
Ubuntu 12.10 Now Available - martindale
http://www.ubuntu.com/#12.10
======
vacipr
"Avoid the pain of Windows 8."

Well done Canonical..well done.

Here's a nice alternative for those having problems with the site.
<http://releases.ubuntu.com/quantal/>

~~~
georgemcbay
"Avoid the pain of Windows 8."

I've been running Windows 8 since the RTM went to MSDN. I adjusted to the
cheese-moving pain of Windows 8 within a week.

Four months into Ubuntu with Unity I eventually adjusted to the cheese-moving
pain of Unity by switching to Mint.

Ubuntu has no leg to stand on when it comes to new versions of an OS making
unwanted changes to UX.

[Before anyone chimes in here, I know you can set up Ubuntu to work with other
desktops than Unity, but IMO there's not really a compelling reason to stick
with it when the out-of-the-box experience is inferior to another distro.]

~~~
Encosia
Same here. Windows 8 is a clear improvement over Windows 7 once you acclimate
to the new interface (which you only need to spend a tiny fraction of your
time using anyway).

I've noticed that a lot of the criticism comes from people who tried Windows 8
in a VM, where it's difficult to hit the corners, and people who dabbled with
dual booting it or using it on secondary machines, without truly committing to
learning the new interface.

~~~
rustynails77
Not me. I installed Windows 8 as a partition. It was a nightmare. There are
four corners of the screen that seem to do different things when you point
there. After about two weeks of casual use, I gave up and went back to Windows
7. My head seriously hurt trying to remember (guess) which corner did what, in
order to go "back and forth" between the different UI paradigms (which by the
way is UNNECESSARY to have more than one paradigm on my UI). I have no
interest in the new "tablet" paradigm that's being forced onto desktops. It
doesn't make sense. I dumped Ubuntu for a similar reason (Unity was/is awful)
- I put up with it in Ubuntu for about 8 months. I now run Windows 7 and Linux
Mint. Now you may argue that I wasn't committed to learning the new UI after
only two weeks, but you know what? It either works, or it doesn't. I could
learn to walk with a warn-out hip and a limp, but it doesn't make it ideal or
optimal.

~~~
Stratoscope
Corners? Yeah, I don't like those either, and I hated Windows 8 at first.

But there turned out to be a simple solution: the Windows+letter shortcut
keys. Start with the Windows key (literally), or use Windows+I for quick
settings (power, wireless, etc.), Windows+X for power tools, or any of the
other Windows+letter shortcuts.

I posted several of them here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4663376>

After getting used to those keys I started to like Windows 8 after all. I'd
always used the Windows key to open the Start menu on Windows 7 and earlier,
there were just some new Windows+letter combinations in Windows 8. Handy
stuff.

I'm not saying you should switch back to Windows 8 again, but if/when you do,
just go through the whole alphabet trying every Windows+letter combination to
see what they do. You won't need those four corners any more.

------
adamman
"Avoid the pain of Windows 8"

If you think Windows 8 is going to be a pain, I don't recommend moving to
Ubuntu. BTW, I really like Ubuntu. I don't like that sales pitch though.

~~~
untog
Very much so. The pain with Windows 8 is going to be the UI change- switching
to Ubuntu will require a very similar adjustment to a new UI (one that,
ironically, Canonical forced on a userbase that was unsure about it).

~~~
bad_user
I've been on Ubuntu for years. Whatever pains I had were minor annoyances
compared to pains experienced while using Windows up to version 7, which was
considered to be good compared to the others. Windows is only friendly until
you have a problem, after which you're screwed. I mean I'm a freaking dev and
I can't figure out how to investigate problems on Windows which start to
happen after maybe 4-5 months of usage, after which the probability of
reinstalling it completely converges to one.

OSX is the most user-friendly of the 3. However with Ubuntu you get freedom in
all senses of the word. People complain that Ubuntu has hardware issues, yet
they never tried building a Hackintosh, not to mention that you're not allowed
to do it anyway. Of course you have more problems on Ubuntu with hardware, but
there is hardware supported out of the box and for the others for any issue
you may have at least you'll find a solution.

For me Ubuntu represents freedom. Freedom to fix issues with it, freedom from
a gatekeeper, freedom to own it entirely in every possible way. I see that few
people, few devs actually, place emphasis on the ability to own something. And
then they get pissed off when the gatekeeper changes the rules. Well, you make
your bed, you sleep in it and so on.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I installed Ubuntu after Windows lost track of its installed components (the
list was _blank_ ), and realised that I could at least use an OS for which
such a problem was fixable without needing a MS technician.

~~~
pjmlp
Just wait until you get a corrupt .deb database...

~~~
vidarh
I manage 100+ VM images and 20+ hosts, and we've run Debian on all of them for
many years, and I also run Ubuntu on a number of machines. We've never once
managed to get a corrupt database, so it's not exactly something that's
common. And should it happen, you have backups, right?

Now, some quick searches reveal that if you don't have a backup, it is still
just a matter of forcibly install dpkg, debconf, apt and apt-utils with
appropriate switches to prevent the dependency resolution from complaining,
copying the dpkg.status backups that are automatically copied to /var/backups/
to /var/lib/dpkg, and then force a "reinstall" of all the packages that are
listed as installed to get the rest of the data (.info files etc. back).

If you somehow managed to wipe out _both_ /var/lib/dpkg and /var/backups _and_
not have a backup of your system, I'd have little sympathy, but even then you
can restore most of a system by getting package lists for your specific distro
version and force reinstalls of all the base packages. Restoring dpkg info for
any custom installs would be a bit more work, but not worse than getting an
iso of the distro, mounting it, and obtaining a list of matching packages for
the files in your system directories.

But the latter is not _necessary_. Your system will keep working. You'll just
run into occasional problems installing new packages and having to force
installs when something pulls in a package you actually have installed but
don't have a record of.

------
josephlord
[https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-
shoppin...](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-
shopping/+bug/1054282)

Make sure you disable the shopping lens before searching in public. Amazon
searches can be NSFW!

Don't search for analyze in a school or Saudi Arabia.

I think that this is unacceptable default behaviour but currently seems to be
a WON'T FIX.

~~~
gtCameron
There is a separate bug for the same issue that has been marked as fixed:

<https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity-lens-shopping/+bug/1060979>

~~~
josephlord
I'm not saying that you are wrong but that fix seems to about suppressing
error results and a quick glance at the diff doesn't immediately look like it
introduces any filter (unless all images are suppressed from Amazon).

If the bug I linked to is fixed it should be marked as such quickly because
theRegister's initial review of 12.10 links to it and refers heavily to it
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/18/ubuntu_12_10_review/>

Either it is fixed (and that should be properly indicated) or it should be
taken seriously and fixed VERY quickly. The attitude of don't care/won't fix
isn't acceptable for a public release by a supposedly professional commercial
organisation or really anything beyond hobbyist scale. Canonical/Ubuntu is too
big to let this default behaviour out of the door. If they can't fix it
instantly they should disable the whole feature (as default) until they can
fix it.

Edit: I've checked the diff again and maybe combined with server side changes
it may resolve the issue. The point remains that the open issue should be
properly closed.

------
capitalisthakr
It also works almost flawlessly out of the box on the Retina MacBook Pro. The
only thing that requires adding is the Broadcom b43 modules and possibly the
proprietary nVidia drivers.

Very impressive.

~~~
morsch
It does? Isn't everything tiny? What resolution is it using?

~~~
capitalisthakr
Yes, it defaults to full retina resolution (2880x1800). Although it doesn't
look too bad like that, and Ubuntu let's you modify the UI font size, I'd
probably run at a more reasonable 1920x1200.

------
modarts
"Avoid the pain of Windows 8"

And say hello to the pain of not finding suitable drivers for half your
devices.

~~~
reledi
This a common myth. I'm going to assume that you don't tinker with your
machines often. Whenever I do a fresh install of Windows, I go on a wild goose
chase for drivers.

The current Linux kernel supports more devices than any single Windows
release. Linux also supports more legacy devices than Windows Vista or Windows
7 and supports numerous architectures not supported at all by Windows.

In the case when there's no support for certain hardware, it's often the
manufacturers who are at fault. They don't spend the resources to create the
drivers or they make it difficult for the Linux community to make them.

~~~
YZF
12.04 on Dell E6530. Display drivers don't work properly (you need to turn
Optimus off in the BIOS). Logitech wireless mouse didn't work properly.
Multimon support is lacking. 64 bit version is unworkable, 32 bit requires a
lot of tweaking. I spent a whole day installing 64 bit, installing 32 bit,
different drivers, trying Bumblebee (doesn't work). At some point an update
came that fixed the mouse issues (this was 3 months ago).

In Windows 7 everything works perfectly out of the box. Two external monitors,
no problem (Ubuntu only supports one). Wireless mouse, no problem.

~~~
rustynails77
A friend of mine had an external WD drive that I could not get to work Under
Windows 7. It worked under Linux, but not windows.

I finally found out that there was an incorrect drive letter allocation
(stuffed if I know why). We frigged around trying to allocate a drive letter
through admin settings. We finally got it to work, but it wouldn't recognise
the file system. We reformatted it and it worked fine.

Then there was the time the keyboard wouldn't work under Windows 7. It
appeared and disappeared. It also worked under Ubuntu.

The point is that your mileage will vary depending on the hardware and
operating system. I find Linux easier to fault find, whereas Windows is a
disaster to fault find. My Windows faults normally end up with "just re-format
it and start again".

~~~
YZF
This is all obviously anecdotal but one would assume Windows would be #1
priority for hardware vendors to test against as it's the most popular
platform. Microsoft also has WHQL which helps to some degree in ensuring
quality. I can't imagine an x86 laptop vendor not testing their hardware with
Windows but I can definitely imagine them not testing Ubuntu.

In terms of recovering from faults Windows is much easier for _me_ which isn't
surprising since I've been using Windows for a long time. I find things like
the Device Manager to be more user friendly than looking at kernel logs.

(I also have an external WD drive, no problems)

EDIT: By the way power management in Ubuntu on this laptop is all broken as
well. It doesn't detect closing the lid, I have to go through some voodoo
sequence to get it to sleep.

------
jebblue
Ubuntu still rocks but the UI is not designed for anyone but new users. The
ability to add panels, right-click and edit them to add new items, the
launcher has black magic under the hood that maps to what used to be desktop
files stored in a logical location $HOME/Desktop to now in some hidden folder
very deep, etc.

But, Ubuntu is still the best desktop and server Linux and you can always
install Xfce if you're a power user although it feels weird compared to the
excellent Gnome 2.

Until Unity, Ubuntu was unstoppable IMHO. It's still good though.

~~~
fusiongyro
After about 8 years of screwing around with my window manager and whatnot I
switched to Mac OS X and did not find that the lack of configurability was a
significant detriment to my productivity. In fact, in some ways it was
beneficial, because I spent fewer days trying out new window managers and
configuring them. Going back to Linux with Ubuntu, I rather like Unity because
it gets me past the hump of all that nonsense and is perfectly adequate at
multiplexing browsers and terminals for me.

Back when Metacity was young, you could hardly move without hearing screams
from people about how lame a window manager it was, especially compared to
things like Sawfish and FVWM. It's really quite surreal to hear people
decrying the lack of a built-in power user stuff like Metacity today. Of
course we're talking about the whole desktop environment, but still, I hear
what I hear.

In any event, if you're a power user, you're going to screw with these
defaults until you're blue in the face and I see no evidence that Ubuntu is
going to take away that luxury. But I'm back from OS X now because I feel that
coming with Apple.

~~~
jebblue
My reason for never trying Apple products (I hope I don't get buried in down
votes) but end of the day ... here goes, I just thought they (Steve not Steve)
had a smug attitude. That bothered me. I guess it still does. I don't want to
hold that long term, but the more I read ... never mind this is about a good
Linux distribution, Ubuntu (holding a candle out for Unity to improve ... a
lot). (hint forget mobile, let Android and iOS have that). We desktop users
are not feeling the love now, new users sure, the rest, nah.

~~~
fusiongyro
It's a little gauche to whine about downvotes. If I were to downvote you, it
would be for your style, not your sentiment.

But I think I see what you're getting at. I have a slight aversion to
37signals products for this same reason. We idolize people who do great work,
and cut them too much slack. We have a few generations of people who want to
be Steve-o simply so they can be abusive and anti-social while receiving
praise.

Until recently I found Apple products to be excellent. They're still really
good, but the equation used to be good versus great, and it's turning into
good and free versus excellent and constrained. I don't know where the tipping
point is, but I feel myself getting near it.

------
robert_nsu
Maybe it's just me, but I spent less time getting acclimated to Windows 8 than
I did with Unity. I find nothing difficult about it at all.

~~~
brandoncapecci
Agreed. If it was a substantial issue, Ubuntu would have much better market
penetration.

------
Iroiso
Nice Campaign, "Pick an enemy, Differentiate". Way to go canonical!

~~~
vacri
It worked magnificently for Apple.

------
krisneuharth
Just upgraded. If anyone is running the open AMD/ATI drivers and the UI
becomes slow and unusable you should try to install the proprietary drivers.
It made the UI snappy again because everything seems to require hardware
acceleration now.

------
anuaitt
this is totally childish, i have been using ubuntu for last 6 years and never
have had complains with their working. they used to do splendid job by
delivering the cds at door steps in shipit program. but this step of defaming
competitors is never gonna help, it is going to become a part of criticism.

~~~
slurgfest
I don't know if you noticed, but Ubuntu hasn't been picking up new users at a
dramatic rate. And it's easily in the top 3 Linux distros. What do they
actually have to lose?

