Ubuntu News: Wallpapers, Beta, Phones, Chromium...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-12 09:34:34 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-12 09:35:55 UTC
Summary: Some of the past week's news about Ubuntu, the most hyped up distribution of GNU/Linux
Desktop
Continuing the new trend of adding community wallpapers to the default Ubuntu installation, Ubuntu devs released today 11 community contributed wallpapers to be included in the latest iteration of Ubuntu, 14.04 LTS. These 11 wallpapers were chosen from a community wallpaper contest which ended on 5th March. Shortly after releasing the community wallpapers, the default wallpaper was also released.
-
Version 14.04, nicknamed Trusty Tahr, will be an important one because it culminates in a Long Term Support (LTS) version, the first in two years.
-
Every two years a Long Term Support (LTS) release of Ubuntu is made available to the public. Every LTS is supported for 5 years by Canonical. This year is the year of LTS release and its just 1 month away. Canonical will be keen to keep up the stability of LTS release like it has done in the past. Lets have a quick look at what can we expect from this year’s LTS release.
-
Not long ago we learned that Ubuntu will be ditching Unity’s global menu and returning to in-app menus instead. I’m hoping we’ll see that later this month when the next beta release arrives, since the main, Unity-based Ubuntu version will be participating in that one. Stay tuned for more updates when that happens.
-
The next Ubuntu Long-Term Release, codenamed Trusty Tahr, will be released on April 17th, 2014 and will ship with several notable features, while mainly focusing on stable main components rather than bleeding-edge software, a very good decision which fits perfectly such a big release. Trusty will be supported for five years on both the desktop and the server. I must say, this is a long awaited release, and probably not only by Ubuntu users, but also the ones of Mint and other distributions based upon Ubuntu, since the upcoming Mint 17 will be based on Trusty. I’m really expecting a solid experience here, which could last for years as a main desktop and development machine.
Mobile
Smartphones on Canonical’s Ubuntu operating system will cost between $200 and $400, according to the firm’s chief executive Mark Shuttleworth.
Speaking at CeBIT, he said: “Ours will come out in the mid-higher edge, so $200 to $400. We’re going with the higher end because we want people who are looking for a very sharp, beautiful experience and because our ambition is to be selling the future PC, the future personal computing engine.”
The Ubuntu project aims to produce hardware that can act as a smartphone and also work as a PC when plugged into a monitor, something Shuttleworth said many audiences found attractive.
Canonical teamed up with phone makers Meizu and BQ earlier this year to produce the devices, following what Shuttleworth called the “spectacular failure” of the firm’s efforts to raise $32m for the Ubuntu Edge smartphone. But he also called it a “spectacular success” because of the amount of attention it drew and the influence it could have on the industry.
-
Ubuntu users get to take advantage of a sidebar giving them access to shortcuts for many programs. Thanks to the Glovebox, this app allows you to get this Ubuntu feature on your Android smartphone.
-
Canonical announced in February that it plans to release smartphones based on its widely used Ubuntu distribution of the Linux platform are back on, with the first devices expected later this year.
This triggered eager anticipation among some members of the V3 team, including yours truly, as Canonical's original vision for an Ubuntu phone sounded like a compelling prospect, as well as a novel one for those of us who have seen smartphones become ever-more generic over recent years as vendors try to copy Apple's formula for success.
First disclosed early last year, Canonical proposed a version of Ubuntu with a touch-optimised user interface that could run on high-end smartphone hardware. While some mobile platforms, notably Android, are already underpinned by the Linux kernel, Ubuntu for phones was going to be the real deal; it would be able to run full Linux applications as well as HTML5 web apps optimised for mobile devices.
Chromium
-
Robert Carr at Canonical has ported Google's Chromium web-browser to Mir. The "Mir-Ozone" component allows Chromium to run natively on Mir, which in turn is based on Wayland code.
-
When Canonical decided to shun the Wayland display server for its own, called Mir, the Linux community was up in arms. Many people felt that Canonical was not being a team player. While I understand that point of view, the company is well within its right to go in a different direction with Ubuntu. After all, open-source and free software is about choice -- not falling in line.
Misc.
-
As for the feelings of the Linux community in general, the consensus is that it felt like GNOME was somehow being slighted or ignored. Remember early on, Ubuntu was a GNOME-centric experience. While today, Ubuntu is most definitely Unity-centric instead. Obviously alternative desktop environments are a mere "apt-get install" away, but most people will use Ubuntu because they're fans of the entire experience – end to end.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
- "I am no MS shill."
- Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
- They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
- Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
- Updated 8 hours ago
-
- Someone Should Remind Microsoft Lunduke That Microsoft Hires Many Sexual Criminals and Pedophiles as Well
- Microsoft Lunduke on an "expedition" to find one or more perverts, then generalise to everyone in the "community"
- Cash Machines (ATMs) Make Mistakes and They're Proprietary Software
- Correcting mistakes is a colossal challenge
- We Cover Topics Other Sites Are Too Afraid to Cover (Even When They Know the Facts)
- It's not that they doubt the truth, they just realise there may be consequences for talking about it
- They Try to Tell Us the Free Software Foundation Inc is Dying, But Its Revenue Doubled Since the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
- Being in "Activism" is never easy; but it does positive things for society
- It's About the Cost of Workers, Not the Fictional Skills Shortage (That Does Not Exist, the Media Spreads False and Sometimes Self-Fulfilling Narratives)
- This issue isn't limited to computing, some dub it "globalism"
- Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
- Links for the day
- This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
- All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
- Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
- what we said about it was correct
- Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
- "Are more job cuts coming?"
- Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
- Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
- LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
- "I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025
- Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
- Links for the day
- Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
- he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
- LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
- Time will tell. How much time though?
- Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
- LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
- Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
- Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
- The Register MS/The Register US
- On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
- Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
- The Week to Come
- Planning ahead
- LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
- The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
- When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
- there's "no free lunch"
- We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
- We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
- Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
- the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
- Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
- Links for the day
- Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
- Links for the day
- Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
- Links for the day
- The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
- But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
- Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
- It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
- Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
- Unlike systemd
- "New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
- We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
- When Silence Says So Much
- Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
- The Register in Trouble
- There is not much that can be done at this point
- Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
- Something isn't right at The Register
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
- Misinformation in Social Control Media
- Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
- Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
- throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles