TechnicalOverview

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For more information see https://wiki.kubuntu.org/NattyNarwhal/Alpha3/Kubuntu

Introduction

The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer. The Natty Narwhal Alpha 3 Release of Ubuntu 11.04, is a developer snapshot to give you an early glance at the next version of Ubuntu.

Get Ubuntu 11.04

Upgrading from Ubuntu 10.10

To upgrade from Ubuntu 10.10 on a desktop system, press Alt+F2 and type in "update-manager -d" (without the quotes) into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '11.04' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 10.10 on a server system: install the update-manager-core package if it is not already installed; launch the upgrade tool with the command sudo do-release-upgrade -d; and follow the on-screen instructions. Note that the server upgrade is now more robust and will utilize GNU screen and automatically re-attach in case of e.g. dropped connection problems.

To upgrade from Xubuntu 10.10, follow the instructions above for Ubuntu 10.10.

Download the Alpha 3

This release is for developers only.

You can download Alpha 3 ISOs from:

New features in Natty

Please see the Natty blueprint list for details.

Please test and report any bugs you find:

Updated Packages

As with every new release, packages--applications and software of all kinds--are being updated at a rapid pace. Many of these packages came from an automatic sync from Debian's Unstable branch, others have been explicitly pulled in for 11.04 Natty Narwhal.

For a list of all packages being accepted for 11.04 Natty Narwhal, please subscribe to natty-changes: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/natty-changes

Some of the key new packages with this Alpha 3 release are:

  • Linux Kernel 2.6.38-rc6.

  • LibreOffice 3.3.1

  • Upstart 0.9
  • Dpkg 1.16.0

Linux kernel 2.6.38

Alpha 3 includes the 2.6.38-5.32 kernel which is based on the latest mainline kernel release candidate at kernel milestone freeze, 2.6.38-rc6. This is a major update from the v2.6.35 in Maverick, and a significant update from the 2.6.38-rc2 shipped with Alpha 2. The kernel is expected to be based on v2.6.38 for release.

This kernel update brings little new functionality but an array of bug fixes. There are major updates for Intel, ATI Radeon, and Nvidia graphics clearing up a number of black screen on boot issues. It also brings a number of fixes for widespread suspend/resume issues.

Upstart 0.9

Upstart has been updated to 0.9.0-1ubuntu3. The new features are outlined below.

Manual Stanza

A new job configuration stanza, "manual" has been added. If specified, this has the effect of removing any previously defined "start on" stanza for job so that the job can only be started with "initctl start" / "start". This is most useful when used in combination with Override files.

Override Files

Override files are files ending in ".override" which if placed into the job configuration directory ("/etc/init/") are able to modify the way in which a job configuration file behaves. They could be used by System Administrators or tooling to change the behaviour of a job without modifying a packages configuration files directly.

Override files support the same syntax as the existing job configuration (".conf") files.

For example, to ensure that a service is never automatically started: 

  echo manual >> /etc/init/myjob.override

To allow the original behaviour, simply delete the Override file.

Another example: to change the start on condition for a job: 

  echo "start on (starting job-A or event-B)" >> /etc/init/myjob.override

Note that Override files have no effect unless there is a corresponding job configuration file (a file with the same prefix name).

The effect of deleting an override file is to revert the job (immediately) back to its original configuration.

Socket Bridge

Upstart now provides a socket bridge (upstart-socket-bridge) which is a daemon started early in the boot process that allows jobs to be started when socket connections are made. Jobs register their desire to be started by a socket connection by requiring the new "socket" event in their start on (or stop on) stanza(s): 

  # Internet sockets
  start on socket PROTO=PROTO PORT=PORT ADDR=ADDR

  # Local and Abstract sockets
  socket PROTO=PROTO PATH=PATH

For example, to have a web server only start when the first client connection is received, its job configuration file might specify: 

  start on socket PROTO=inet PORT=80

See the new manual pages for further details:

  • upstart-socket-event (7)

  • upstart-socket-bridge (8)

Chroot Support

Upstart is now "chroot-aware". If initctl is run from within a chroot the Upstart init daemon outside the chroot will honour requests from within the chroot to manipulate jobs within the chroot.

dpkg 1.16.0-pre

This is a merge from the community snapshot for multiarch support. This brings us up-to-date with staged changes for the upcoming Debian 1.16.0 dpkg release, as well as pulling in the current version of the in-progress multiarch work from Raphael Hertzog, sponsored by Linaro Ltd.

