Slashdot reports that Ubuntu 14.10, dubbed Utopic Unicorn, has been released today. 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.
Ubuntu 14.10 Released With Ambitious Name, But Small Changes
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
They keep pushing it off. Would have been nice if the gnome variant of the last gtk based Ubuntu at least shipped with the latest version.
Edited 2014-10-24 12:41 UTC
Maybe not worth their time if they are dedicated to moving away from it. Even if its just a build change that compiles cleanly, I’m sure their is a bit of qa that would have to be done after the fact.
They aren’t pushing it off but anything not x11 is going to take a few more years. At the very least, they need nvidia proprietary driver support unless they are willing to wait another decade for nouveau.
There are technical details behind those things.
But yes, they should have included the latest Gnome.
The distribution I use immediately updated to latest Gnome. There are no reasons to keep users on older and possibly more buggy/less secure versions of software.
This makes me sad, since Ubuntu’s initial goal was 6 month release snapshots of Debian with latest Gnome.
That’s the reason why I was excited about it when it first started (yes, I had used those very first pre-releases of it and was impressed) as soon as they decided they were just going to do a full fork of Debian, I pretty much just moved back to Debian.
In related news, Kubuntu 14.10 has been released, and it comes in two flavours, the stable Plasma 4 running the desktop we know, and a tech preview of the next generation Plasma 5 for early adopters.
Of course, it also includes a newer kernel, LibreOffice, Firefox, Xorg, Qt, etc.
There’s more in http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kubuntu-14.10
Edited 2014-10-24 14:33 UTC
Yeah, that’s more like it. Plasma 5. That’s gonna hurt.
(Yes, I’ve tried it. It’s not ready.)
I am running Ubuntu 14.10 and it is virtually idential to 14.04, though Unity appears to be more stable/smoother. Apps have a slightly higher version number, but I don’t know if I could tell the difference between a 14.04 installation and one of 14.10 without peeking at the version numbers. I think this is a good sign since Ubuntu seems to be pretty stable and easy to use these days.
Side note: Miri with Unity 8 is scheduled to appear a year from now in 15.10. That’s probably when things will start changing and get interesting for reviewers again.
I only update on LTS releases… otherwise, I’d be spending all my time updating rather than programming.
JFL65,
I completely understand this point of view, and if it works for you then great. However sometimes I grind my teeth when I find bundled packages are to old to support features that I specifically need/want. The latest example of this for me is bundled versions of nginx that don’t support “fastcgi_buffering on | off;”. This is needed to push data from the server to the client without the overhead of closing the entire socket for each message. Nginx mainline fixed this limitation in 1.5.6 in october of 2013, and yet mint/ubuntu are only up to 1.4.4.
Yea, I’d rather be programming too! Yet sometimes it is actually *more work* to use an LTS distro and “sideload” updates to it than it would be just to use an up to date distro with a “hands off” approach. (Of course this assumes updates don’t break anything)
Edited 2014-10-24 22:11 UTC
This will change after 16.04’s released or at least if Unity 8 will be the default desktop of the next LTS.
From Michael Hall’s blog:
http://mhall119.com/2014/10/unity-8-desktop/
allanregistos,
Very informative!
As it happens I’ve migrated to rolling releases, which are a completely different ball game. However if they do decouple the apps from the core OS I’ll admit it negates much of the motivation I had to switch. Thanks for mentioning it, that’s an interesting development.
But I am a Linux user. However I find it strange to comment on the default wallpaper not being changed from the last version, but isn’t that one of the top 3 things you change as soon as it’s installed? It’s all personal preference though.
If they changed wallpaper that night be den as some as creating a new distro.
Seems these days that’s all you need to so to have your own distro… Change wallpaper and theme….
</rant>
I’ve given up on Ubuntu. IMHO it peaked at 8.04 and has gone backwards since. Adding new features has become more important than stability and consistency.
You need to try or track the development of Ubuntu touch. Since a development on the phone will eventually land on the desktop. Ubuntu is the only game we have for a completely free Linux desktop. Yes there are other distros, mint,mandriva,mageia, but as of this time it is not realistic for them to get traction, with Canonical’s vision, in my view Ubuntu is the only hope for mass consumption.
Read the post I posted above, Unity 8 is actually amazing for both developers and users, it offers the benefit of a rolling release. We need to support Ubuntu phone once released.
Edited 2014-10-25 05:29 UTC
The poster (unclefester) does not need to do anything of the sort. ONLY if he is interested in touch would he be the slightest bit interested in touch or the Phone U/I.
YOU might be but that does not mean wveryone it.
I’m like unclefester in that I gave up on Ubuntu. for me 10.10 was the last release I used in anger.
I went back to the RH camp and settled on CentOS 6. It works for how I want to use Linux. Choice man, that is what it is all about.
Great minds think alike
. Two weeks I downloaded and installed Centos 6 in a virtual machine. It may not be the most up to date or prettiest distro but it felt like it was carved out of a block of pure Unobtanium by a bunch of perfectionist Swiss gnomes. You could install it on Grandma’s desktop and know that it will probably be chugging along perfectly long after she departs this world.
I gave up on Ubuntu long ago as well. I have personally seen on multiple occasions where it pulls a ‘Windows’ and just randomly wouldn’t boot.
I had installed it on a friend’s laptop, and it literally ate the partitions one day. So badly that I thought the drive was failing. After I wiped it, put on Debian Wheezy, it’s been running like a champ since.
I personally use Debian Testing. It takes a bit more tweaking than Ubuntu does, but then it’s pretty rock solid, and has newer software (in fact I just checked and verified that Debian Jessie has nginx version 1.6.2. Guess Ubuntu slacked off on getting the latest from Debian?)
CentOS 7 is looking mighty fine though for a workstation, my only complaint against the CentOS/RHEL setups is that it seems there aren’t enough easy to install packages as Debian has. But that’s just because I’m lazy, they both have their pros and cons. For example, if I wanted to set up a server that I knew would never need new versions of software and I wanted it to run for 20 years, I’d choose a RHEL based distro, if I wanted to have more features every few years, but have it be a rock solid base that I can use for anything I want to throw at it, I’d use Debian.
If I want to throw up a VM to test crap against and see if I can break it, Ubuntu
If you read my first post in this thread, first, the biggest point I would like you to know is that the application updates. I’ve been using CentOS in servers. It is also good for a desktop, it will work, we can get the latest Firefox or google chrome to be installed on it. But that’s the end of it, the software in CentOS at the repositories will get out of date in a few years you use it, so it is only good as a desktop when RHEL/CentOS was recently released, but later on the applications on the repos will become outdated, this can be a drawback for a developer and end user that wanted the latest application or libraries installed. I’ve heard that Redhat was working on a development tool that will solve this problem for developers, but I think Ubuntu’s Unity 8 is more perfect for both users and developers.
Second, there is no candidate distro out there to at least minimize the monopoly of Microsoft’s desktop except for Ubuntu. Third, I will never install CentOS as a desktop for nongeek people, CentOS was not designed that way, the best candidates are Ubuntu, Mint, Mandriva or Kubuntu, but I would prefer Ubuntu all the time, this is not a matter of choice, but a preference according to my experience.
There are vastly more Linux users than developers. Most users just want to browse the web, watch some videos and do some basic word processing. Even a five year old distro will do that perfectly adequately.
I agree.
But also they want the latest applications in the desktop to which Unity 8 will provide. Developers update their application, users then receive those updated apps, in the current scenario, you have to wait for the next major release for you to get the updated app in the repo.
I agree that Ubuntu 8.x was a high point! They went strangeville with the new GUI while all the top distros have improved.
Seems like a bizarre statement, Ubuntu has barely added a feature in the last few / many releases. Canonical has simply been working stability and consistency, with Ubuntu and Unity for ages. If you wanted to argue Ubuntu adds so few new features that it is now boring that would make sense.
Ubuntu is now a solid, consistent, if slightly boring desktop. If you don’t like Unity, I get it, but say it like it is.
Ok. Unity is an abomination. Xubuntu is quite good. Mint is better.
Happy now?
Yep – I think your wrong – actually, I think I might be wrong too, I really didn’t like Gnome shell, too different, too unfamiliar but I think it might be quite good, maybe its about time I tried again. Then again I like Unity why change, I’ve got a launcher with the apps I use, a terminal and good search tool, do I need more?
Tried Mint its quite good but I don’t like it. I guess we disagree.
