
Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark released - MidnightRaver
http://releases.ubuntu.com/17.10/
======
ausjke
32-bit installer images are no longer provided for Ubuntu Desktop.

The Ubuntu Desktop now uses GNOME instead of Unity.

On supported systems, Wayland is now the default display server. The older
display server is still available: just choose Ubuntu on Xorg from the cog on
the log in screen.

GDM has replaced LightDM as the default display manager.

The login screen now uses virtual terminal 1 instead of virtual terminal 7.

Window control buttons are back on the right for the first time since 2010.

Python 2 is no longer installed by default. Python 3 has been updated to 3.6.

The Ubuntu GNOME flavor has been discontinued. If you are using Ubuntu GNOME,
you will be upgraded to Ubuntu. Choose the Ubuntu session from the cog on the
login screen if you would like the default Ubuntu experience.

Additionally, there are quite a few "Known issues" for Desktop that made me
dare not to upgrade. I will stay with 16.04 and wait for 18.04 then.

~~~
oblio
> Python 2 is no longer installed by default. Python 3 has been updated to
> 3.6.

And so it begins. I think/hope that the next RHEL will do the same thing, at
which point the final nail will be in Py2's coffin.

~~~
cisanti
Fabric is still not supporting py3, it's important tool for a lot of admins.

~~~
broodbucket
Plenty of things don't have python 3 support, but you can still use python2
without it being /usr/bin/python.

~~~
detaro
I doubt very much Ubuntu has made python3 /usr/bin/python, since the official
recommendation of the Python project is to not do that.

Still true of course that it doesn't have to be installed by default even if
some applications still need it.

~~~
bobajeff
> I doubt very much Ubuntu has made python3 /usr/bin/python, since the
> official recommendation of the Python project is to not do that.

Tell that to Arch. :(

~~~
detaro
I know. If I remember right, Arch did it before the Python project published
any official guidance/Arch triggered one being released.

------
vmp
> ifupdown has been deprecated in favor of netplan and is no longer present on
> new installs [...]

> Given that ifupdown is no longer installed by default, its commands will not
> be present: ifup and ifdown are thus unavailable, replaced by ip link set
> $device up and ip link set $device down.

Sad to see this go; I always use ifup, ifdown and ifconfig. Yes, they're old
and clunky tools but in a way they are the staple of a proper Linux
installation to me.

Not to mention that it's quite a handful to write out "ip link set $device
up".

~~~
revelation
This is just such a shambles.

Great idea number 1: let's put all the functionality into _one_ command line
tool, and we'call it _ip_ for ... "internet protocol"? Why is this _ip_ tool
managing my ethernet network card?

Great idea number 2: for this powerful swiss army knife, only a special syntax
will do where we repeat the name of an argument before the argument value. To
make sure no one can use it's functionality with less than 5 invocations,
we'll have a hierarchical help menu that literally outputs BNF.

~~~
rmu09
This tool is hardly new, I think it was introduced back in the nineties.
[http://linux-ip.net/gl/ip-cref/](http://linux-ip.net/gl/ip-cref/) says April
14, 1999.

~~~
dijit
I think it's not a good thing to mention age as if that matters much.

Would you argue that gpg is old and therefore good software?

I would argue instead that iproute2 was not picked up quickly because it's
clunky and hard to reason about. openBSD managed to improve ifconfig enough
that a change was not needed. I applaud that to be honest.

~~~
digi_owl
Sadly too much of IT is run on childish bravado these days.

End result is that anything older than the person talking is stale and clunky
code best replaced by something written in the latest bling language that
"everyone" raves about...

------
roenxi
Pay attention to the 2nd dot point under known issues. This release uses
Wayland, and that has profound implications for screenshot, streaming and
remote desktop-ing.

The Wayland protocol apparently made some bold decisions to enforce security
through isolation, and apart from the compositor it is all but impossible for
anything to sneak a peak at what other programs are doing visually. It'll be
interesting to see if that causes users a problem.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
Not to mention HiDPI problems and serious issues with the proprietary nvidia
driver. The situation is improving all the time though and hopefully this
should mark the beginning of some good times for Wayland. More choice is
always a good thing.

Of course, the option is right there on the login screen to start an X session
instead, if Wayland doesn't work for you.

~~~
madez
I recommend everybody intending to run Linux to avoid nvidia GPUs. The
experience with amd and intel GPUs is vastly superior.

~~~
rootbear
I use nothing but Nvidia on Linux. Their performance and stability is greatly
superior to AMD on high-end 3D applications such as Maya. I'll admit, I have
not revisited AMD cards in a while, so perhaps I'm out of touch with the
current generation. I also do not consider the open source nouveau driver to
be acceptable. I've had too many problems with it in 3D apps.

~~~
danieldk
But their proprietary driver is lagging behind a lot of the ecosystem. E.g.
until recently their driver did not work with Wayland/mutter because NVIDIA
was pushing their own device memory allocator (via the EGLStreams API). It
seems that it now finally works, but is very slow.

In contrast, AMD is actively contributing to the open source amdgpu driver.

~~~
plus
>until recently their driver did not work with Wayland/mutter because NVIDIA
was pushing their own device memory allocator (via the EGLStreams API). It
seems that it now finally works, but is very slow.

Can you give a source for this? I'd be very much interested in trying out
Plasma on Wayland on NVIDIA, but I can't find any information about NVIDIA
implementing GBM.

------
marcoperaza
Wow, they've abandoned Unity, LightDM, and Mir (for desktop at least) in favor
of Gnome, GDM, and Wayland. They must have poured unspeakable man-years of
engineering into those projects, and have now abandoned them in favor of what
everyone else was doing all along.

Does anyone know to what extent these were pure engineering decisions vs. a
scaling back of ambitions (and budget?) for the Ubuntu project as a whole?

~~~
josteink
Canonical mostly did those projects to assist/enable Ubuntu Phone, in ways the
wider Gnome/Opendesktop/Wayland community had little interest in supporting.

With Ubuntu Phone officially dead, Canonical literally had nothing to gain by
working outside the community, and had no good arguments for why they should
keep on doing their own thing in these aspects.

It must have been a tough decision to make, but I'm sure it was the right one.
It was widely applauded from the rest of the Linux-community.

------
pizza234
A few notes:

    
    
      - this is the first release supporting Surface devices out of the box (due the recent `linux-firmware` package)
      - people using PPA may have some troubles, since without tweaking, PPAs with obsolete keys are rejected
      - ack grep is not included (yet?), due to build issues with perl

~~~
bostand
The surface support sounds interesting. Has anyone here tried that?

~~~
pizza234
I'm a longtime Surface user; you don't really need 17.04 though - all you need
on older Ubuntu version is to install a more recent mainline kernel, and
install the artful version of the `linux-firmware` package (in such
conditions, the installation process will require an external keyboard and the
pre-downloaded package).

Arguably, a Surface device can work well as double device:

    
    
      - windows as tablet
      - linux for work, with minimalist hardware usage (no hw button, no pen, the SP4/SB have no camera support)
    

The Linux Surface community is mostly made of script kiddies, so it's very
unreliable (there are a variety of reasons for this judgment).

My personal favourite options for this mixed use are:

    
    
      - Surface Pro 3: better compatibility, and cheaper
      - Surface Book i5: fantastic tablet
    

SB laptops above the i5 are expensive, and it's a waste of money for a laptop
that is not completely supported (if I have to spend 2000$ on something, I
expect sleep to work).

------
roryrjb
Obviously this is significant because this is the first release with Gnome 3
instead of Unity. I actually liked Unity a lot but also like Gnome 3, what are
people's thoughts?