If I use Ubuntu on my laptop, and Ubuntu says something about Windows 8, am I
going to stop using Ubuntu because I am so offended on Microsoft's behalf? Not
really.

~~~
anuaitt
I completely agree with you. I am not going to stop using ubuntu, but what i
am saying is this is not an act of maturity. we love Linux for the Base
context of being free and open source which is not going to change. The Reason
for not getting picked up i assume is the constant UI changes Ubuntu is doing.
well i did't actually like the UNITY Desktop. What if they could have just
maintained a sleek UI and added more and more nice features. I hope that would
have helped.

------
thechut
I'm a little confused. I don't see a change log. I also don't see an easy way
to upgrade from 12.04 which is what I currently run. Do I need to do a full
reinstall? Am I missing something? (probably)

~~~
aes256
It wasn't showing up in update manager for me on 12.04 LTS.

Fire up Terminal and run 'update-manager -d' and it should show up.

~~~
atopuzov
By default it only notifies about Long Term Support (LTS) releases, go to
preferences and set it to "every release".

------
husam212
This is childish, I think Canonical should not go with this way of advertising
... like Samsung and others.

------
Garbage
For what's new, visit <http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/whats-new>

------
dayjah
I've been running this for a few days now on my macbook air (mid-2012, aka
5,2) and it is flawless. 12.04 needed to have ACPI switched off, I guess at
some point the fixed that but I didn't think to check until I decided to take
the plunge with beta2 and the clean install booted absolutely perfectly!
#Ubuntu #Winning

------
stuartcoope
Avoid the pain of Windows 8.

Stay classy Canonical...

------
Smotko
Is there a torrent? The direct download seems to be slow.

~~~
sahaskatta
Yup. <http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/alternative-downloads>

Getting nearly 1 MBps speeds via torrent.

------
ekianjo
Just did the upgrade from 12.04 and most things worked fine, but I lost the
sound output in the way. After a quick search on the ubuntu forums, I found
the way to restore it, and voila, sound is back and everything is working like
before. A little strange, though. If I expect any issue, it's probably not
about the sound...

------
mrinterweb
This is the first release of Ubuntu that I am not excited to upgrade to. The
whole Amazon web search is bothersome to me. I can understand Canonical
wanting to make money, but getting in bed with Amazon is kind of weird. Also I
did not see any features in 12.10 that I was excited about. Disappointing
release.

------
isharabash
I found this amusing: <http://i.imgur.com/8X02z.jpg>

~~~
darkstalker
You can do that putting this on the firefox URL:

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

------
rotskoff
Hopefully 13.04 has a new color palette.

~~~
meaty
i.e. not the current "shit and vomit" one?

------
mkhattab
I guess I missed the "old" slogan on the homepage. It's now "Your wish is our
command."

------
CoryG89
Great, now I just have to rip Unity out and shove Gnome 3 in there with a
shoehorn.

~~~
slurgfest
'apt-get install gnome shell' isn't difficult to type.

Then choose the gnome session - Unity isn't affecting you at this point.

~~~
ktf
I thought that too, until I tried binding Super+T to launch a terminal in
Gnome Shell. Turns out Unity eats all Super keypresses even when it's not
running.

One workaround is to install CCSM, rebind the dash key to some key combo
you'll never actually need, then set your key bindings normally.

...or install Xubuntu.

------
pissed
Updated Ubuntu to 12.10. It booted up with grub rescue. What a pile of shit.
Avoid the pain of Ubuntu. Never mind complaining about Windows until Ubuntu
gets its own act straight. Can't waste any more time with this crap.

------
wpietri
Say, has somebody come up with a clever way for me to try this and then revert
if I'd rather stick with 12.04 LTS? Besides, of course, backing up and
restoring everything?

~~~
loevborg
Well, what you can do is boot from a live usb stick, mount your drive, move /*
to /old/ and install afresh. If everything works as desired, you can move back
your /home/user directory or selectively get your home directory back. If you
don't like it, move everything back. Then you only need to restore grub, which
should be easily doable using a chroot from the live media.

~~~
wpietri
Thanks! Alas, that means I have to deal with a fresh install. Which I may do,
but it's not the straightforward things I was hoping for.

What I'm really looking for is the sort of upgrade/rollback process I'm used
to creating for my production apps. One-button upgrade, one-button rollback.

Looks like Ubuntu isn't there yet. I suppose the easy thing is just to get
another disk, clone my existing setup, and do the upgrade. If I don't like it,
I'll just swap in the backup disk.

------
baldfat
Unity is the new Mono. Unity is fine and I think better then Gnome Shell but I
use Awesome WM since I am too leet.

------
kentosi
Is anyone else running this in VirtualBox on a MacBook Pro Retina? Is it
incredibly laggy for you too?

------
lsiebert
I'm happy. This means Mint 14 is coming soon :).

------
pissed
major grub boot problem with ubuntu 12.10 dumped the cd in garbage. Back to
windows 7. Much better operating system.

------
zoowar
Let the Amazon stalking begin!

------
iamtherockstar
"Avoid the pain of Windows 8"

Before you get all bothered by this, go and read Bug #1:
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1>

------
trotsky
I guess it's official that mark is out of money?