Those who bash Ubuntu because of Unity is in my opinion, short sighted. We are dealing with Canonical’s vision here, why Unity shell was invented it is because of their convergence vision. We cannot compare Unity with other desktop alternatives, because those desktop alternatives DO NOT SHARE with Canonical’s vision and DO NOT NEED TO invent a shell like Unity. It makes perfect to use LXDE or any other light desktops, because you are contended with their visions. But Canonical’s vision is different and we have to take it into CONSIDERATION before we can bash Unity.
That makes no sense. Basically, you’re saying that if the group behind something has a different vision than some other group then their projects cannot be compared, even if they fill the same role. That’s idiotic.
Okay, let us install XFCE as our next interface in Ubuntu touch. Oh, let us use GNOME instead for it support touch. Oh wait, no, okay. So, this is idiotic. So let us create our own stuff instead for us to have a full control on the project. Unity was born. Common sense. You preferred the idiotic latter.
Edited 2014-10-28 05:34 UTC
I’ve been running 14.10-beta2 for the past month. Like others have mentioned, no big noticeable changes. You could have told me it was 14.04 and I would have believed it.
Most importantly, systemd has not yet infected Ubuntu. I will state clearly so there is no doubt – I am in the anti-systemd camp. I’m willing to stick with Ubuntu for now as long as Upstart is the default init system. But every time I update, I check to make sure that systemd hasn’t sneaked in under the wire.
For anyone who would like to know how to do that, try this command:
cat /proc/1/comm
Right now, the output it gives says “init.” The day it says “systemd” will be the day I’m out of here.
Edited 2014-10-26 13:14 UTC
Drama-queen much? What, in actual practice, would the difference be to you?
Am I wrong to say that 14.04 and 14.10 were using systemd?
I do not know about 14.04, but I have 14.10 installed and it does use systemd. I, frankly, haven’t noticed any difference compared to the old init, but then again, I haven’t cared enough to try to look for differences, either.
Exactly how does the existence of systemd affect you?
Will you actually notice any difference apart from the syntax you use to start/stop/enable/disable system services?
You system will run at the same speed and efficiency.
Actually it should run better since there are Linux kernel features that sysvinit never used but systemd does.
Linux kernel is ****ing amazing. Why not embrace new technologies that make use of it?
Or maybe I should buy a Ferrari, never drive it, and only use it to hold my coffee cup when I am standing in the garage.
In addition, systemd has many nice things such as socket activation. For example, cupsd auto starts when needed, etc… so many nice things.
Edited 2014-10-27 09:58 UTC
This_is_getting_boring()
{
I used to update my computers with the last kernels, OS updates, distributions, packages, you name them; but doing it is getting more and more boring every day and after every change, I am just getting a new background, some silly icon changes, some bug fixes (most of them not critical at all) and… that is it.
If that is not the case, the other scenario occurs when the distribution I used to love decides to change completely its desktop environment and I have to choose: Or accept blindly what they decided is the best for me, or I do stop getting upgraded or I do look for a forked distro (OS, app, distro, etc.).
I wait 6 months and…
This_is_getting_boring();
}
//Notice this will overflow some day
Edited 2014-10-27 13:00 UTC
ebasconp,
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, It depends on your reason for using computers. Some people prefer for things to stabilize and do not benefit from a never ending barrage of changes.
I do get where you are coming from though. I remember getting a rush when I got to try something new, be it a game, an os, and even programming languages, etc, it’s rarely like this any more. I kind of miss the feeling, but the more experience you get, the less the “wow” factor kicks in.
May your day be filled with surprises:
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?TailRecursion
Edited 2014-10-27 15:26 UTC
My main System76 desktop will stay on 14.04 for a long time. It is the go to computer. My older Acer laptop has Xubuntu 14.10 because Xfce just rocks and I love it, and my Thinkpad T400 is running Ubuntu 14.10 and I love it. It runs well, stable, and really smooth. I think Canonical has done a good job, even though the changes are not upfront, they under the hood changes make this a very good release.
We have had many headaches with 14.04 and the accelerated nvidia drivers. That they let an LTS release as half baked as this latest one out into the wild was a bit of a red flag IMO.
Never mind, apparently the foobar’d side in this equation was nvidia’s code.