flash used to have issues with the 64-bit versions. Also 32-bit works everywhere, whereas 64-bit doesn't. Ubuntu tries to be n00b-friendly and recommending the 32-bit version stacks the odds in Canonical's favor that inexperienced users will have a better first impression during install and first use.
  - jbicha 13y ago
    We've now crossed a threshold as there are millions of Windows 8 computers with UEFI by default which won't boot 32-bit operating systems by default.
- fulafel 13y ago
  Last I looked, they had ~30% of users running on 64-bit incapable hardware, and they don't want to ask techincal hardware questions on the download page. For example Intel Atom CPUs only got 64-bit relatively recently, the earlier netbook generations were 32-bit only. Edit: found the source. It was actually 25%, a year ago. And the other reason was that the error message when trying 64-bit on incapable hardware was very cryptic. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2012-April/035088.html https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2012-April/03...
mclemme 13y ago
The minimal CD can be found here: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/raring/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/raring/main/installer... Always use that instead of the official desktop CDs, to avoid all the extra programs that I never need.
Unosolo 13y ago
Poor GPU support (lack of drivers) is still a major deal-breaker for home and media use. As of now hardware should still be selected on the basis of available driver support and it's a major obstacle and the situation doesn't seem to have improved significantly since 3-5 years ago.
- kostya-kow 13y ago
  All the hardware I purchased in the past several years works with most GNU/Linux distros. There is some minor problems sometimes, but usually they do not force me to purchase hardware specifically for it.
- xradionut 13y ago
  The only problem I have is with the Nvidia drivers, especially Optimus/separate video card on my laptop which doesn't work. :( But the stock Intel driver works well enough, just don't want to figure out what sort of CLI cargo cult fixing it will take to get it going.
  - alirov 13y ago
    Have you tried using bumblebee[1]? I use it on my Samsung QX411 which has an NVidia GeForce GT 525M video card along with the onboard Intel. The Intel card is used by default at all times. If you want to run a program using the NVidia card, just prepend 'optirun' to the command. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee
    - pkolaczk 13y ago
      For me bumblebee works, but then the DisplayPort is useless. It would be awesome if bumblebee could automatically detect that the laptop is docked and turned on the external graphics to enable proper functioning of DisplayPort. Or even not automatically, but simpler than uninstalling/installing bumblebee (and fixing the mess it did to config files everytime).
    - Poiesis 13y ago
      I tried bumblebee it on 12.10, after unsuccessfully trying to install Nvidia drivers. It was...not a good experience. Ended up reinstalling 12.10 just to get Unity and a reasonable resolution back. I have no doubt that there was a fix (possibly involving xorg.conf editing) but I had already spent so much time it and I needed to get work done. Hopefully the new release is better here, but I don't hold much hope. I'm not blaming bumblebee specifically here, it's just a pervasive side effect of Linux and the modular approach. I can really appreciate the integration that goes in to a Mac.
dave1010uk 13y ago
Warning: according to the known issues in the release log [0]: * Skype won't start (without a fix [1]) * Google Chrome won't install (without a fix [2]) [0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+bug/1155327 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+bug/1155327 [2] https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=226002#c3 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=226002#c...
- drstrangevibes 13y ago
  this is not necessarily a bad thing
- kostya-kow 13y ago
  I don't use Skype (imo.im works much better, and you don't have to install any programs), so I don't know anything about it, but Chrome seems to work.
  - prawks 13y ago
    Thanks for the plug, imo.im looks really cool! Can't believe I didn't know about it before.
    - prg318 13y ago
      It seems to be the spiritual successor to Meebo webchat. So far its the only web-chat site that I have found that supports Jabber. I would absolutely recommend it!
    - mtgx 13y ago
      imo.im is pretty great. I think they even had (web based) video calls with Skype accounts, at least until Skype restricted that type of access to 3rd parties.
    - TallGuyShort 13y ago
      I use their Android app to stay signed into my professional and personal IM accounts at the same time. It's the best I've found.
flexterra 13y ago
Ubuntu names...
3pt14159 13y ago
I've been using 13.04 on a new MacBook Pro for 2 months now. Everything is great except that I cannot seem to get sound working no matter what I try. It looks like it recognizes the hdmi sound output, but it can't seem to see the normal sound output. I am a sad man.
- iso8859-1 13y ago
  Did you see this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro ?
  - 3pt14159 13y ago
    Thank you very much! I don't think that this existed when I installed it, but I will try to get it working at some point when I don't have client work. :) Thanks again!
luckystarr 13y ago
Just recently switched to Mint (Cinnamon) and found it to be quite good actually. Using the search via the start menu actually works! Can't say that this was always the case with Unity.
Florin_Andrei 13y ago
Running Ubuntu on a regular Dell laptop that is sometimes docked in a dual-monitor setup has been quite frustrating after versions 10 or 11 or so. I've had issues, repeatedly, with either setting up Unity for dual screen, or getting X to work at all. Going back to plain Gnome served as a partial workaround, until I switched to the new laptop - and then I started having issues initializing the screens after logging in (one of the screens would randomly remain blank when going into 1280x1024, I have to repeatedly logout/login to make it work). Eventually, I gave Kubuntu 13.04 beta a try and, surprise, it works perfectly. No Unity nonsense, X works great. It's a bit strange switching to KDE now. I've actually used KDE 1.0 back in the day, and Gnome 1.0. I've been a Gnome user most of this time. But now I'm starting to find even plain Gnome quite frustrating.
- pkolaczk 13y ago
  The same problem here. If I start it docked with the lid closed, it doesn't get past the Ubuntu splash screen and hangs in some weird state where the only possibility is hard power-off. I have to start it with the lid open, then close it after logging into desktop and then manually setup the second external monitor, because although it detects it, it keeps it "disabled". This entirely sucks in 12.10 I hope 13.04 will be better, but I'm little reluctant to upgrade so early after upgrade to 12.10 broke my system.
reustle 13y ago
It's interesting to see that 13.04 comes with Mongo 2.2.4 pre-installed. If it's always running, it's going to make getting started with Mongo that much easier.
alyandon 13y ago
Is it now possible to perform basic tasks like specifying font and icon sizes without installing third-party tweak tools or manually editing text files? I know a lot of work goes into these releases but when basic desktop functionality has been missing/broken since the 11.x series and fails to be addressed with each new release it starts to become depressing.
- bluedino 13y ago
  Ubuntu is a lot more tolerable when you just decide to live with the fonts, window decorations, icons, as the defaults. Just like you have to on the Mac. I could tweak a Linux box all day long. On a Mac I just turn it on and go to work. Now the hard part is deciding between GNOME3, Unity, LXDE...
  - alyandon 13y ago
    I guess I find the icons and fonts sizes for the default Ubuntu desktop are (for lack of a better term) Fischer-Price sized and I just can't comfortably work with it. While I can deal with installing additional packages in order to gain control over such settings it just strikes me as a little ironic that such things are not easily configurable in one of the major desktop focused Linux distributions.
anoncow 13y ago
I wish the pay-what-you-want page earns ubuntu a decent sum. Go Canonical!
dguido 13y ago
Are there any security improvements worth mentioning in this release? Ubuntu used to be at the forefront of security on Linux and kept track of improvements made per release on their wiki. This effort seems to have stalled after the departure of key personnel and nothing has changed in a year or more. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Features https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Features
- jdstrand 13y ago
  The Security/Features page remains up to date (mostly, see below) and while new security features did not land in 13.04, a lot of work was done on client application isolation and better supporting using AppArmor with LXC. Many of these features will land in 13.10 and 14.04 LTS. The list of applications compiled with PIE is not currently up to date, but is being worked on (part of the problem is a lot of developers started compiling their packages with PIE and we now have to find them. A nice problem to have :). Also note that incremental security features are not usually mentioned. For example, seccomp2 is used in a number of places now and AppArmor improvements such as mediation of mount or the upcoming DBus work are/will not be specifically mentioned.
mrinterweb 13y ago
Just a word of warning to anyone who may be thinking of installing this release on a MacBook Pro w/retina. I don't believe there is a window manager available that will play nicely with high DPI. I do hope that the linux community is planning on better supporting very high resolution displays. 13.04 works absolutely wonderfully, on my 2012 MacBook Air. Everything works perfectly for me on that machine.
- mindstab 13y ago
  How high resolution? My laptop looks great and works perfectly with Ubuntu @ 1920 x 1080. What doesn't work?
  - kunai 13y ago
    2880x1800. On a 15.4" screen, mind you... As if that wasn't enough, the 13.3" version is 2560x1600. Which is completely insane.
  - socksy 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display — we're talking in the order of 2880 x 1800 for a 15" screen and 2560 x 1600 for a 13" screen. Linux window managers react by making everything tiny, which is not ideal. See http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=apple_mbpr_linux http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=apple...
  - jjcm 13y ago
    What he's referencing is displays that are meant to display the UI at twice the pixel density. It will run just fine on the macbook pro with the retina display, but it will run at a 1:1 density instead of a 2:1 density (which is what it's designed for). Here's a little image I drew quickly to illustrate: http://i.imgur.com/4gizfp0.png http://i.imgur.com/4gizfp0.png On that screen size, OSX will appear like the top image on a non retina display, and like the middle image on a retina display. Ubuntu will display like the top image on a non retina display, but will appear like the bottom image on the retina display.
  - 13y ago
sutro 13y ago
Have they gotten rid of Unity yet? No? Pass.
- dombili 13y ago
  It's not as bad as it used to be, actually. It used to be a deal breaker for me, but now even though I still don't like it, I don't mind it either.
- SEMW 13y ago
  At the risk of stating the obvious: sudo apt-get autoremove unity && sudo apt-get install [xubuntu-desktop|kubuntu-desktop|lubuntu-desktop|etc.] Or just install the one you want in the first place: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ has images for all eight official Ubuntu flavours. Seriously, it can't hurt you just by being in the repositories if you don't install it...
- mrinterweb 13y ago
  I was very sceptical of Unity at first. When it was originally introduced in 11.04, it was obviously not ready for prime time. Unity is much more polished now. Unity used to be a resource hog and all kinds of glitchy. Now, Unity is efficient, stable, well thought out, and quite usable. I prefer it to Gnome Shell, KDE 4x, XFCE, Gnome 2, Mate, Cinnamon, and even Xmonad. I don't understand the disdain for Unity these days except for maybe the Amazon crap (which can be disabled).
anderspetersson 13y ago
All bugs has software.
Ologn 13y ago
I have been using it for about an hour on my x64 desktop. I was using Ubuntu 12.04 beforehand. The 12.04 is still on one of my disk partitions. Canonical is apparently going more in the way of pre-installed crapware. There was an Amazon icon on my Launcher, which I removed. People have also been warning the Ubuntu Dash sends your searches to Amazon, I went to System Settings -> Privacy and removed that. Haven't noticed that much. It may be a little faster, although my Ubuntu desktop usually runs faster when I reboot it, so I can't tell if it will stay this way yet. Doing horizontal resizing of windows seems a little more difficult, some setting must have changed. Firefox's plugin service seems hosed right now, maybe due to all the new Ubuntu installs. The Firefox edit window is acting a little odd as well. It has crapped out a few times in terms of display. There were no workspaces until I turned them on in settings, they seem down on workspaces - something I had without a problem since fvwm back in the mid-1990s. Hopefully there will still be workspaces in the next Ubuntu version. It seems like they've added a little more customization ability for the launcher, sizing the launcher, hiding the launcher etc. Or at least made it more obvious. It doesn't work that well but at least it's there. I noticed they changed other things...grub now just says Ubuntu on top, and has simplified options under that. I guess I'll bump into more things as I go on.
- jebblue 13y ago
  >> Canonical is apparently going more in the way of pre-installed crapware. There was an Amazon icon on my Launcher, which I removed. People have also been warning the Ubuntu Dash sends your searches to Amazon, I went to System Settings -> Privacy and removed that. Thanks for the tips, when we move to 14.04 LTS we will need to know them. >> There were no workspaces until I turned them on in settings, they seem down on workspaces - something I had without a problem since fvwm back in the mid-1990s. Hopefully there will still be workspaces in the next Ubuntu version. Do you mean the cool workspace switcher on the Unity Launcher panel is going to be gone? That's odd.
  - takluyver 13y ago
    The workspace switcher is still available, and I don't think there are any plans to remove it. It's just disabled by default. I guess it's a mixture of saving space in the launcher and avoiding the potential confusion when new users hit the wrong button and suddenly see their windows vanish.
o0-0o 13y ago
Mmmm Debian based distros rock. That's why I run Debian
oddshocks 13y ago
Ubuntu is spyware
- oddshocks 13y ago
  Downvoting me doesn't change the fact that your OS sends search strings to Amazon
JeremyMorgan 13y ago
This version isn't so bad, only by comparison of the last two. I usually download and run each version for a few weeks for fun, I ran some beta builds of this one and didn't have any major problems. The Unity interface still sucks but they're making some subtle changes that make it better. I still don't like it. What worries me most about Ubuntu's rising popularity is the fact that they're trying so hard to nail the tablet market. I would like to see a good Linux distro reach the popularity Ubuntu has, but offer more flexibility and focus on the desktop. Linux Mint is making strides in this direction, and looks to be a very nice candidate for it. My prognosis is much the same as it has been for a while now: For goofing off / watching movies/ checking email - Ubuntu 13.04 will be great. For productivity I'm still using Mint, Gentoo or Ubuntu 10.04 For a server it's Gentoo all the way.

