sign in sign up
<<
Home , Mir (software), Ubuntu Kylin, Unity (user interface)

REVIEWS 14.10

Ubuntu Utopic Unicorn (aka 14.10) Long-term Ben Everard discovers whether Deckard was a replicant.

he biggest news about the Utopic Unicorn DATA isn’t what’s included in it, but what isn’t. (a display server) and Systemd (an init system Web T www.ubuntu.com – see page 86 for much more) are both coming to Developer Ubuntu, and they’ll both have a profound effect on how it works. However, they’re both going to arrive in Price the release after this (15.04, aka Vivid Vervet). Without Free under various these, Utopic Unicorn is a boring release in many licences ways. Without Mir, there’s no 8, so the hasn’t changed significantly from 14.04 (though it does work better on High DPI displays) In fact, as far as desktop users are concerned, the biggest changes are the inclusion of the latest packages. Unity will still include online results in searches in the 3.16 The kernel upgrade brings some Dash – a move that angers many privacy campaigners. performance improvements. Firefox 33 Brings some significant performance improvements to web browsing. a big problem, but if both Systemd and Mir arrive LibreOffice 4.3 This has improved DOCX support on schedule, they’ll both be coming in 15.04. This Other than this, the updated versions of Libnss means that by choosing to install 14.10, you are means that Netflix will now work out of the box with effectively choosing to switch to Systemd and Mir in Chrome. Unlike the previous release (Trusty Tahir a few months’ time. Even if you like the idea of these aka 14.04), Utopic is not an LTS (Long Term Support) technologies, the first version of a distro containing release. This them is likely to have a few problems. Unless you’re means that it will prepared to endure these problems, a more prudent “Anyone wanting to develop on only be supported approach would be to install 14.04, which will be cloud services may find that for nine months. supported until April 2019. Since releases Utopic is the best distro for them.” come out every Developers developers developers! six months, this There is, really, only one significant release from means that users either have to upgrade every time, Canonical in 14.10, and that’s the Ubuntu Developer use an unsupported system or switch to another Tools Centre (UDTC). The idea behind this tool is that it distro altogether. Usually, upgrading each time isn’t will enable developers to quickly set up common development environments. The first environment is Flavours for Android development including the various tools from Google. It’s not hard to set these up, but there are Of course, Ubuntu isn’t just about the Plasma 5 and experience the future. a few bits that need to be downloaded, and default version with the Unity desktop: there Not much has changed in , dependencies installed. UDTC acts like a sort of are seven official flavours of Ubuntu with but Xubuntu users can upgrade to take that enables you download different desktop environments. Canonical advantage of the latest packages. hasn’t released any information about how LXDE only gets some bugfixes everything and set it up in one go. popular they are, so we’ve ordered them by this version, as most of the development is This is useful – it slightly reduces the amount of the number of people seeding the ISO on going into LXQt. This is another distro with work that a small minority of people will have to do BitTorrent. a big change coming up. after installing Ubuntu – but it’s not really a killer Ubuntu Gnome The newest official flavour Ubuntu The Chinese version of feature. After all, not many people will even need it. of Ubuntu has proved to be very popular, Ubuntu comes with a more tweaks than and shows that many Ubuntu users would just the language. For example, WPS Office We can certainly see it becoming more useful over like to stick with the distro’s roots. ships as the office suite because it’s more time. For example, if it becomes easy to define the Unfortunately, the release schedules of popular than LibreOffice in China. environments that get installed, you could create Ubuntu and Gnome just fell out of sync, so As well as the usual raft of custom ones for particular projects so the whole team 14.10 ships with Gnome 3.12 instead of changes, the new kernel brings ALSA can easily stay updated, and new members could the slightly newer 3.14. support for firewire devices. KDE is also in for a big upgrade This hasn’t released a 14.10 instantly get everything they need. However UDTC is soon. By default, Kubuntu still ships with version as there weren’t enough changes still some way off this ideal. Plasma 4, but intrepid users can switch to to make the non-LTS release worthwhile. If you’re using Ubuntu 14.04 and like the sound of the UDTC, you don’t need to upgrade your whole

48 www.linuxvoice.com