Ubuntu 12.04LTS released

[notfred]

Precise Pangolin is out.

[bthylafh]

To get the good old GNOME 2-style environment MATE, do this:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://packages.mate-desktop.org/repo/ubuntu precise main"
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mate-archive-keyring
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment

edit: my splines have been reticulated.

[axeman]

yay for Mate. I hope Mate is able to maintain the codebase and make it integrate well with other applications. The biggest problem I have, which is more from a look/feel perspective, is that many applications being used by Mate, or XCFE (or any other GTK+2) desktop have been upgraded to GTK3+ (the network manager applet is one, there are some others). There are exactly 2 themes in the universe for GTK3 applications, and changing the visual settings in XFCE or Mate(Gnome2) throws the whole thing out of whack, since GTK2 themes don't affect GTK3 applications. Grrr.

[End User]

Running 12.04 in a VM here at work. Looks good. Unity is has come a long way. Can't wait to get home and install it.

[moresmarterthanspock]

I've used Cinnamon in Mint 12, and it seems pretty stable, snappy, and a good replacement for Gnome 2. Gnome 3 isn't bad either IMO, but Cinnamon seems more Gnome 2-ish.

[axeman]

My problem with both Gnome 3 and Unity is the requirement for accelerated 3d. Unity doesn't work the same in 2D mode (some features are lacking), and Gnome 3 reverts to fallback. On top of that, I find Gnome3 sluggish and unstable on a system that doesn't have any trouble with Compiz, so I'm not sure what's wrong here. I'm not impressed, a Linux desktop shouldn't run like crap on a System that has no trouble with Windows 7 and Aero.

[bthylafh]

I'm giving serious thought to doing a wipe-and-reinstall in hopes that it will un-fark my sound system. Some programs will not play sounds and I haven't yet divined why, but it might have been caused by rampant "remove this and add that" over the past couple years.

Thing is, if I'm taking that step anyway should I abandon Ubuntu and move to Mint? I really despise Unity even in 12.04 and KDE (also installed) doesn't really do it for me.

[End User]

Thing is, if I'm taking that step anyway should I abandon Ubuntu and move to Mint?

Only you can answer that question. I'd go with VirtualBox and give Mint a whirl. If you don't like Mint then delete the VM and try another distro.

[BobbinThreadbare]

Ok, so on my mom's laptop I put Ubuntu on there back in 2010. So she's running 10.04. Is there a way to upgrade directly from one LTS to another or do I have to go through the 4 versions in order?

[End User]

Ok, so on my mom's laptop I put Ubuntu on there back in 2010. So she's running 10.04. Is there a way to upgrade directly from one LTS to another or do I have to go through the 4 versions in order?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PreciseUpgrades

[BobbinThreadbare]

Ok, so on my mom's laptop I put Ubuntu on there back in 2010. So she's running 10.04. Is there a way to upgrade directly from one LTS to another or do I have to go through the 4 versions in order?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PreciseUpgrades

Cool, thanks.

[just brew it!]

Great timing. I'm finally (as of last night) done with the homebrew competition "busy season" (I was on the organizing committees for two 700+ entry events), so maybe I'll even have a little time to take a look at this release.

[moresmarterthanspock]

Just had a "DOH!" moment. Downloaded and installed12.04, went to boot, and it just froze at a blinking cursor. Couldn't figure it out. Decided to reinstall again, and I noticed that it wanted to put the bootloader on my second hard drive instead of the first. Both hard drives are identical, 300 GB, same brand, same model. I always partition sda as 255GB dedicated to / and 4 GB as swap. sbd I always make the whole thing the /home partition.

[moresmarterthanspock]

Ugh! Nope, I'm switching back to Mint. Ubuntu's Unity just rubs me wrong in so many ways. First of all, they removed the feature that automatically hides the launcher panel when you maximize a window. That is the biggest pet-peeve I have, and it's big enough that I'm reinstalling Linux Mint 12. I honestly don't see any useful new features in Ubuntu 12.04. The sound control panel is weird, and they removed the hide-panel on maximize feature.(somebody should file this as a bug in the bug report, because it bugs a lot of people) And this last comment is probably because I'm already in a dissappointed mood, I don't like the color purple, or orange either. lol.

[bthylafh]

When I install MATE, the good old brown Human theme is the second thing that gets installed.

[Washer]

Mint v Ubuntu: I prefer Mint in pretty much all ways except for some reason it doesn't provide the same battery life as Ubuntu 12.04 on my HP dm1. I've updated the Mint 12 kernel to the same release as Ubuntu 12.04 and while that fixed the issue I had with my laptop's LED mute indicator, Ubuntu still manages to last roughly an hour longer. I've tried to track down any other differences but Powertop reports similar power usage levels and identical configurations.

Unity v GNOME3 v Mate v Cinnamon: Out of the four I believe GNOME3 is the least friendly, especially in the default configuration, with the extensions Mint provides it is better but still not enjoyable. By default it is an absolute nightmare if you're switching between multiple windows. Similarly Unity can also be a pain switching between windows, especially those of the same application. Mate is fine and classic, I have no real issues with it, I just simply prefer Cinnamon. Cinnamon would be excellent if it were more stable and I'm a bit confused why the developers didn't use the same menu panel design as Mate (the Mint Menu before all this DE mess started) and instead replaced it with a less functional version. It's not a big deal I just don't understand the decision.

