Previously as an effort to promote Ubuntu and Free Software, Canonical has made pre-pressed CD/DVD available for LoCo team to be distributed during release party or promo events.
But starting from Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail), pre-pressed Ubuntu CD/DVD will only be made available only for LTS release (the next one will be 14.04 LTS ) from this point forward. This is in-line with Canonical policy to only concentrate on supporting Ubuntu LTS.
In the mean time, Canonical will continue to provide pre-pressed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS CD/DVD to Ubuntu LoCo until 14.04 LTS release in 2014.
Canonical has decided on reduces the official support for non-LTS Ubuntu releases to NINE(9) months starting with the upcoming Ubuntu 13.04 release
As for my personal opinion, this changes is long overdue since 18 month support time for a SIX(6)-month cycle release can be considered as long, thus it is better to invest those precious time and effort into producing newer Ubuntu release.
These changes has been voted with presence of Ubuntu Technical Board and will be effective starting with Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail onwards.
It has been known that the X86 64bit architecture outperform 32bit architecture. However, little is known whether 64-bit Ubuntu installation outperforms its 32-bit counterpart significantly as the latter is marked as recommended download from Ubuntu website.
Luckily [Phoronix] had answered these questions for us. In its latest article, [Phoronix] compares the performance between 64-bit Ubuntu installation and 32-bit Ubuntu installation on a Intel Core i5 2520 (4 cores) with 4GB RAM.
Audio File Encoding Performance (less is better)
Server Workload Performance (more is better)
The result concludes that Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit performs better on overall compared to 32-bit, especially on video/audio encoding/decoding tasks. Ubuntu 12.10 also performs better with server workloads.
My thoughts:
Although Canonical still marks Ubuntu 12.10 32-bit as the recommended download. It seems that 64-bit installation offers greater performance even without the advantage of having greater memory. Some might argue that PAE still allows 32-bit Ubuntu to access more than 4GB RAM, PAE access on 32-bit is still significantly slower when compared to 64-bit memory access. Personally, I use Ubuntu 64bit for my development machine as all of my hardware has opensource drivers.
The latest Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is going to be released in (28 April 2012), that is less than a week! The latest features of Precise Pangolin are:
1. Linux Kernel
Ubuntu 12.04 will use a kernel based on the 3.2.12 upstream Linux kernel, which include a patch that makes Linux powered laptop consumes more efficiently
2. HUD – Intelligent search feature in Ubuntu 12.04
Stands for Heads-up Display, HUD can be used to search for items in the menu bar in most applications. For example, if you are looking for a particular menu (or functionality) in GIMP, but can’t quite recall its position, you can use HUD to search it. Pictured here here is an attempt to search for ‘Blur’ filter for GIMP.
Currently HUD only works with application that supported Global menu, which means you can’t use it in LibreOffice.
3. Rhythmbox replaced Bansee as the default multimedia player
A decision came during the last Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS). This move is connected to the new community decision to remove Mono and any application that depends on it from the default installation.
Another casualty is Tomboy note-taking application and gbrainy (game) which also depends on Monoi
**personally, I find depending on Mono application could be problematic, moreover those applications aren’t taking advantage of the ‘portability’ of the .NET platforms (It can’t be used on Microsoft Windows either, not without extensive hacking). So what’s the use of including Mono application on Ubuntu, except for bloating distros?
4. Global Privacy Settings
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS features “Privacy” option in the System Settings screen. The new Privacy Menu gives users the option of turning off History recording for users activities with a click of a menu.
Users may also disable activity recording for a specific group of applications (Instant Messaging, Web browsing, Office Documents, Emails and Multimedia), note that this option *MAY* only work on application that comes with Ubuntu default-installation.
5. Ubuntu *.ISO installer will exceed CD-ROM size
CD-ROM was used as installers on computer platform since 1994, back then the 650MB storage was larger than the average hdd capacity of around 320MB-500MB. The practice of releasing CD-sized ISO have since followed Linux distro for years, well after DVD drive and DVD-writers have become common.
Starting with Ubuntu Precise Pangolin (12.04 LTS), Ubuntu *.iso sizes will not fit CD-ROM anymore. it’s ISO size is estimated to be around 750MB to 800MB. Users may burn the ISO on DVD or use utilities such as UNetBootin to create bootable USB Drive.
My Thoughts
I think Ubuntu is going strong on this release with vast improvements on the usability, especially on the aspect of the UI user-friendliness to those who are new to GNU/Linux. However, I still thinks that Unity UI (and to the extend, the Ubuntu Software Center) is VERY SLOW even when running on a modern system as it took about 10 seconds to load Ubuntu Software Center.
Frankly, I think Ubuntu and the general GNU/Linux desktop community should improve the perceived latency of its UI first in order to persuade people to use open source operating system.
The tutorial video is largely aimed for those who are new to Ubuntu. It covers topic ranging from:
Installation (Dual boot & Slideshow)
Pre-Installed Software (LibreOffice 3.3, Firefox 4, Banshee Media Player, Ubuntu One, Software Centre, Puzzle Games, and a 3D shooter)
Desktop & Unity Features (inc Compiz)
Installing Software (few apps to try)
Conclusion
The video is easy to follow and comprehensive. Moreover, its Youtube page contains Chapter Timing bookmarks, which enables user to skip to appropriate chapter without going through the video serially.