Python 2.7

All main packages have now been built and and are installable with Python 2.7. If any incompatibilities are detected during runtime, please report them on the broken package in Ubuntu, and add the official tag 'python27' on the bug.

Installation

Setting up your disk for installing Ubuntu has been made much simplier, with clearly worded options detailing the exact set of actions that will take place with your choice.

The ability to replace or upgrade existing Ubuntu installations has been added to the desktop CD installer.

Ubuntu Desktop

Unity is now the default Ubuntu Desktop session. If you encounter a problem with Unity, and it is not mentioned in the known bugs below, please follow the directions for filing a Unity bug.

The Unity Launcher is used to launch applications that are pinned to it, and switch between running applications. It supports Quick lists in its context menu as well as shortcuts activation. Finally, it also has full keyboard navigation and support for drag and drop to reorder Launcher icons.

There is a full Places implementation for Applications and files now, in addition to the "Dash" homepage (which you get when clicking on the Ubuntu logo) for most common actions. Search is functional as well. The icons can be dragged and dropped (with a black square image, still work in progress) from the Dash to be added to the Launcher.

Network Manager applet has been patched to use appindicator. Putting NM-Applet through as many test scenarios as possible is appreciated! Classic Gnome panel applets are not supported in Alpha 2, only Indicators.

There are now three session types available in gdm: "Ubuntu Desktop" will run Unity by default, "Ubuntu Classic Session" will run GNOME with gnome-panel. Ubuntu Classic supports all video hardware and video drivers, Ubuntu Desktop requires 3D driver support. Finally, you can force a "2D mode only" with "Ubuntu Classic Session (no effect)" which has the same interface than the Ubuntu Classic session.

If you install Unity 2D and you can't run Unity 3D, the fallback will be Unity 2D instead of the classic GNOME session.

Ubuntu Netbook

In Natty the dedicated Ubuntu Netbook edition is only used on the preinstalled OMAP3 and OMAP4 armel images. On all other architectures the Ubuntu Netbook edition has been merged with the Ubuntu's Desktop.

The ARM version is the first one to ship our new Unity 2D interface by default, as there are no free 3D drivers available initially in a default installation.

For OMAP4 the image is still using a 2.6.35 kernel a 2.6.38 test kernel is available in a PPA from the kernel team.

Software Center

The ‘Ratings and Reviews’ feature is in the Software Center, allowing anyone with an Ubuntu Single Sign On/Ubuntu One account to submit ratings and reviews for applications. Users can also optionally share reviews via integration with social networking services added into Gwibber.

Ubuntu One

The Ubuntu One control panel now allows selection of the folders you want to sync. Note that music purchased from the Ubuntu One music store is not selected to sync by default.

The Ubuntu One launcher item will now display sync progress. Important notifications will be displayed through OSD notifications.

Local scanning of files to sync has been improved which should result in faster syncing of many files.

Ubuntu Server

Provisioning servers have been made a bit more easier with cobbler and mcollective now available.

Powernap has been updated to 2.0. Powernap uses a new method to reduce power consumption, seen power savings of around 14% in most cases. It can now monitor user activity (Console, Mouse, Keyboard), system activity (load, processors, process IO), and network activity (wake-on-lan, udp ports tcp ports)

Default dhcpd server updated from dhcp3 to isc-dhcp (version 4).

Eucalyptus is now the latest stable point release (2.0.2) with security and efficiency fixes. (Known bug against the dhcpd server)

OpenStack (nova) in Universe is a technology preview, with a recent snapshot of 2011.2 (Cactus) release.

libvirt is updated to 0.8.8 with new features and bug fixes (see upstream changelog for full information 0.8.3->0.8.8)

The Alpha installs in most sceneries on both bare hardware and in virtual environments. Testing of the platform server, and additional server tasks is welcomed.