Overall I'm not completely happy with the desktop environment situation in Linux. I have high hopes for Cinnamon though and I think they'll nail it at some point in the near future.

EDIT: Wanted to ask, those who are using Mint: Are you using the "standard" release or LMDE?

[codedivine]

Unity v GNOME3 v Mate v Cinnamon

Dude you didnt mention KDE. Give it a try if you havent before?

[Washer]

Dude you didnt mention KDE. Give it a try if you havent before?

You're right, I need to give it a more thorough look. In about a week I'll have a lot more free time, I'll use some of that to check it out.

[ShadowEyez]

I tried Ubuntu a few times and it just felt strange and bloated. I have a older latop where I run Debian 6 with xfce on a custom kernel - this is a 7 year old machine, the only upgrade being an SSD, and it can still boot in around 20 seconds and do most surfing and other office like tasks.

[wibeasley]

I'm happy that some little features are supported automatically installing in Hyper-V (like mouse support). It reduces the number of times I have to spend 40 seconds starting PuTTY & TightVNC. The keyboard shortcuts in GNOME 2 mapped easily in my head. I had a harder time being mouseless with Unity.

[just brew it!]

Dude you didnt mention KDE. Give it a try if you havent before?

You're right, I need to give it a more thorough look. In about a week I'll have a lot more free time, I'll use some of that to check it out.

The main problem with KDE is that it is stupendously bloated. I'm going to give it a try on 12.04 anyway though; hey RAM is cheap! But I suspect I may eventually end up on XFCE...

[codedivine]

The main problem with KDE is that it is stupendously bloated. I'm going to give it a try on 12.04 anyway though; hey RAM is cheap! But I suspect I may eventually end up on XFCE...

Yes well admittedly all my machines have at least 2GB of RAM these days, so I cant speak for lower memory requirements, but on modern machines it works fine. And more importantly, it works. And doesnt get in the way of getting things done.
Anyway, here is a recent blog post from a developer about tips for reducing memory usage (he is using KDE on a netbook): http://shaforostoff.blogspot.ca/2012/04 ... emory.html
I have not tried these myself, but thought the post might be useful to some.

[just brew it!]

I plan to give it a spin this weekend. I started building up a local mirror of the repository at work a few days prior to the official release, and will take a copy of that home on an external hard drive today. Local mirror FTW!

[Flatland_Spider]

By default it is an absolute nightmare if you're switching between multiple windows. Mate is fine and classic.

Overall I'm not completely happy with the desktop environment situation in Linux. I have high hopes for Cinnamon though and I think they'll nail it at some point in the near future.

EDIT: Wanted to ask, those who are using Mint: Are you using the "standard" release or LMDE?

GNOME3 has annoyed with with it's task switching too. I do like keyboard shortcuts, but task switching is horrible. Alt+Tab then down to switch between application windows; who thought that was a good idea? Then there is the virtual desktop situation...

You should try Xfce then. I've been using Xfce for a long time, and I've always been satisfied with it.

I've never understood why people are so high on GNOME. It's never been good, and I always get a sand in the underwear feeling when I use it.

When I ran Mint for a couple of months, I used the LMDE. I was getting tired of 6 month release cycles, and I was curious about Debian after being in the RedHat ecosystem for a long time.

@codedivine
KDE leans heavily on the video drivers. If the video drivers aren't working well, you're experience will suffer.

[just brew it!]

KDE leans heavily on the video drivers. If the video drivers aren't working well, you're experience will suffer.

Yeah, KDE has issues with VirtualBox's OpenGL acceleration (or is it that VirtualBox has issues with KDE? ) too...

[CampinCarl]

So, I tried installing 12.04 in VMWare Player...no dice. Won't install VM Tools properly, stuck with CL only. Anyone running into this issue as well? FWIW I just installed 10.04 in VMWare Player no problem.

[bthylafh]

I haven't had that problem, but be aware that VMware doesn't have an OpenGL video driver for Linux yet. If you want 3D accel at the moment, you're stuck with Virtualbox.

[BerserkBen]

12.04 is not recognizing my bluetooth adapter. It's a cheap little $1 adapter but was recognized automatically in older versions, very annoying because I like to use my bluetooth mouse with my laptop.

[Madman]

I would be overjoyed if not for the fact that they have fubared the desktop with that lame piece of smoking $^%#%^@ that's Unity.

Why the hell everyone is ruining user interfaces?!! Ribbon, Win8, Unity?!!?!

Oh, they're scared of Apple! Riiight! They should be, because after this paranoid f-up in every UI department possible, the Apple products will be the only ones with GOOD and USABLE UI! But well, as they say, if you see a serious competition, start screwing things up, that really helps!

[notfred]

I started building up a local mirror of the repository at work a few days prior to the official release, and will take a copy of that home on an external hard drive today. Local mirror FTW!

I upgraded last night. My server runs apt-mirror each night to sync with one of the other mirrors and so I get main, restricted and universe from the server - I don't bother mirroring multiverse. It took 1 minute to download the first 1670 packages from my local mirror and then 4 minutes to get the last 16 multiverse ones across the Internet. Even on my core i7 920 with 6GB of RAM and a Vertex 2 SSD, installation is far longer than download.

I want to run with it for a little while before I decide if they've made enough changes to Unity to make it usable.