Ubuntu 12.04 Default Wallpapers has Arrived

Wallpapers for upcoming Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin has just been arrived. The collection include a new official default wallpaper plus 14 other exceptionally good community contributed wallpapers as well. To put it lightly, community contributed wallpapers put the default one to shame. By far the best collection of wallpapers for Ubuntu in my opinion.

Default Ubuntu 12.04 Wallpaper

And like before, when the new ones came, old Ubuntu 11.10 wallpapers were removed. Click on the images to see them in full size. Not using Ubuntu 12.04 yet? Download wallpapers fromhere. If you want wallpapers from previous versions of Ubuntu, try this instead.

What's New in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS [Screenshot Tour]

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" was finally released few weeks ago and it truly is one of the best Ubuntu releases ever. We have been following the release pretty closely and now it's time for a brief round-up. Here is a quick screenshot tour through every single new feature that was added to latest Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS features a new easily configurable Privacy menu in System Settings. More info on it can be found here. 

• Landscape is now integrated into Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

• Unity Keyboard Shortcuts should be familiar to you all by now. When in doubt, press and hold the Super key and you will find all the shortcuts you need right in front of you. 

• Unity Dash now has a brand new Video lens. 

• The old Home lens has been replaced by a new useful and less eyecandy lens which displays recently used applications, files and most recent downloads.

• Unity Dash has quicklists support.

• Home menu quicklist is another really useful addition.

• HUD is default now. but don't worry, HUD haven't yet replaced menus in Ubuntu 12.04.

• The new default collection of wallpapers is just brilliant. More info.

• Launcher icon size can now be modified directly from Appearance window.

• Default Launcher behavior changed to 'Never Hide' from 'Dodge Windows'.

• Auto-hide Launcher option is now available (instead of Dodge Windows) which you can on/off directly from Appearance window. Options for modifying reveal location and reveal sensitivity also available (see above screenshot).

• Revamped Ubuntu One UI.

• Rhythmbox music player is the default now, replacing Banshee.

• A number of essential Unity settings have now been integrated into System Settings aka GNOME Control Center.

• Default Alt + Tab behavior has been changed. Initiating Alt + Tab shows you just the open windows in the current desktop and not from all the desktops like it used to be. 

• Unity dash and Launcher inherits the (average) color of current wallpaper. Unity Dash adds a beautiful blur effect and all these UI tweaks can be seen in Notify-OSD as well.

• As you can see, Power menu settings has been totally revamped. 

• Proper multi-monitor support added. Access via System Setting - Displays.

• Minor improvements to Sound Settings. Access directly from Sound Menu in the top panel as well as System Settings.

Tomboy and Gbrainy have also been removed (along with Banshee) from the default list of apps making Ubuntu 12.04 LTS completely Mono-free. That's it for now. We will be back with more Ubuntu 12.04 news and reviews soon. Thanks for reading and have a nice day.

Canonical Integrates Landscape with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Canonical launched Landscape system management tool without much fanfare sometime ago. Now, in a most recent update, they have integrated Landscape with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, again without much hoopla. In line with a recent move by Canonical integrating handy Privacy Management tool into Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, this is yet another bold initiative by them.

What is Landscape?

• Canonical's Landscape systems management tool helps you monitor, manage and update your entire Ubuntu infrastructure from a single interface. Features include: 

• Remote access: Manage all your Ubuntu machines from anywhere.

• Informative graphs: Get a clear view of your IT infrastructure.

• Real-time alerts: Get immediate security and system updates.

• Task management: Specialist tools help you share tasks with other systems admins.

• Professional support.

Landscape is now Integrated into Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is a very serious release as far Canonical is concerned. And they are doing everything they can to make it the best and most functional Ubuntu version ever. Landscape integration is sure going to help Ubuntu attract more enterprise customers in the future.

There is this new 'Management Service' tool in Ubuntu 12.04's System Settings app. When you click on it, a prompt will ask if you want to install Landscape client in Ubuntu. Then there is a learn more link which will take you to the official Canonical website for Landscape.

Once installation is complete, things are pretty much self-explanatory. More Ubuntu 12.04 LTS updates and reviews are on its way. Stay tuned. 

Ubuntu 12.04 Features a New Easily Configurable Privacy Menu in System Settings

I am not sure if this "new" option was already available from the beginning. I noticed it in my Ubuntu 12.04 LTS beta only recently and when I checked, it was not available in the previous Ubuntu 11.10 release either. Of all the new features that has been added to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, I think this new 'Privacy' menu deserves a special mention.

Ubuntu 12.04's New Configurable Privacy Menu
Ubuntu 12.04's new dedicated Privacy menu has a lot going for it. Since the new Unity UI records your recent activity for better working of functionalities like Unity Dash, control of what Ubuntu is allowed to record and store becomes paramount.

As you can see, Record Activity option is set to ON by default. Also, there are options for deleting every bit of information that has been stored overtime.