~~~
sz4kerto
No proper hidpi support. Gnome3 doesn't support fractional scaling, so if you
need smtg like 125% scaling, then you're out of luck. (Example: 4k 32"
displays need this.)

~~~
yxhuvud
Ouch. This can be a dealbreaker for me.

~~~
pritambaral
FWIW, KDE 5 has supported fractional scaling since ... as far back as I can
remember.

------
basemi
Release notes:

    
    
      https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes

~~~
mcjiggerlog
Actual link -
[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ArtfulAardvark/ReleaseNotes)

------
gigatexal
Unrelated but how does one forward apps over SSH with Wayland?

~~~
josteink
I'm going to guess over X11 with Xwayland. Or does anyone else have any better
solution?

~~~
majewsky
That only shows you X11 windows. Xwayland has no idea about the content of
native Wayland windows (i.e. at least all applications that use Qt5 or GTK3).
The most likely solution IMO is a VNC server.

------
gigatexal
Hmm I really liked ifconfig I hate seeing it gone.

~~~
jmkni
What do we use instead?

~~~
bchar
`ip addr`

------
lonk
The time, labor and money spent for unity in the end went to waste.

~~~
jstanley
It almost certainly influenced Gnome, so it might not all be wasted.

~~~
cisanti
But what is the reason they still don't have proper window list / dock? Do
many people use third party solutions like dock to Taskbar etc that clearly
mimic Ubuntu.

~~~
jdlyga
ego

------
jdlyga
First Ubuntu to work out of the box on the 2013 (trashcan) Mac Pro I use at
work. I'm seriously impressed!

------
jejones3141
I read that Canonical didn't like having to fiddle with lightdm to make it
work and play well with GNOME shell, and thus Ubuntu 17.10 comes with gdm3. My
upgrade went south, so I installed Kubuntu. It's using sddm, which I
understand is the successor to kdm. Now I find that Gnome under X just hangs.
Does GNOME shell require either gdm or something hacked as Canonical did
lightdm to work?

~~~
jbicha
Make sure that gir1.2-gdm-1.0 is installed. I think the dependency was
accidentally dropped.

~~~
jejones3141
That did the trick; thank you!

~~~
jbicha
There will be an update for that soon. (Ubuntu non-security updates are
normally in -proposed for at least 7 days first.)

[https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-
shell/3.26.1-0ubu...](https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-
shell/3.26.1-0ubuntu5)

------
jimzvz
Really sad that they were bullied into getting rid of unity. No global menu in
gnome is a joke. Feels like going back in time.

~~~
rainbowmverse
Can you expand on how they were bullied? It looks like it just wasn't as well-
received as Canonical hoped and no longer fit their goals anyway.

------
Tepix
Congratulations on the release.

It's too bad that gnupg 2.2 didn't make the cut, at least it will be in the
upcoming LTS release.

------
throw2016
Too much noise to signal on this thread. Too many people promoting both Fedora
and Wayland with cookie cutter statements about 'improvement' with no
supporting points. Readers can see it for themselves. This reduces the value
of HN.

------
jasonkostempski
Thought they were gonna go with Aaronic Aardvark and then just stop updating
because there are no words starting with "Bb".

~~~
geofft
Just you wait for Ubuntu 18.04 BBS BBL, which is fantastic for running dial-up
services that are frequently offline.

------
joaomsa
I wonder if Canonical will also release 17.10 as a Windows Store WSL app or
stick to LTS releases and wait until 18.04 for an update.

~~~
mishac
I think they'll probably stick to LTS. There's no 17.04 for WSL AFAIK, so I
doubt there'd be a 17.10.

------
city41
Has anyone tried installing a window manager or another DE? I’m curious if GDM
and Wayland might cause issues for X11 WMs.

------
0xbear
No fractional scaling => no deal, better luck next time. I can't use this on
my X1 _or_ on my 4K desktop display: everything is too large at 2x and too
small at 1x. Unity supported this near perfectly.

