TechnicalOverview

Revision 61 as of 2011-02-03 02:43:39

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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 2 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 2

This release is for developers only. The following link will direct you to a download location near you:

Additional ISOs and torrents are also available at:

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 packages making their first appearance with this Alpha 2 release are:

  • LibreOffice 3.3 (has replaced OpenOffice.org 3.2)

  • Linux Kernel 2.6.38-rc2.
  • X.org Server 1.10 and Mesa 7.10

Linux kernel 2.6.38

Alpha 2 includes the 2.6.38-rc2 kernel which is based on the latest mainline release candidate kernel at kernel milestone freeze kernel. This is a major update from the v2.6.35 in Maverick, and an update from the 2.6.37-rc3 shipped with Alpha 1. The kernel is expected to be based on v2.6.38 for release.

This kernel update includes the official inclusion of the '200 line patch' which improves responsivness for some workloads. It also brings a major update to the VFS, RCU dentry handling, which is slated to improve filesystem performance particularly with parallel loads. There are a bunch of updates for graphics which should extend support to new cards and extend 3D to more cards too. There as always is a ton of driver updates which should bring more devices into support. This kernel brings support for some previously unsupported ACER SD card slots.

Note: Just for Omap 4, the kernel used is still 2.6.35. The main reason for that is that 2.6.38 is not yet functional, but work is being made with TI and Linaro to deliver a proper 2.6.38 for this cycle.

X.org Server 1.10

Alpha 2 includes a new X stack, comprised of XServer 1.10 and mesa 7.10, along with updates to all the major drivers. New features include support for Sandy Bridge graphics, improved 3D support for newer radeon hardware, support for more OpenGL extensions, improved multi-head functionality, and of course many bug fixes.

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.

Ubuntu Desktop Edition

Unity is now the default in the Ubuntu Desktop session.

TO DO: review and update - jason/didrocks/seb128

This is partially implemented. The Unity Launcher is now available; it can be used to launch applications that are pinned to the launcher and switch between running applications. It support Quick lists on context menu. There is a rudimentary Places implementation now, but it is still very unstable, and scroll bars and search do not work yet.

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 support in Alpha 2, only Indicators.

There are now three kinds of sessions in gdm: Ubuntu Desktop will run Unity by default and the Ubuntu Classic Session will run 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.

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.

Ubuntu Netbook Edition

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 Desktop Edition.

Software Center

The ‘Ratings and Reviews’ feature landed 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.

Kubuntu

TO DO: review and update - Riddell/ScottK
Kubuntu will not be shipping an armel port, with the Alpha 2 release.

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 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".

Edubuntu

Edubuntu is currently reviewing package selections, some packages installed in this release will not be in the final release.

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.

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.

For more details on what has changed in Edubuntu 11.04, please refer to: http://www.edubuntu.org/2011-02-02/edubuntu-1104-alpha-2-released

Ubuntu Studio

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.

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.

Unity

At this point we are planning to stay with Gnome2, however since Unity (and therefore Compiz apparently) is under heavy development we expect problems. It is possible that in the future we may eventually move away from Gnome2 but substantial discussions and testing will be required.

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.

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)

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

EC2 images now run on m1.small and c1.medium sizes, and t1.micro in arch amd64.

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 below for more information.

Known issues

As is to be expected, at this very early stage of the release process, there are some significant known bugs that users may run into with the Natty Alpha 2 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 effectiveness of the current hibernate implementation is under discussion, and it has been disabled for now. Hibernate is not available from the GUI in Alpha 2 (710796).

  • The binary video drivers -fglrx and -nvidia do not have XServer 1.10 compatibility, so do not function in Alpha 2. 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.

  • Compiz can crash for some people at start, leaving them in an empty session, there is a fix under investigation (709380)

  • Some 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. This is due to (709461) and is under investigation

  • The unity migration tool crashes on a clean install at startup, the fix is already committed and will arrive just after Alpha2. (Bug:???)
  • Unity can see a slowdown when places are opened. The places in general are really a first draft (empty sometimes when opened for instance, missing icons…).

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

  • Have temporarily gone back to using an older version of glew 1.5.2 since nux/compiz crashes when using glew 1.5.7 (711401, 711396)


Since Unity is in active development right now, please check the unity bug reports before filing new bugs.

Networking & WiFi

  • ?

Common Desktop applications

  • Trying to access Ubuntu One in the live session or when using autologin will cause a crash. (708018)

  • Some corruption being seen in xchat-gnome window. (707236)

Boot, installation and post-install

  • On the amd64 images the installer crashes after the "Who are you?" step. To work around this, open a Terminal window with Ctrl+Alt+T and do sudo apt-get purge ubiquity-slideshow-ubuntu before starting the installer. This will cause the installation progress window to become very small, but avoid the crash. (710582). Similar behavior is seen in other flavors on amd64 hardware, but different workarounds may be needed, see below.

  • 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.
  • When Ubuntu is installed in OEM mode, the initial end-user configuration program (oem-config) will trigger a crash dialog if networking is not available. This dialog can be safely ignored. Post-Alpha 2 CDs will not present this bug.

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

  • Persistence doesn't work on liveusb (683260)

Kernel

  • The effectiveness of the current hibernate implementation is under discussion and has been disabled for now. Hibernate needs to be re-enabled in the kernel (710877).

  • qemu-kthread become defunct on disconnect (hanging on a mutex in nbd_ioctl) (700165, 711951 )

Ubuntu server edition

  • If you are using a i386 image you will not be able to use the t1.micro size. However amd64 images will work as expected. (710754)

Known Issues affecting other Ubuntu flavors

  • Kubuntu
    • There are known build issues for kde with the armel toolchain. These build failures are being worked.

    • reconq crashes on startup on amd64 hosts (711513, 629079)

    • on amd64 hosts, ubiquity kde_ui crashes after the "Who are you?" step. (Bug: 710612)
  • Edubuntu

    • italc application crashes after startup (438637)

  • Xubuntu

    • On the amd64 images the installer crashes after the "Who are you?" step. To work around this, open a terminal, using either the shortcut in the panel or Menu button -> Accessories -> Terminal and do sudo apt-get purge ubiquity-slideshow-xubuntu before starting the installer. (710582)

    • 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
    • The installer may be missing a few pages for configuration
    • The frontend installation can't properly test against a 0.24 database.
    • The XFCE defaults haven't yet been updated for the Xfce release in natty.

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 2 release of Natty Narwhal contains other bugs. Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve 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: