Ubuntu News Archives

Ubuntu developers are moving forward with their plans to support Click packages on the Ubuntu desktop.

A question and answer session was held today during the Ubuntu Online Summit for those interested in the Mir Display Server and next-generation Unity 8 desktop with its focus on convergence.

Improvements to Ubuntu Server for the 14.10 release were discussed this morning during the second day of the Ubuntu Online Summit.

There's some updates concerning the spin of the Unity 8 desktop for the Ubuntu 14.10 desktop from today's start of the latest Ubuntu Online Summit.

Mark Shuttleworth is hosting his keynote right now for the latest Ubuntu Online Developer Summit. Mark mostly talked about Ubuntu Phone, the forthcoming BQ phone hardware, Unity 8, OpenStack, LXC / Docker, and cloud computing in general... During the question and answer period, he was just asked about Mir driver support.

There's been much talk in the past about creating a spin/derivative of Ubuntu Linux using the MATE Desktop Environment fork of GNOME2. While no spin materialized for Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, talk of developing a new spin is again happening.

Taking place next week from 10 to 12 June is the next Ubuntu Developer Summit where plans about Ubuntu 14.10 with regard to Mir, Unity 8, Ubuntu Phone, and other topics will be discussed by developers.

Developers are formalizing the processes to get a "release to manufacturing" version of the Ubuntu Phone software out to vendors in the months ahead.

The next Ubuntu Linux release, Ubuntu 14.10 "Utopic Unicorn" will likely be powered by the 3.16 kernel.

An "emergency cleanup interface" has been added to the Mir server for trying to better recover the system in case of problems.

The Ubuntu 14.10 "Utopic Unicorn" release will most likely be shipping with the Qt 5.3 tool-kit.

After eight years of working at Canonical, Jono Bacon is stepping down as the Ubuntu Community Manager at the end of May.

There's the start of some built-in performance tests for the Mir display server.

A new Unity 8 flavor of Ubuntu Linux is being proposed for helping developers experiment with the next-generation Ubuntu stack built upon the Unity 8 desktop components, the Mir display server, and related code.

The first working image for the x86 Ubuntu Touch Emulator is now available.

The Orange Box, which isn't to be confused with Valve's video game compilation, is a 10-node cluster computer designed by Canonical and TranquilPC for showing off Ubuntu Linux.

Vixtel Unity is an Australian, corporate-focused effort to ship a tablet loaded with Ubuntu and Android to try to takeover where Canonical didn't with some of their tablet endeavors.

Canonical developers working on Mir have bumped the version of the open-source display server to version 0.2.0.

With Ubuntu devoting a majority of their resources to pushing Ubuntu on phones/tablets directly with Unity 8 and their next-generation stack, Ubuntu For Android has taken a back-seat and is being put into cold storage -- at least until they have any hardware launch partners.

The release date for Ubuntu 14.10 has now been firmed up as are the other development milestones leading up to the mid-October debut of this post-LTS release.

Now that Mark Shuttleworth has announced Ubuntu 14.10 as the Utopic Unicorn, the next version of Ubuntu Linux is officially under development.

Mark Shuttleworth has finally revealed the Ubuntu 14.10 codename and other details about this next Ubuntu Linux release.

The official release announcement has finally been sent out for today's release of the Ubuntu 14.04 "Trusty Tahr" Long Term Support release.

To complement the just-published Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS, 13.10, and 14.04 LTS desktop benchmarks are results when running a variety of workstation and server oriented benchmarks.

Today Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is being released and you might be tempted to try out Mir with their Unity 8 mobile/converged UI...

Much of our talk about Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on Phoronix is in regards to the default Unity-based desktop given that it takes the largest share of *buntu users, but for the Xubuntu 14.04 LTS release this week there's several interesting changes for this Xfce spin worth noting.

With Ubuntu 14.04 LTS due to be shipped this week, Canonical developers are already well at work on formulating their plans for the Ubuntu 14.10 release due out in October. Given Ubuntu's tablet/phone focus and convergence strategy, that will be the big aim of this post-LTS release.