Ubuntu Server Cloud images

Running images in EC2, t1.micro is currently limited to arch amd64.

Images are now available in OVF format, and requires further testing.

cloud-init has been updated to 0.60, new features. This feature includes support resizing of / at first boot, adds minimal OVF transport (iso) support and allow setting of hostname when first booting.

The Ubuntu Server cloud have a newer kernel inside. See the kernel section for more information.

Kubuntu

Kubuntu now provides a working samba filesharing module that lets you add and manage shares from the folder's Properties dialogs.

Also in this Alpha is the new Language Selector module, which allows you to add, remove, and manage system languages directly from System Settings.

An updated system-config-printer-kde brings a number of bugfixes to Kubuntu's printer management tool.

For more information see https://wiki.kubuntu.org/NattyNarwhal/Alpha3/Kubuntu

Xubuntu

The new gtk and xfwm4 theme for Xubuntu is now in Natty Narwhal. It is called "greybird". There is a new panel layout, including a launcher panel is in this release. The launcher panel is hidden at the bottom of the screen. The elementaryXubuntu icon theme has been updated. Xubuntu is using the Droid font for default, since it is a lightweight, good visibility font.

Xfce 4.8 is released and has been included:

  • "The Xfce open source desktop is out with its first major update in two years this week. Xfce 4.8 brings the low-resource desktop into the modern era and provides usability improvements across the board. Xfce 4.8 is our attempt to update the Xfce code base to all the new desktop frameworks that were introduced in the past few years," The Xfce development team wrote in a statement. "We hope that our efforts to drop pieces like ThunarVFS and HAL with GIO, udev, ConsoleKit and PolicyKit will help bringing the Xfce desktop to modern distributions."

Menus in Xfce 4.8 are now editable with any menu editor that meets the freedesktop.org standards. Suggested editor is "alacarte".

gmusicbrowser has now replaced exaile.

Edubuntu

Ubiquity now has an additional step allowing users to fine-tune which applications should be installed on the final system.

QCad is now replaced by LibreCad.

The Unity session in Edubuntu is still work in progress, it's recommended to test using the Ubuntu Classic Desktop from the login screen instead.

For more details on what has changed in Edubuntu 11.04, please refer to: http://edubuntu.org/2011-03-03/edubuntu-1104-alpha-3-released

Ubuntu Studio

Unity: Ubuntu Studio does not currently use Unity.

As the user logs in it will default to Gnome Classic Desktop (i.e. Gnome2).

Kernel: Currently, Ubuntu Studio is shipping the -generic kernel. We are working with the Ubuntu Kernel Team to get a -lowlatency kernel into the archives which will then ship, in addition to the -generic kernel, in Ubuntu Studio. An interim -lowlatency kernel is available in Allesio Bogani's PPA.

If possible please report any testing results comparing the -generic kernel performance compared to the -lowlatency kernel performance at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RealTime#Natty%20Benchmarks.

Package Selection: The installed packages have changed. The packages shipped in Ubuntu Studio are more focused to support identified tasks and their derived work flows. Please note that this is a work in progress. If your favorite package is not include, please inform us about it and consider updating the task/work flows wiki page.

Network: Due to continuing problems, network-manager will replace gnome-network-admin. If performance degradation is experienced, please contact the Ubuntu Studio developer via email email or on IRC (#ubuntustudio-devel on freenode).

Installation Tasks: The task selections during installation have been updated. The audio tasks have been parsed into two groups: generation and recording. The 'generation' task selections is focused more on synthesizers and sequencers (i.e. tone generation) and the 'recording' task focuses on recording live musician performances.