You can specify the kind of files whose activities you don't want to be recorded. Optionally, you can deselect specific folders from the watch-list.

Same can be done for applications as well. You are allowed to manually select specific applications that you don't want to be recorded. As you can see, selecting applications has also been made easy since it comes sorted based on their daily activity by default.

And then there is this diagnostics tool which when activated, lets your Ubuntu send anonymous information such as error reports to Canonical automatically. Also, this option is disabled by default. I am not sure if this option will be there at all in the final release. Overall, I feel that, Canonical's new found thrust on user-privacy is a step in the right direction.

Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 Review

Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin" Alpha 2 is here and we are yet another release close to perhaps the most important Ubuntu ever. I have been using Ubuntu 12.04 ever since its first alpha was released and I have been closely following the developments. At the moment, Ubuntu 12.04 is far from stable in my netbook. It seems unusually bug ridden.



Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin Alpha 2 Review
Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 was released nearly a week ago and since then I am seeing a constant stream of positive reviews about it from every corner, which was quite amusing. For me, Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 was perhaps the most messed up Ubuntu development release to date. It seems to harbor plenty of bugs. I agree to an extend that any early development release is supposed to be like that, but I have been testing alpha and beta releases of Ubuntu for a long time now and I believe this is one of the worst I have tested so far.

I had recently upgraded my Ubuntu 12.04 to latest Unity 5.2 and I think, many of the bugs are caused by that particular Unity update. But I am not going to PPA purge it since those updates are going to arrive in Ubuntu 12.04 sooner than later.

The Bad Bits:

Top Panel is Dead
I installed all the recent updates, upgraded to latest Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2, and restarted the machine. I was in for a shock. Top panel seems to be not working anymore. I restarted again with no avail. I tried restarting Compiz, still nothing happened. Unity without a working global menu is such a pain to use.

But luckily, all of the Unity keyboard shortcuts were working just fine. I could just press F10 and access almost anything in top panel. I realized that top panel is not really dead, its just that top panel is not responding to mouse clicks. It was a real pain in the neck anyway.

Misbehaving Launcher
The second misbehaving aspect of Ubuntu 12.04 is its Launcher. Unity 5.2 update is supposed to make it more useful in every sense. But it is hardly so. One of the features enlisted in the Unity 5.2 update was the following.
To invoke the launcher, you now need to push against the left of the screen, rather than hover for X seconds. No more hitting the back button in Firefox and having the launcher pop up in your way.
But what's actually happening here is, Launcher just won't appear when you press against the left side of the screen (while a window is in full screen). Of course there are other ways to do it like hitting the Super key or Alt + F1 for example. But that's not the point. Launcher hide/unhide behaviour definitely needs improvement. (Update: Oh well! It seems like Mark Shuttleworth is planning to completely ditch dodge windows functionality)



Compiz Instabilities
As much as I love Compiz, it can become a pain very fast too. At the moment, almost every action ends in a Compiz crash which makes the whole system pretty unusable.



Alt + Tab Not Working
The advent of Unity has changed everything. Bottom panel is not there anymore which made "minimizing windows" action pretty useless. Alt + Tab action, which was reworked for Unity, grew into prominence. Anyway, it seems to be broken in Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2. Initiating Alt + Tab gives you just the windows open in the current desktop (I hope this is not a feature).

The Good Bits:

Quicklists Support Arrived



Finally! quicklists are here. Quite a number of decent quicklists have been there since the first Unity but this is the first time I am seeing anything like it in default Ubuntu. It is a nicely implemented feature and I hope a lot of people find it useful.

Other Minor Improvements



Launcher Icon Size can now be changed easily from Appearance window.

Behavior tab lets you decide Launcher behavior.
Boot Time Improvements
I did some pretty basic tests on how fast Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 is booting up when compared to Ubuntu 11.10 and the results are somewhat inspiring. Ubuntu 11.10 seems to take around 35 seconds to boot in my netbook while Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 took only 28 seconds to boot. That is a difference of good 7-8 seconds already!

But 28 seconds is still a far cry from the stated goal of below 10 second boot time. Also, these tests were done in a single core Intel Atom processor powered netbook. Those stats might be a lot better for Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 in a more "standard" device, I think.

Battery Consumption has Improved
Another crude test and another win for Ubuntu 12.04. When compared to Ubuntu 11.10, Precise Pangolin seems to consume slightly less battery, which is a welcome development. I hope more improvements come in this direction.

Conclusion
A lot of things are broken in Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin" at the moment. But there is no need to panic, it's just an alpa release and things will improve over time. And may be, a broken development release is a blessing in disguise after all. I mean, a lot of important changes are definitely on its way and that might just be the root cause of all the trouble.

Update: A good part of this article was written right after the day Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 was released and an update has fixed most of the issues we talked about in the post above, especially regarding the launcher and top panel. But since this post is about Ubuntu 12.04 Alpha 2 release specifically, I won't be editing anything out.