368 points by zeis 13y ago

roevhat 13y ago

Who will be upgrading from 12.04? :-)

Icer5k 13y ago
I'd imagine most people on 12.04 will stick with it until 14.04 comes out. 12.04 is an LTS release, and is supported for 3-5 years from the release date where 12.10 through 13.10 are normal releases, and are only supported for 9 months from release. However, anyone on 12.10 should be able to "do-release-upgrade" and upgrade themselves to 13.04.
- harshadura 13y ago
  life is short, upgrade and feel it imo :-)
- bad_user 13y ago
  I wanted to stay on 12.04, however 12.10 came with the option to encrypt your whole hard-disk straight from the installer with dm-crypt, which is much better than ecryptfs, at least when it comes to performance. And manually encrypting your hard-disk with dm-crypt can be quite painful. The downside of that is that 12.10 and non-LTS versions in general only get bug fixes for critical bugs, otherwise the bug fix is the upgrade to the next version, in this case 13.04. So you end up on the upgrade treadmill, whether you want it or not. I'm waiting for a month at least before installing any new Ubuntu version though. At release they tend to be a little unstable.
  - onosendai 13y ago
    12.04 and earlier versions always had the option for full disk encryption with dm-crypt, but you had to use the alternate install CD with the curses installer. It wasn't complicated at all. All they did with later versions was to roll the option into the standard live CD installer. Regarding bug fixes and the need to stay on the upgrade treadmill, it's much easier nowadays to stick with LTS versions since they implemented the LTS enablement stack (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack). Essentially it's the kernel and X.org of the current release backported to the LTS release, so you don't miss out on new hardware support while getting all the bug fixes and stability that come from the LTS. That being said, however, I'm finding 12.04 to be extremely buggy when you're using Unity+Compiz.
    - wpietri 13y ago
      I've got one box running 12.04 and one running 12.10. Unity+Compiz is definitely buggy for me on 12.04, but they managed to make it worse on 12.10. I really cannot fathom what is going on at Canonical. I get that they want a more friendly UI, because that will create a better user experience for a broader set of users. I even use Unity, and like where they're going with it. But can't they see that creating a flaky, unreliable experience is not actually helping? And that they're undermining Linux's major strength, a reputation for reliability? By all means, Canonical, keep innovating. But stop breaking shit along the way. If the goal is a better user experience, make sure you're actually delivering a better user experience before releasing.
      - takluyver 13y ago
        Most people seem to say that 13.04 is smoother and more stable than 12.10. Canonical seem to have their ups and downs. I don't think desktop Linux has ever really had a great reputation for reliability, though.
- kijin 13y ago
  Minor correction: 13.04 and 13.10 will only be supported for 9 months, but 12.10 will be supported for 18 months.
  - draugadrotten 13y ago
    Duh. That's obvious from the version numbers. Everyone knows that even dozens are supported 18 months and that prime number versions are only supported half of the time.
    - keithpeter 13y ago
      Ubuntu technical board decided to shorten the support window for the 'between LTS' releases from 18 to 9 months starting from 13.04. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/24/ubuntu_reduces_support_times/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/24/ubuntu_reduces_suppo... Number theory not required.
nisa 13y ago
Ubuntu backports newer kernel versions and xorg packages[1]. I hope this will land in precise soon. That's good enough for me + the additional ppa here and there. I won't be upgrading to anything non-LTS on any non home machine again. It's not worth the pain. 1: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack
Zigurd 13y ago
I did and am very pleased. Unity actually works. Suspend works. It's fast and smooth. My only problems were in installing it on a new laptop. I wanted to dual-boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu. No dice. Turn off signed booting, wipe the weird set of partitions Sony uses for Win 8 and then things went smoothly. I'm keeping the old machine for Windows 7.
- Random_Person 13y ago
  Did you upgrade or format/install? I'm pondering it now. I've had quite a few system hangs lately and am wondering if I should even attempt the upgrade to 12.10
  - anoncow 13y ago
    Did an upgrade cycle from 10.04 through 11.10, installing every release. Did a clean install at 12.04. Have upgraded that to 12.10 and now 13.04. I will not say there were no issues, but I never faced data corruption or unable-to-boot issues during this time. What I did face though was random errors and broken packages. But I did not document those erors, so I cannot go into any specifics.
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    Both. Results were similar. But in the end I will work on the machine with a fresh install and put Windows 7 on my old machine. Migrating was painless, except for finding enough disk space on an external drive to move all my somewhat disorganized and sprawling file hierarchy.
  - EmlynC 13y ago
    I upgraded from 12.04 LTS and I had a few niggles - the configs for Compiz were messed up and the AMD proprietary driver wasn't working, oh and grub got nuked. Ultimately, blowing away the compiz configs (rm .compiz*), a dpkg --configure -a fixed the AMD driver and boot-repair from a Ubuntu LiveCD was a wonderfully simple way to redo grub. Not painless but not particularly difficult to fix.

buster 13y ago

Now what about releease notes? :-) (edit: some information is here https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview ) Currently i am thinking of switching to LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) because i don't really like the way Ubuntu is going with Unity, Mir, upstart, doing too much stuff on its own. Anyone with experience from LMDE here? Is it stable? Pros? Cons?

qznc 13y ago
I switch to Korora for my laptop. It is basically the Mint of Fedora. Quite happy so far. My feeling is that Fedora has the better engineering, but Ubuntu has better polish. Korora puts some icing on top: good font rendering, Adobe Reader, Skype, nvidia drivers. Fedora stays closer to upstream than Ubuntu. They just package Gnome 3 for example. https://kororaproject.org/ https://kororaproject.org/
dumi 13y ago
I'm using openSuse. It's fast and stable. Ubuntu Gnome ( http://ubuntugnome.org/ http://ubuntugnome.org/ ) is also a good choice, but its not pure gnome as always.
- Surio 13y ago
  openSUSE: Did you have problems with speed? Or nepomunk? I was eager to have a go when it came out (12.3), and has been a very raggedy experience for me so far. nepomunk constantly crashes, the system is veeery slow (on KDE at least) etc.
  - cbaleanu 13y ago
    I'm on 12.3 with KDE, the only problem so far was making it remember the dual-monitor setup I was using. Apart from that, all good. A nice improvement over Ubuntu 12.04 with which I had a lot more problems.
fakeer 13y ago
Used it sometime ago. It was good. Sane. Beautiful with quite normal decisions regarding what users want/need, contrary to Ubuntu's what we want users to want/need. Stable. Loved the way it worked just out of the box. And the best thing was it didn't depend on Ubuntu. I said this because I liked even Mint Desktop better than Ubuntu which it was based upon. Since then I've switched to some other OS.

josteink 13y ago

It does feel slightly odd to (finally) have arm listed as an available architecture for the images. And I say that as someone who has run Ubuntu on my "Android tablet". I guess I'm just not yet used to "proper Linux" being something you can download for embedded-type architectures and devices without heading to XDA first. Still. Definitely Good to see Ubuntu expanding support to the sort of devices which are actually new and interesting.

0x0 13y ago
That's been a common sight for Debian users for ages :) http://www.debian.org/ports/ http://www.debian.org/ports/ http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/6.0.7/ http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/6.0.7/
jcastro 13y ago
Ubuntu's had ARM images for going on like 4 years now!

ThePinion 13y ago

I've been using it for a month and haven't regret a single second of it. by the way, Nexus 7 and other MTP device users: plug your device in and enjoy full read write support by default :)

jaibot 13y ago
Finally!
Newky 13y ago
Wow, thats a great new feature. This is one thing that really infuriates me about new android devices. Their lack of syncing support with linux boxes. Does anyone know if this support is something that can be backported to 12.04?
- austinbirch 13y ago
  I had some success following this[1], though it didn’t seem to handle transferring lots of files at once very well. [1]: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/upgrade-to-gvfs-with-mtp-support-in.html http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/upgrade-to-gvfs-with-mtp-supp...
  - alanmackenzie 13y ago
    Thanks, that was an incredibly helpful link.
- fixedd 13y ago
  Adding support was pretty trivial in the past, install a package and edit a config file. Just google your device + ubuntu and you'll more than likely find instructions.
w1ntermute 13y ago
> Nexus 7 and other MTP device users: plug your device in and enjoy full read write support by default :) Is browsing/copying laggy or slow at all, like on Windows 7?