Going back to January has been talk about Ubuntu on Chinese smart-phones and in February it was announced that Meizu is one of two Ubuntu Phone launch partners. Meizu dominates the Chinese market while the BQ Ubuntu Phone will target Europe.

A new video out of Canonical is showing off the Unity 7 desktop with an X11 session running side-by-side with a Unity 8 Mir-powered session.

Upgrading the Linux kernel and Mesa/X.Org graphics driver components past what Canonical shipped in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and other recent releases of Ubuntu Linux isn't actually that hard... Here's the Phoronix-recommended approach for Linux enthusiasts wishing to upgrade their key software components for yielding better open-source graphics driver performance and features.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is shipping the Linux 3.13 kernel by default but besides that we now know the kernel configuration that Canonical will be using for this upcoming Long Term Support release.

Canonical has announced they will be ending their Ubuntu One cloud storage service. The Ubuntu One music store is also being shutdown.

Due to Ubuntu 14.04 shipping with the Linux 3.13 kernel, a specially-crafted "i915_bdw" driver has been introduced for offering Intel Broadwell graphics support in this upcoming Ubuntu Linux release.

The Ubuntu 14.04 LTS kernel freeze is less than one week and it looks like by all indications are that the Linux 3.14 kernel will not make it for the next Ubuntu LTS release.

The final beta release is out of the upcoming Ubuntu 14.04 "Trusty Tahr" Long-Term Support release.

As of Monday afternoon the Ubuntu "Trusty Tahr" final beta freeze entered into effect.

Mir, Canonical's next-generation display server, is quickly being updated in the Ubuntu Phone world.

In my usage of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS in its late development state on my new main production system, the ASUS Zenbook UX301LA, there's three new system setting additions to Unity in this newest Long-Term Support release that I've found to be really useful and welcomed.

Canonical developer Daniel d'Andrada has posted a new video showing off Unity 8 as a Mir compositor.

Mark Shuttleworth has called for an end to ACPI (the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) and other executable firmwares that could prove to be attack vectors on PCs, phones, and other devices.

On the last day of this week's virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit, developers discussed the next steps for HiDPI support in the Linux distribution outside of their ongoing Unity improvements.

In continuation of my OS X Is No Longer On My Main System, But I Already Have Regrets article from earlier in the week, I have now found more comfort in using Unity 7 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS for the ASUS Zenbook Haswell ultrabook, but the HiDPI experience with Ubuntu's Unity is still far from perfect.

New features like HiDPI and local menus are still being tuned within the Unity 7 desktop environment ahead of next month's debut of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

The Qt-based Music App that in development for the phone/tablet versions of Ubuntu Linux that will eventually find its way to the desktop was a discussion item this morning on the final day of the virtual 14.03 Ubuntu Developer Summit.

A few months ago we wrote about NGINX slated to play a bigger role in Ubuntu 14.04 with this lightweight web server alternative to Apache HTTPD being sought after for inclusion into the "Trusty Tahr" main archive. That milestone has now been reached.

At this week's virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit besides saying Mir will be the default on the Ubuntu desktop by 16.04 LTS and also saying systemd will be used when it's hardened (again by the 16.04 LTS time-frame) Mark had some other interesting comments.

Another Virtual Ubuntu Developer Summit is taking place this week and one of the interesting sessions was with regard to a road-map for Ubuntu's new "Software Store" for Ubuntu Phones/Tablets.

Now that Ubuntu has pledged support to systemd moving forward in place of their in-house Upstart project, developers are starting to figure out the systemd migration path.

Delays keep piling up for the Mir display server on the Ubuntu desktop. After already being postponed multiple times, the Mir Display Server might not be enabled by default on the Ubuntu Linux desktop until the 16.04 LTS release -- in two years time.

While the Mir display server isn't being relied upon by the desktop in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, it is being used right now by Ubuntu Touch and Canonical developers are still working on its development in a steadfast manner for deployment in a future Ubuntu Linux release. Here's some of the latest commits to Mir.