Ubuntu 12.04 updates (22nd Feb)

A few visual changes have come in post feature freeze in Precise Pangolin daily builds.  Lets quickly go through the visible changes noticed after update on 22nd Feb.

1. Volume level indicator:

The volume level indicator can be found inside the sound menu situated on the top panel. In Ubuntu 11.10, the indicator did not have any colour to indicate the sound level. Only the pointer indicated the level. In 12.04 daily build , an orange colour has been introduced along the border while the inside remains black. The screenshots below will give a better understanding.

Ubuntu 11.10                                                                         Ubuntu 12.04 daily build

                                                               

2. Power Settings: 

The power settings now sport a coloured  indicator to inform about how may hours of battery life is left on a laptop or how much time until charged.

On battery power

Plugged in- charging

3. Appearance settings:

The behaviour settings have changed. The options to reveal the launcher at specific spots has been taken off. Only launcher reveal sensitivity can be changed.

                         

UPDATE: New change spotted on Ubuntu One installer


The Ubuntu One installer now sports a new look. 

 
Please note that these changes may be temporary and may not feature in the final version of the operating system which is due in April 2012.

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'Ubuntu for Android'! How cool is that?

It's time to throw away all the extra stuff in your electronics shelf. No need of starting the pc, waiting to boot up, start sync softwares or use multiple mail clients. All you need now is just a phone, a docking station, keyboard and a monitor. 

Introducing  'Ubuntu for Android'. A novel way to manage work stuff on your phone. Use your android phone to make calls and dock it to fire-up and enjoy the goodness of Ubuntu's stable and virus-free operating system. And, if you connect to a TV, enjoy Ubuntu TV!  The product will be released with 12.04. A prototype will be available for demonstration at the MWC 2012 next week.

For more info visit this link.

UPDATE: Video of a working prototype of Ubuntu for Android.(Thanks to omgubuntu)

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Ubuntu 12.04 is getting a new login sound.

Finally, after years and years of waiting, we might hear a change from the beating drums to something more subtle and modern. The sound theme contest has produced a winner and he will work closely with the Ubuntu design team to incorporate the new login sound in 12.04. In the coming releases after 12.04 all the sounds in Ubuntu will undergo a change.

Play the file below to hear the winning sound.

Calum Pringle expalined in the blog why this sound was chosen as the winner

    It almost spells out U-bun-tu.

    It’s unique and modern, but has a feeling of community within it.

    Its pleasant that it reflects the working of OS, smoother more user friendly

    An idea of a future, dynamism and creativity

    It has a “rich” quality that has generally been part of the Ubuntu soundscape.

    It is unobtrusive and feels like it fits the old “humanity” as well as the new “light” theme.

    It’s distinctive, playful, lively and yet restrained, soothing and modest.

More info can be found here

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Interesting changes land in Ubuntu 12.04 daily builds

Today's daily update brings in a few cosmetic changes which are welcome and also a little surprising as well.

1. Sound settings menu

The Valentine's Day update brings back Rhythmbox quick access menu replacing Banshee. The sound settings menu has a few changes as well. The output volume is now at the bottom of the window and is free from tab switches. Input and output tabs have a redesigned look. The hardware selection has been moved to the left and the settings for volume has been moved to the right. There are a few changes to the wordings as well e.g Connector has been renamed Mode, Choose a device for sound output has been renamed Play Sound through.  These changes, to me, are good as it clearly states what the setting will do. See the below screenshots  for the changes.

Ubuntu 12.04 daily builds                                                       Ubuntu 11.10

2. System Settings

The systems settings now sport bigger icons, included new options for privacy settings and has removed software sources settings.

3. LightDM 

The wallpaper of LightDM has become a shade darker. The login box has undergone some cosmetic changes as well. The combination of the two has given a better look to the Ubuntu login screen.

The latest updates has brought in some very surprising change. The Ubuntu developers have completely removed gnome screensaver. This means  when you lock the screen, the screensaver will not be activated, instead It will go back to the LightDM login screen. This might create a lot of confusion initially.

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LibreOffice 3.5 relased

LibreOffice 3.5, dubbed as "The best free office suite ever!" was released a couple of hours ago. A Valentine's Day gift to open source software lovers,  LibreOffice 3.5 is the third major release after the formation of The Document Foundation. This is the first major release where contributions from local associations and communities has been acknowledged. Since its inception 16 months ago, an average of 80 developers have worked on improving LibreOffice and adding new features.

This latest release of LibreOffice 3.5 brings in a host of changes including some visual changes, notable of which are:

Writer

• a new built-in Grammar checker for English and several other languages
• improved typographical features, for professional looking documents
• an interactive word count window, which updates in real time
• a new header, footer and page break user interface

Impress / Draw

•  an improved importer of custom shapes and Smart Art from PPT/PPTX
•  a feature for embedding multimedia/colour palettes into ODF documents
•  a new display switch for the presenter’s console
•  new line ends for improved diagrams
•  Microsoft Visio import filter

Calc

•  support for up to 10,000 sheets
• a new multi-line input area
• new Calc functions conforming to the ODF OpenFormula specifications
• better performances when importing files from other office suites
• multiple selections in autofilter
• unlimited number of rules for conditional formatting

Base

• a new integrated PostgreSQL native driver

LibreOffice 3.5 is available from: http://www.libreoffice.org/download

LibreOffice 3.5 Overwiew. (Source: www.libreoffice.org)

Install

If you are using Precise Pangolin alpha build, the updates are headed to your way soon. If, however, you are using Ubuntu 11.10 and earlier versions, download .deb files from the website. Then follow the instructions below.