Mythbuntu

Bare: The Mythbuntu-bare (Backup and Restore for the database and configuration files) Mythbuntu Control Centre plugin now has the ability to schedule backups on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Known issues

As is to be expected, at this early stage of the release process, there are some significant known bugs that users may run into with the Natty Alpha 3 Release. The ones we know about at this point (and some of the workarounds), are documented here so you don't need to spend time reporting these bugs again:

Graphics and Display

  • The binary video drivers -fglrx and -nvidia do not have XServer 1.10 compatibility, so do not function in Alpha 3. We anticipate receiving an updated driver with this support from NVIDIA in the coming weeks, and an updated -fglrx from AMD at some point prior to Natty's release, but do not know their exact ETAs.
  • The -nouveau video driver has had an ABI change but lacked a version number increment. Following Debian we're versioning it as 'libdrm-nouveau1a'. Be aware this can cause difficulties in upgrading/downgrading from PPAs that include libdrm packages.
  • The -synaptics driver has received a new acceleration mechanism. Trackpad users may notice a significant decrease (or increase) in acceleration as a result. We are investigating configuration options for this new behavior.

  • Windows sometimes don't appear or you can have the feeling that the interface is stuck (no mouse input) but still responsive to the keyboard. (709461)

  • In focused dialog, alt-leftclick-dnd doesn't always work, it selects text like if alt was not pressed. (711911)

  • Some people are reporting issues with LibreOffice interacting with unity.(709138)

  • Drag and drop of launcher icons around on the unity side bar uses a very tiny icon, it should be a full size icon in 'hand' when dragging. (727647)

  • The act of Alt-Tabbing is changing the stack ordering, by causing each window to be momentarily raised, which makes Alt-tab/Shift-alt-tab appear arbitrary. (175874)

  • Opening the chromium browser and then right clicking its icon in the unity launcher provides no 'keep in launcher' button, like all the other non-pinned applications. (657771)

  • When indicator-applet-appmenu is installed, no Alt-<key> accelerators work for any application. For example, Pasting in a Terminal with Control-Alt-V doesn't work. (663030)

  • Resume from suspend draws old gnome panel. (676166)

  • Unity doesn't display, but sound effects suggest everything “loads”. (685682)

  • In an Ubuntu Classic Session, Compiz crashes after enabling the effects in "Visual Effects" tab. (686698)

  • When holding the Alt key on indicator-appmenu, the mnemonic characters is not being underlined. For example, the F in the File menu title should be underlined because pressing F will open that menu. (689179)

  • Duplicate programs show up in /usr/share/applications because of the Unity launcher. (690537)

  • If icon files are not installed properly or something goes wrong while loading icons at startup. then the Unity launcher will crash. (692823)

  • Unity does not rotate displays properly. (694596)

  • Using Unity, using openoffice or libreoffice to open an odt document on your desktop causes unity to get confused and stop reacting, the launcher doesn't show on the corresponding workspace and the unity-panel doesn't respond either. (709138)

  • If Compiz crashes, and when attempting to fallback to a 2d session, it appears that the gnome-panel isn't mapped again. (711378)

  • In some cases, opening "Disk Utility" caused compiz to crash. (711916)

  • New window tracking system breaks in the case where windows try to restack relative to destroyed windows that were never mapped. (723014)

  • When switching between windows, Orca does not speak the title of the focused window. (724093)

  • Unity doesn't display (see: compiz crashed with SIGSEGV in nux::IOpenGLSurface::UnlockRect()), but sound effects suggest everything “loads” (685682)


Since Unity is in active development right now, please check the unity bug reports before filing new bugs. If you encounter a bug and it is not mentioned in the unity bug reports, please follow the directions for filing a Unity bug.

Common Desktop applications

  • Jockey crashes on startup when not connected to the Internet. (711225)

  • Firefox's menus do not appear in the Unity menu bar or "Indicator Applet Appmenu". (637827)

  • apt.ubuntu.com doesn't work with Firefox 4 user-agent on Ubuntu. (709125)

  • When clicking on any link on thunderbird it does not open the link, it does however open the new window (not a tab) but nothing happens. (709216)

  • When using Onboard keyboard, it is not possible to enter your password for Administrative tasks. When that password window comes up, it greys out and renders useless all other windows, including Onboard. (681412)

  • Evolution account capplet wants a password entered but doesn't provide any input method. (717971)

Boot, installation and post-install

  • OEM mode on Ubuntu and Edubuntu desktop/DVD media is currently broken. To work around this, open a Terminal, and run sudo ln -s /cdrom /media/cdrom before starting the installation. (727783)

  • Attempting to install third-party software while not being connected to the Internet causes the installer to stop asking for a media change, after which the installation cannot be resumed. (727783)

  • If you are using the live-CD images, and do not have the 3D drivers installed for your hardware, you may see a message like "Sorry you don't have 3D support, install it for your graphic hardware to get Unity or please reboot and select "Classic Session" at startup.

  • On Ubuntu Alternate, LTSP won't work due to a nbd-client issue and a gnome-session issue. A workaround exists by removing /opt/ltsp/<arch>/usr/share/ldm/rc.d/I01-nbd-update from the chroot and running "sudo ltsp-update-image". Once that's done, make sure to always select "Classic Desktop" as session type or login will fail.

  • On some systems, Ubuntu fails to install under WUBI. (693671, 711562, 693671, 727601)

  • Ubuntu desktop from usb stick freezes when the display switch from plymouth to X. (712173)

  • Ubuntu Desktop i386 will occasionally not reboot after completing the installation and clicking 'Reboot Now' (712654)

  • After installing from an Ubuntu or Xubuntu Alternate , when clicking on the update-notifier icon on the notification area, the updates are installed but then it crashes. This can be avoided, by doing a full shutdown after the first login after the installation, before running the update manager. (712346)

  • Upstart chroot support is not reliable (728531).

Upgrades

  • During upgrade from 10.10, package xserver-xorg-core not installing/reinstalling. (711896)

  • During upgrades from 10.10, the MySQL upgrade hangs on installing a new configuration file. (727478)

  • Natty sudo upgrade prompts for conffile update and potentially removes %admin from /etc/sudoers. (690873)

Kernel

  • boot slowed by long running kworkerd activity related to serial devices (721389)

    • this exhibits as extended boot times on some hardware, there is no runtime issues

  • kernel BUG on deleting device-mapper devices (722925)

  • Disconnecting USB headset while audio playing results in kernel panic (715318)

    • pulling out some USB audio dongles while audio is playing wedges the machine, it is possible to remove the device if all audio is quiescent.

  • i965gm GPU lockup apport report if vesafb is left loaded (702090)

    • in the majority of cases this only triggers an apport report, the boot is not affected

Software Center

  • Ratings and Reviews doesn't work with UTF-8 characters in app names. (711297)

  • Software Center crasher. (721704)

  • When deauthorize my computer is used, the packages are removed but the sources.list entries are not disabled. (723911)

Ubuntu server edition

  • In a small number of cases some instances not reachable via ssh. (712026)

  • Eucalyptus is currently incompatible with the shipped dhcpd server, meaning instances do not achieve networking. (717166)

Kubuntu

  • When restarting Kubuntu Live CD, in a language other than english, errors may be seen on screen before desktop starts. (656486)

  • Kubuntu mobile images fail to load. (712061)

Edubuntu

  • LTSP installation on Edubuntu desktop/DVD media is currently broken. To work around this, open a Terminal, and run sudo ln -s /cdrom /media/cdrom before starting the installation. (727783)

Xubuntu

  • There is a bug in the "session-menu" plugin in Xfce4. To reboot or shutdown from VirtualBox, you must logout, then reboot or shutdown from GDM. (711571)

Mythbuntu

  • MythTV setup might fail with a "cannot login" error. (728371)

  • The toolchain produces internal compile error for arm/xscale. (721021).

Other

For a listing of more known issues, please refer to the Natty Narwhal bug tracker in Launchpad.

Reporting bugs

It should come as no surprise that this Alpha 3 release of Natty Narwhal contains other bugs. Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve the quality of future releases. Please report bugs using the tools provided.

If you want to help out with bugs, the Bug Squad is always looking for help.

Participate in Ubuntu

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at

More information

You can find out more about Ubuntu on the Ubuntu website and Ubuntu wiki.

To sign up for future Ubuntu development announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu's development announcement list at:

NattyNarwhal/TechnicalOverview (last edited 2011-06-26 18:26:13 by 37)