Nican 13y ago

Is it possible to make an update from 12.10 without having to reinstall the system? EDIT: "sudo do-release-upgrade -d" did the trick. I will keep updated on progress.

chipaca 13y ago
You shouldn't need the -d, because it's no longer the development release.

k__ 13y ago

Am I now able to install it in addition to an UEFI Win8 installation without any tricks?

csmattryder 13y ago

Doesn't seem to be any point for me [1], I don't use Python, or Libreoffice. And I use gnome-session-fallback, can't stand Unity, and just wish they'd give me an OOBE setting for having an 'old-school' Gnome 3 session! Although Linux 3.8.8 might well make me upgrade. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview

Kurtz79 13y ago
Don't update, then, and use whatever distribution suits you better. It's one the greatest things about Linux, choice. No change/upgrade will ever fit every user. I use Python, Libreoffice (not that these are really dependant of the new release) and I like Unity, can't wait to try it out.
- gizmo686 13y ago
  You do not have to change distributions because you do not like the desktop, you can simply install another one.
  - dkuntz2 13y ago
    That's not entirely true with Ubuntu. With most other distros, yeah, you don't need to change everything else to change a DE, but because unity integrates with everything, which means that Gnome and Cinnamon don't work well with ye-standarde Ubuntu.
    - gizmo686 13y ago
      Its been a while since I configure my CPU, but I am currently running Ubuntu 12.10 (upgraded incrementally from 10.04), with an alternate desktop (Awesome). I have never* noticed a program not work because off this, including the applet icons. The main point to consider in this is that most of the programs that Ubuntu runs are not written, nor maintained, for Ubuntu. Therefore, they should work perfectly well with other desktops. The only incompatibility that Unity introduces is when you are actually using Unity. When you are using another desktop, a program that works in another distro should work just as well. If you install, for example, the package "mate-session-manager", you will install a traditional desktop, and still be running Ubuntu. There are many other desktops to choice from in the Ubuntu repositories. Admittadly, installing one not in the repos will be more complicated. * I have actually run into 1 problem (with java) arising from the fact that Awesome is a non-re-parenting WM. This rarely came up, and was solved by claiming to be running 'LG3D' as my window manager, as that is on java's hard coded list on non-re-parenting WM`s.

cpa 13y ago

Changelog: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview#New_features_in_13.04 https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/TechnicalOverview#New...

stefanve 13y ago

I played with the beta and I have to say that it is way more polished than 12.04/12.10. I have played for many years with Linux (since early 1990s) but it was always to much of a hazel to use it as my main os. But since 12.04 I fully switched from OSX to Ubuntu the only thing I kind of missed was the polish of osx. 13.04 makes lots of things nicer and more fluid. I actually like Ubuntu better than osx. One thing left to do is to get some descent icons and getting rid of the default orange :)

Shish2k 13y ago
Speaking of which, one thing that most people coming to ubuntu from windows and OSX often don't spot (which I think you have, but I post mostly for the benefit of other readers) - Ubuntu, much as canonical has done a lot of custom work on it, is still linux. You can customise it in pretty much any and every way that you want. You can even not use Unity at all if you don't like it -- no reason to throw out all the great foundations and switch to a different distro just because you don't like one of the default UI settings :P (There are several valid reasons for switching from one linux distro to another, it just makes me sad to see so many "I don't like Unity so I'm moving to Gentoo" posts -_-)
- kostya-kow 13y ago
  It is still possible to customize Ubuntu, but you cannot customize Unity itself. It is no longer the goal of canonical. Canonical is trying to make an OS for an average person, who doesn't care about customization. Power users (ie normal GNU/Linux users) are not their target audience.
  - willismichael 13y ago
    I went through a phase in which I wanted to be able to go to great lengths to customize the UI. Lately I've realized that in the end, virtually all of my "power user" use cases are served by the terminal and emacs. When it comes to the UI, I just want something with reasonable behavior, that allows me to launch apps, and generally stays out of the way. Now days when I set up a new linux machine it's mostly just a matter of doing the default install, using aptitude to get the same old utilities, languages, and apps that I always use, and copying over whatever I want to keep in ~/.bashrc and ~/.emacs

drstrangevibes 13y ago

does a proper arm release mean that samsung arm chrubuntu will be flawless?

dumi 13y ago

Anybody have the link for Ubuntu Gnome 13.04 release note or for download links?

shritesh 13y ago
Here you go, http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/raring/release/ http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/raring/relea... This is the closest to any release notes: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes#Ubuntu_GNOME https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes#Ubuntu_G...

StavrosK 13y ago

Does anyone know if this will run on the Raspberry Pi (at least the Ubuntu Mini version)?

fakeer 13y ago
Any particular reason or use case for this? A friend has received his Pi yesterday, hasn't set it up. Can ask him to try it :-)
shrikant 13y ago
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/848154 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/848154 Looks like it never will, unless there's a Raspberry Pi with an ARMv7 (or up) arch. Is there any particular reason you want it though? I use Raspbian on mine, and it works just fine. I couldn't be arsed with a GUI though, since the RasPi is just too underpowered to run a GUI alongside all the other crap I have running on it.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Not really, just because of familiarity with Ubuntu Server. Raspbian has been pretty great so far, no complaints here.
rdale 13y ago
No it won't because the Raspberry Pi uses an older ARMv6 CPU type that isn't supported by Ubuntu.
dbond 13y ago
Raspberry pi has an arm6 chip I think and the minimum for ubuntu is arm7. It could be done but the OS would require considerable modification.

vy8vWJlco 13y ago

They supposedly address the privacy bug: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/04/ubuntu_13_04_review/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/04/ubuntu_13_04_review/

vy8vWJlco 13y ago
Well, I wish I saw the other review (or downloaded it) before getting my hopes up. It looks like they didn't fix f*ck all. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/25/ubuntu_13_04_review/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/25/ubuntu_13_04_review/ Note to self: continue to expect the worst in people. (Edit: no malice understood, just brooding...)
- takluyver 13y ago
  There's a simple off switch for all online results in the dash, and it works. The dash is being improved so you can disable individual result sources, but that work wasn't ready in time for this release. I don't think there's any particular malice in the delay.

Skalman 13y ago

They still haven't updated the main page, nor the download page - http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop still suggests to get Ubuntu 12.10.

Keyframe 13y ago

I was looking around youtube for unity videos and found Richard Stallman talk about Ubuntu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP8CNp-vksc

drivebyacct2 13y ago

Seriously, can anyone tell me if they fixed the partitioner? I spent enough times dd-ing and rebooting before giving up. :(

apawloski 13y ago
I haven't had a problem with the partitioner in years. What was your experience?
- drivebyacct2 13y ago
  There were a number of dupes of this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1080701 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1080... Looks like it was fixed at the last second.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

esennesh@lap282:~$ sudo do-release-upgrade Checking for a new Ubuntu release No new release found

salmanapk 13y ago
Same. Local mirrors not updated yet I guess.
kodisha 13y ago
Their timing, especially for us in Europe is really bad. If they announce update it should be available for us before we start doing actual work.
- sold 13y ago
  They didn't announce the new version. The post is premature.
  - sold 13y ago
    Now they did.
wpietri 13y ago
This now is working for me.

simplysaru 13y ago

Three Words:-Fast, Stable and Brilliant

Osmium 13y ago

In case anyone else was wondering what the difference was between the Mac and non-Mac releases is: http://askubuntu.com/questions/37999/what-is-different-about-the-mac-iso-image http://askubuntu.com/questions/37999/what-is-different-about...

legierski 13y ago

Can't wait to get back from work to update from 12.10 !

niggler 13y ago

What happens after the Z release (coming up in 5 years)?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
autotravis 13y ago
Aardvark
jfoster 13y ago
Perhaps they start from A again. If they really want to challenge themselves they should start with Aa.
teach 13y ago
An 'A' release, probably. I suspect they'll be like hurricane naming in that regard.
lacker 13y ago
Aahing Aardvark
- anoncow 13y ago
  Oohing Oompaloompahs

smithzvk 13y ago

Why do they still recommend 32 bit for everybody? I have been using 64 whenever possible. I wonder if any weird behavior can be attributed to it?

mclemme 13y ago
Been using 64-bit for the last 5-6 years I think, never experienced any major issues with it. Only weird isses I've had were browser plugins (java and flash), which were a bit dodgy on 64-bit, but that was years ago.
columbo 13y ago
It's actually just poor wording: http://askubuntu.com/questions/1441/why-does-ubuntu-download-recommend-32-bit-install http://askubuntu.com/questions/1441/why-does-ubuntu-download...
kintamanimatt 13y ago
A few drivers and Flash used to have issues with the 64-bit versions. Also 32-bit works everywhere, whereas 64-bit doesn't. Ubuntu tries to be n00b-friendly and recommending the 32-bit version stacks the odds in Canonical's favor that inexperienced users will have a better first impression during install and first use.
- jbicha 13y ago
  We've now crossed a threshold as there are millions of Windows 8 computers with UEFI by default which won't boot 32-bit operating systems by default.
fulafel 13y ago
Last I looked, they had ~30% of users running on 64-bit incapable hardware, and they don't want to ask techincal hardware questions on the download page. For example Intel Atom CPUs only got 64-bit relatively recently, the earlier netbook generations were 32-bit only. Edit: found the source. It was actually 25%, a year ago. And the other reason was that the error message when trying 64-bit on incapable hardware was very cryptic. https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2012-April/035088.html https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2012-April/03...

mclemme 13y ago

The minimal CD can be found here: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/raring/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/raring/main/installer... Always use that instead of the official desktop CDs, to avoid all the extra programs that I never need.

Unosolo 13y ago

Poor GPU support (lack of drivers) is still a major deal-breaker for home and media use. As of now hardware should still be selected on the basis of available driver support and it's a major obstacle and the situation doesn't seem to have improved significantly since 3-5 years ago.

kostya-kow 13y ago
All the hardware I purchased in the past several years works with most GNU/Linux distros. There is some minor problems sometimes, but usually they do not force me to purchase hardware specifically for it.
xradionut 13y ago
The only problem I have is with the Nvidia drivers, especially Optimus/separate video card on my laptop which doesn't work. :( But the stock Intel driver works well enough, just don't want to figure out what sort of CLI cargo cult fixing it will take to get it going.
- alirov 13y ago
  Have you tried using bumblebee[1]? I use it on my Samsung QX411 which has an NVidia GeForce GT 525M video card along with the onboard Intel. The Intel card is used by default at all times. If you want to run a program using the NVidia card, just prepend 'optirun' to the command. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bumblebee
  - pkolaczk 13y ago
    For me bumblebee works, but then the DisplayPort is useless. It would be awesome if bumblebee could automatically detect that the laptop is docked and turned on the external graphics to enable proper functioning of DisplayPort. Or even not automatically, but simpler than uninstalling/installing bumblebee (and fixing the mess it did to config files everytime).
  - Poiesis 13y ago
    I tried bumblebee it on 12.10, after unsuccessfully trying to install Nvidia drivers. It was...not a good experience. Ended up reinstalling 12.10 just to get Unity and a reasonable resolution back. I have no doubt that there was a fix (possibly involving xorg.conf editing) but I had already spent so much time it and I needed to get work done. Hopefully the new release is better here, but I don't hold much hope. I'm not blaming bumblebee specifically here, it's just a pervasive side effect of Linux and the modular approach. I can really appreciate the integration that goes in to a Mac.

dave1010uk 13y ago

Warning: according to the known issues in the release log [0]: * Skype won't start (without a fix [1]) * Google Chrome won't install (without a fix [2]) [0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RaringRingtail/ReleaseNotes [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+bug/1155327 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/skype/+bug/1155327 [2] https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=226002#c3 https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=226002#c...

drstrangevibes 13y ago
this is not necessarily a bad thing
kostya-kow 13y ago
I don't use Skype (imo.im works much better, and you don't have to install any programs), so I don't know anything about it, but Chrome seems to work.
- prawks 13y ago
  Thanks for the plug, imo.im looks really cool! Can't believe I didn't know about it before.
  - prg318 13y ago
    It seems to be the spiritual successor to Meebo webchat. So far its the only web-chat site that I have found that supports Jabber. I would absolutely recommend it!
  - mtgx 13y ago
    imo.im is pretty great. I think they even had (web based) video calls with Skype accounts, at least until Skype restricted that type of access to 3rd parties.
  - TallGuyShort 13y ago
    I use their Android app to stay signed into my professional and personal IM accounts at the same time. It's the best I've found.

flexterra 13y ago

Ubuntu names...

3pt14159 13y ago

I've been using 13.04 on a new MacBook Pro for 2 months now. Everything is great except that I cannot seem to get sound working no matter what I try. It looks like it recognizes the hdmi sound output, but it can't seem to see the normal sound output. I am a sad man.

iso8859-1 13y ago
Did you see this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBookPro ?
- 3pt14159 13y ago
  Thank you very much! I don't think that this existed when I installed it, but I will try to get it working at some point when I don't have client work. :) Thanks again!

luckystarr 13y ago

Just recently switched to Mint (Cinnamon) and found it to be quite good actually. Using the search via the start menu actually works! Can't say that this was always the case with Unity.

Florin_Andrei 13y ago

Running Ubuntu on a regular Dell laptop that is sometimes docked in a dual-monitor setup has been quite frustrating after versions 10 or 11 or so. I've had issues, repeatedly, with either setting up Unity for dual screen, or getting X to work at all. Going back to plain Gnome served as a partial workaround, until I switched to the new laptop - and then I started having issues initializing the screens after logging in (one of the screens would randomly remain blank when going into 1280x1024, I have to repeatedly logout/login to make it work). Eventually, I gave Kubuntu 13.04 beta a try and, surprise, it works perfectly. No Unity nonsense, X works great. It's a bit strange switching to KDE now. I've actually used KDE 1.0 back in the day, and Gnome 1.0. I've been a Gnome user most of this time. But now I'm starting to find even plain Gnome quite frustrating.

pkolaczk 13y ago
The same problem here. If I start it docked with the lid closed, it doesn't get past the Ubuntu splash screen and hangs in some weird state where the only possibility is hard power-off. I have to start it with the lid open, then close it after logging into desktop and then manually setup the second external monitor, because although it detects it, it keeps it "disabled". This entirely sucks in 12.10 I hope 13.04 will be better, but I'm little reluctant to upgrade so early after upgrade to 12.10 broke my system.

reustle 13y ago

It's interesting to see that 13.04 comes with Mongo 2.2.4 pre-installed. If it's always running, it's going to make getting started with Mongo that much easier.

alyandon 13y ago

Is it now possible to perform basic tasks like specifying font and icon sizes without installing third-party tweak tools or manually editing text files? I know a lot of work goes into these releases but when basic desktop functionality has been missing/broken since the 11.x series and fails to be addressed with each new release it starts to become depressing.

bluedino 13y ago
Ubuntu is a lot more tolerable when you just decide to live with the fonts, window decorations, icons, as the defaults. Just like you have to on the Mac. I could tweak a Linux box all day long. On a Mac I just turn it on and go to work. Now the hard part is deciding between GNOME3, Unity, LXDE...
- alyandon 13y ago
  I guess I find the icons and fonts sizes for the default Ubuntu desktop are (for lack of a better term) Fischer-Price sized and I just can't comfortably work with it. While I can deal with installing additional packages in order to gain control over such settings it just strikes me as a little ironic that such things are not easily configurable in one of the major desktop focused Linux distributions.

anoncow 13y ago

I wish the pay-what-you-want page earns ubuntu a decent sum. Go Canonical!

dguido 13y ago

Are there any security improvements worth mentioning in this release? Ubuntu used to be at the forefront of security on Linux and kept track of improvements made per release on their wiki. This effort seems to have stalled after the departure of key personnel and nothing has changed in a year or more. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Features https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Security/Features

jdstrand 13y ago
The Security/Features page remains up to date (mostly, see below) and while new security features did not land in 13.04, a lot of work was done on client application isolation and better supporting using AppArmor with LXC. Many of these features will land in 13.10 and 14.04 LTS. The list of applications compiled with PIE is not currently up to date, but is being worked on (part of the problem is a lot of developers started compiling their packages with PIE and we now have to find them. A nice problem to have :). Also note that incremental security features are not usually mentioned. For example, seccomp2 is used in a number of places now and AppArmor improvements such as mediation of mount or the upcoming DBus work are/will not be specifically mentioned.

mrinterweb 13y ago

Just a word of warning to anyone who may be thinking of installing this release on a MacBook Pro w/retina. I don't believe there is a window manager available that will play nicely with high DPI. I do hope that the linux community is planning on better supporting very high resolution displays. 13.04 works absolutely wonderfully, on my 2012 MacBook Air. Everything works perfectly for me on that machine.

mindstab 13y ago
How high resolution? My laptop looks great and works perfectly with Ubuntu @ 1920 x 1080. What doesn't work?
- kunai 13y ago
  2880x1800. On a 15.4" screen, mind you... As if that wasn't enough, the 13.3" version is 2560x1600. Which is completely insane.
- socksy 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display — we're talking in the order of 2880 x 1800 for a 15" screen and 2560 x 1600 for a 13" screen. Linux window managers react by making everything tiny, which is not ideal. See http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=apple_mbpr_linux http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=apple...
- jjcm 13y ago
  What he's referencing is displays that are meant to display the UI at twice the pixel density. It will run just fine on the macbook pro with the retina display, but it will run at a 1:1 density instead of a 2:1 density (which is what it's designed for). Here's a little image I drew quickly to illustrate: http://i.imgur.com/4gizfp0.png http://i.imgur.com/4gizfp0.png On that screen size, OSX will appear like the top image on a non retina display, and like the middle image on a retina display. Ubuntu will display like the top image on a non retina display, but will appear like the bottom image on the retina display.
- 13y ago

sutro 13y ago

Have they gotten rid of Unity yet? No? Pass.

dombili 13y ago
It's not as bad as it used to be, actually. It used to be a deal breaker for me, but now even though I still don't like it, I don't mind it either.
SEMW 13y ago
At the risk of stating the obvious: sudo apt-get autoremove unity && sudo apt-get install [xubuntu-desktop|kubuntu-desktop|lubuntu-desktop|etc.] Or just install the one you want in the first place: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ has images for all eight official Ubuntu flavours. Seriously, it can't hurt you just by being in the repositories if you don't install it...
mrinterweb 13y ago
I was very sceptical of Unity at first. When it was originally introduced in 11.04, it was obviously not ready for prime time. Unity is much more polished now. Unity used to be a resource hog and all kinds of glitchy. Now, Unity is efficient, stable, well thought out, and quite usable. I prefer it to Gnome Shell, KDE 4x, XFCE, Gnome 2, Mate, Cinnamon, and even Xmonad. I don't understand the disdain for Unity these days except for maybe the Amazon crap (which can be disabled).

anderspetersson 13y ago

All bugs has software.

Ologn 13y ago

I have been using it for about an hour on my x64 desktop. I was using Ubuntu 12.04 beforehand. The 12.04 is still on one of my disk partitions. Canonical is apparently going more in the way of pre-installed crapware. There was an Amazon icon on my Launcher, which I removed. People have also been warning the Ubuntu Dash sends your searches to Amazon, I went to System Settings -> Privacy and removed that. Haven't noticed that much. It may be a little faster, although my Ubuntu desktop usually runs faster when I reboot it, so I can't tell if it will stay this way yet. Doing horizontal resizing of windows seems a little more difficult, some setting must have changed. Firefox's plugin service seems hosed right now, maybe due to all the new Ubuntu installs. The Firefox edit window is acting a little odd as well. It has crapped out a few times in terms of display. There were no workspaces until I turned them on in settings, they seem down on workspaces - something I had without a problem since fvwm back in the mid-1990s. Hopefully there will still be workspaces in the next Ubuntu version. It seems like they've added a little more customization ability for the launcher, sizing the launcher, hiding the launcher etc. Or at least made it more obvious. It doesn't work that well but at least it's there. I noticed they changed other things...grub now just says Ubuntu on top, and has simplified options under that. I guess I'll bump into more things as I go on.

jebblue 13y ago
>> Canonical is apparently going more in the way of pre-installed crapware. There was an Amazon icon on my Launcher, which I removed. People have also been warning the Ubuntu Dash sends your searches to Amazon, I went to System Settings -> Privacy and removed that. Thanks for the tips, when we move to 14.04 LTS we will need to know them. >> There were no workspaces until I turned them on in settings, they seem down on workspaces - something I had without a problem since fvwm back in the mid-1990s. Hopefully there will still be workspaces in the next Ubuntu version. Do you mean the cool workspace switcher on the Unity Launcher panel is going to be gone? That's odd.
- takluyver 13y ago
  The workspace switcher is still available, and I don't think there are any plans to remove it. It's just disabled by default. I guess it's a mixture of saving space in the launcher and avoiding the potential confusion when new users hit the wrong button and suddenly see their windows vanish.

o0-0o 13y ago

Mmmm Debian based distros rock. That's why I run Debian

oddshocks 13y ago

Ubuntu is spyware

oddshocks 13y ago
Downvoting me doesn't change the fact that your OS sends search strings to Amazon

JeremyMorgan 13y ago

This version isn't so bad, only by comparison of the last two. I usually download and run each version for a few weeks for fun, I ran some beta builds of this one and didn't have any major problems. The Unity interface still sucks but they're making some subtle changes that make it better. I still don't like it. What worries me most about Ubuntu's rising popularity is the fact that they're trying so hard to nail the tablet market. I would like to see a good Linux distro reach the popularity Ubuntu has, but offer more flexibility and focus on the desktop. Linux Mint is making strides in this direction, and looks to be a very nice candidate for it. My prognosis is much the same as it has been for a while now: For goofing off / watching movies/ checking email - Ubuntu 13.04 will be great. For productivity I'm still using Mint, Gentoo or Ubuntu 10.04 For a server it's Gentoo all the way.