Xubuntu

Introduction

The Xubuntu developers are moving very quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Ubuntu and Xfce community has to offer. Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 1 is the first of several alpha releases for Xubuntu 7.10. With Tribe 1 comes a whole host of excellent new features. The feature list for 7.10 has been slowly growing since Gutsy opened late last month. Many new things that have already landed within Tribe 1, such as Xfce 4.4.1, a new kernel, as well as a many approved specifications for Gutsy.

Note: This is still alpha (not a stable) release! Alpha releases of Gutsy are not encouraged for anyone who needs a stable system or who is not comfortable running into a broken system. Alpha releases of Gutsy ARE recommended for Xubuntu developers and anyone interested in helping to test, report, and fix bugs.

In General

Some of the major goals of Gutsy Gibbon are to increase the stability of Ubuntu while at the same time making it easy to use and install. The latest plans for Gutsy Gibbon have been uploaded on Launchpad. In Gutsy, we hope to include the support of writing to a mounted NTFS file system, which will greatly benefit the Migration Assistant that landed in Feisty. Another plan in the works is a major update to the Xubuntu documentation; much more content will be added and it will be reorganized to include Topic Based Help. Other goals include easy data migration, a stable Xfce desktop environment, and great power management in the near future.

Before upgrading

If you do plan on upgrading to Tribe 1, please make sure you have the linux meta package (e.g., linux-generic) installed before you upgrade from Feisty.

Xfce 4.4.1

The latest stable release of the Xfce Desktop is installed in Tribe 1. Included in Xfce 4.4.1 are many bugs fixes and translation updates. A preview of the Xubuntu desktop can be found below.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyGibbon/Tribe1/Xubuntu?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=xubuntu.png
Click image for larger view

Kernel

The kernel that Tribe 1 will ship with will be 2.6.22-6 (2.6.22-rc3-based) kernel. The Tribe 1 kernel will take advantage of significant enhancements and fixes that have been merged in the last few months into the mainline (Linus) kernel.

Virtualization

Virtual Machine Interfaces and Kernel-based Virtual Machines have improved significantly due to continued, heavy development. The latest KVM brings many new features: faster performance due to initial paravirtualization support, the ability to move Virtual Machines between processors (even AMD or Intel CPUs), host suspend/resume support, CPU hotplug support and more. Be aware however that KVM works through other software packages such as Xen and is not a standalone application.

Desktops & Laptops

Kernels since 2.6.21 (which includes the Tribe 1 kernel) contain a new feature called dynticks which significantly reduces the heat and power used by a system. For laptops this means an extended battery life and burnfree laptops. For desktops, this allows for a quieter, cooler environment to run your Xubuntu system while using even less resources. Laptops in particular contain a new wireless stack that will allow for a much better Wi-Fi performance and driver management. The new flash handling module (UBI) will allow your flash devices (e.g. USB flash drives etc.) to last longer and work around any bad blocks that you may encounter. UBI also makes it possible to dynamically create, delete and re-size flash partitions (UBI volumes).

Drivers

Included in the latest kernel is even more device drivers. This will allow more devices and accessories to work under your Xubuntu system.

Merge from Debian

As Ubuntu uses Debian for its package base, Tribe 1 has many packages being merged from Debian. Xubuntu's Tribe 1 ships with some popular applications such as Firefox 2.0.0.4, which include the latest security patches and translations from Mozilla to their web browser. Another Mozilla application in Tribe 1 is the Thunderbird e-mail client. Thunderbid 2.0 was released with a more advanced user interface, email "tagging" for better organization and bug fixes. Also new in Tribe 1 is Pidgin 2.0.1 -- the rebranded Gaim IM client. The latest release of Pidgin makes many changes to the user interface, fixed bugs and closes a trademark dispute.

Bugs

Gutsy Gibbon does ship with bugs! Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve future releases. Please report bugs through Malone, Ubuntu's bug tracker.

If you want to help out with bug reports, the BugSquad is always looking for help.

Participate in Xubuntu

If you would like to help shape Xubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate/ and http://xubuntu.org/devel

More Information

You can find out more about Xubuntu on our website.

For user discussion, help, and support then please subscribe to the Xubuntu user mailing list at https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-users .

Feedback

To follow the discussion about Xubuntu development, please subscribe to the Xubuntu development mailing list at:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel

GutsyGibbon/Tribe1/Xubuntu (last edited 2008-08-06 16:26:01 by localhost)