Remove the existing version first

sudo apt-get remove libreoffice-core

Now, go to the directory where the new .deb files are and install them with the following command

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

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Unity recognizes wine application icons in precise pangolin (12.04)

Ubuntu developers seem to be working hard to make the Ubuntu experience with Unity as smooth as possible.

After yesterday's update to my Ubuntu 12.04 daily alpha build, I noticed that my Microsoft Office applications installed via Crossover 10, are being correctly recognized on the Unity launcher and also the Unity dash. It came as a pleasant surprise to me! 

MS Outlook

Previously, when I used to open MS Word/ Excel or any Wine application, all of the applications would end up using the same icon. It was a nightmare if you had multiple  windows open! This seems to have been resolved in the latest update. Unity now uses the native application icons. It also supports drag and drop feature, meaning, you can drag the icon from Unity dash and drop it on the launcher and the application opens up to use the same icon when clicked on. Other improvements include correct  Alt+Tab and Alt+` interpretation and correct tool tips. 

Correct Atl+` recognition

I hope this change remains permanent until Ubuntu 12.04 is released and is not broken by any new feature addition to Unity.

Unity dash search

MS Powerpoint

MS Excel

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Canonical releases Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix Edition

Mark Shuttleworth  released an initial/beta version of Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix today.  The Business Desktop Remix is currently based on Ubuntu 11.10. 

The first stable version will be available in April 2012, along with 12.04 LTS release. There are are some applications in this release which are covered by EULA and any user wanting to use this release will need to agree to the terms and conditions. So, it may be a deterrent for pure open source fans.




Mark Shuttleworth posted on his blog:

This remix takes the most common changes we’ve observed among institutional users and bundles them into one CD which can be installed directly or used as a basis for further customization. Before anyone gets all worked up and conspiratorial: everything in the remix is available from the standard Software Centre.  Packages out, packages in. No secret sauce for customers only; we’re not creating a RHEL, we already have an enterprise-quality release cadence called LTS and we like it just the way it is. This is a convenience for anyone who wants it. Having a common starting point, or booting straight into a business-oriented image makes it easier for institutional users to evaluate Ubuntu Desktop for their specific needs.

Features of the Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix are:

• Designed for large-scale corporate deployments of Ubuntu Desktop
• Adds the Adobe Flash Plugin, OpenJDK 6 Java runtime environment and other commonly-requested corporate tools
• Inspired by the most common changes made by Canonical customers
• Removes social networking and file-sharing applications, games and development/admin tools
• Pure remix of Ubuntu – uses the standard archives, kernel and updates

Download the Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix here

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Google releases Google Chrome 17 and Chrome Beta for Android

Search giant Google released version 17 of its popular multi-platform web browser, Google Chrome. The latest version boasts a range of features. Notable of them are new extensions APIs,  updated Omnibox prerendering, download scanning protection and lots of security fixes and bug fixes.

The new feature introduced, a "preemptive rendering" feature, that will automatically begin loading and rendering a page in the background while the user is typing the address in the omnibox,  has already been available for Google Search for the last few weeks. 

The new Chrome also introduces scanning for downloaded items for .exe and .msi files. If the downloaded file information is not sufficiently available, then Chrome will search Google for more information.

UPDATE: A new update just noticed in Chrome 17 for Ubuntu, window buttons which were present on the top left side have now been taken off to keep a consistent look with the global menu.
Ubuntu users will get automatic upgrade to the latest one in the coming days. If you do not want to wait, download the latest package from the Google Chrome downloads page at https://www.google.com/chrome

Google also released a beta version of its Chrome browser for Android. However, it is currently available only for ICS version of Android (4.0). Initial testing of the browser in Android 4.0 suggests that its fast and lightweight but still it needs some work on the scrolling.

It has been made clear that Chrome on Android will not be preinstalled with Flash. It will use HTML5 and is going to probably replace the current stock browser in future Android releases. 

To download Google Chrome beta for Android go to http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/android/ or search in android market or snap up the QR code below.

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LibreOffice 3.5 RC3 released

The upcoming major release of the popular opensource  office suite, LibreOffice 3.5 saw an RC release yesterday. This is the third and last RC release  before the final release sometime this week. This release also contains a few fixes over RC2. For the full list of fixes follow the link here. 

You can download the 3.5 RC3 release builds from http://www.libreoffice.org/download/pre-releases/.

Please note, the RC release is not fit for mission critical production systems. 

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Linux gamers spending the most ... Windows users the least!!

This may sound shocking however, according to the latest live statistics from The Humble Bundle, an average Linux gamer is spending the most (at the time of writing), a high of $8.01 against the average of $5.94 spending. The Mac OS X users are spending an average of $6.81. Windows users, shockingly are spending a paltry $5.38, the lowest of all three. 

You can get the live stats at http://www.humblebundle.com/

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