TechnicalOverview

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[[TODO: seb128, jasoncwarner - fill in what's new with A3]]  * Thunderbird included as default email client including menu and launcher integration.

Introduction

The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer. The Oneiric Ocelot Alpha 3 Release of Ubuntu 11.10 is a developer snapshot to give you an early glance at the next version of Ubuntu.

One of the requests received during the last Ubuntu Developer Summit was to provide a bit more information about the release process, and what's happening there. With this in mind, the release team will be adding a section about "what's happening in the background", to each of the milestones for those who are interested as part of this Technical Overview.

Get Ubuntu 11.10

Upgrading from Ubuntu 11.04

To upgrade from Ubuntu 11.04 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 '11.10' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 11.04 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.

Download the Alpha 3

This release is for developers only. Most of these images are oversize; you can use either a DVD or USB for installation instead of a CD.

You can download Alpha 3 ISOs from:

New features in Oneiric

Please see the Oneiric 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 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.

For a list of all packages being accepted for 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, please subscribe to oneiric-changes: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/oneiric-changes

Some of the key packages making their first appearance with this Alpha 3 release are:

Ubuntu Desktop

  • We get a new experimental compiz and Unity releases with some bug fixes and known regressions. A new alt + tab (accessible by control + tab until feature complete) is available. As well, all the restructuration under way for getting some new features has been done. At last but not least, better performances of launchers and panel, port to gtk3 and gtk3 indicator stack.
  • Unity-2d reduced the delta with Unity, share more codes with it and had almost full accessiblity support. See known issues for the missing accessibility bits.
  • Thunderbird included as default email client including menu and launcher integration.

Ubuntu Core

Ubuntu Core is a new minimal rootfs for use in the creation of custom images for specific needs. With the release of Oneiric Ocelot, developers will be able to use Ubuntu Core as the basis for their application demonstrations, constrained environment deployments, device support packages, and other goals. More information is available on the Ubuntu Core wiki page.

Ubuntu ARM

  • Server images now implement preinstalled pool support which allows a complete server installation to be done without internet access
  • Massive amounts of validation and QA have gone into these images to ensure common use cases such as IPsec is usable.

Ubuntu Server

TODO: Daviey fill in what's new with A3

Ubuntu Server Cloud images

TODO: Daviey fill in what's new with A3

Kubuntu

TODO: ScottK fill in what's new with A3

Xubuntu

Users must select a session when logging in the first time (806408). If no session is selected, the user will see the Ubuntu wallpaper, and nothing else. In this case, go to a tty using Ctrl+Alt+F2, login, and type sudo service lightdm restart. Now the user can login again, and select the session.

Edubuntu

Edubuntu switched from using the old gobby to using gobby-0.5/infinote.

The default desktop environment is now Unity with fallback to Unity-2d when the hardware doesn't support running the 3D version. Gnome 3.0 fallback session is available for these who want it through an option in the installer.

One of our goal for this release is to improve our translation support. Alpha-3 is the first release of Edubuntu to feature a fully translated installer. If it's not for you, please help translating it!

To learn more on Edubuntu and download a stable version of it, go to: http://www.edubuntu.org

Ubuntu Studio

TODO: ScottL fill in what's new for Ubuntu Studio in Oneiric

Mythbuntu

Mythbuntu oneiric has transitioned over to the quicker lightdm desktop manager and brings updated builds of MythTV. Still on the 0.24 series, but growing more and more stable with each new build.

Lubuntu

Lubuntu is a flavor of Ubuntu based on the LXDE desktop environment. The goal is to provide a very lightweight distribution, with all the advantages of the Ubuntu world (repositories, support ...). With many LXDE components, Lubuntu also uses well-known applications, such as Chromium, Openbox, Pidgin ... (More informations on applications used or on the Lubuntu project are available on the wiki.).

What's happening in the background

Lubuntu started in 2009, when several people from Ubuntu and LXDE decided to create a flavor of Ubuntu based on LXDE. Discussions began to decide which applications will be included by default. A first "draft" of a Lubuntu ISO, based on Ubuntu 9.10, was published as a preview, along with the first version of the lubuntu-desktop meta-package.

Integration in the official repository started during 10.04 release cycle, with discussions at UDS, updates of LXDE components and other parts of the seed, the creation of a set of default settings, and an original artwork. Lubuntu 10.04 was the first real release, with still some modified packages handle in a PPA.

We made 2 other releases (10.10 and 11.04), with constant improvements in the seed selection, artwork, usability and integration in Ubuntu ecosystem. But, we were unable to include Lubuntu images in the Ubuntu family, like others flavors (Xubuntu, Ubuntu Studio etc ...). We were blocked sometimes by process of flavor's creation, or sometimes by hardware problems. Finally, after the 11.04 release, the official request to the Technical Board was made, and we received the official "go" during 11.10 UDS. Then, after fixing the hardware problems and committed final pieces of code, Ubuntu ISO builders finally generated Lubuntu images for 11.10 Alpha 3. Next step is to make a great 11.10 release.

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 Oneiric 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:

Boot, installation and post-install

  • Many CD images are oversized and do not fit on a standard 700 MB CD. Please burn the images onto a DVD, or use usb-creator to put them onto an USB stick. This will be fixed by the first Beta release.

  • usb-creator is currently unable to create EFI-bootable USB sticks. (702283)

  • In some cases, booting the live system takes a long time until the desktop starts. (791139)

  • A gnome-settings-daemon crash report will pop up in the live system unless you selected "Try Ubuntu without installing" in the boot menu. This crash is harmless and does not break the live system or installation.

  • Shutdown in the live session sometimes does not work and seems to just hang on the desktop. Just restart the computer with the power button in that case, there is no possibility of data loss. (805906)

  • When overwriting an existing installation in the Ubiquity desktop installer, it creates a new swap partition instead of re-using the already existing one. (782507)

  • Ubiquity desktop installer proceeds to use free space without warning, if sufficient free space exists, and "install alongside" is selected, then clicking on the forward button just begins the installation without warning. (766265)

  • ARM Desktop installations sometimes crash during the OEM configuration step or upgrades, due to a race condition in flash-kernel. (779410)

  • omap3 netboot images are known to be broken with the Alpha 3 release (820621)

  • Selecting "Configure encrypted volumes" in the alternate/server installer initialises encrypted volumes from scratch, and will destroy any encrypted data that was previously present. There is no way to reuse an existing encrypted volume at installation time at the moment, although we do consider this a bug that will be fixed in a future release. (420080)

  • Unity and Nux have some known regressions for keyboard and mouse handling. Basically, middle click doesn't work on the launcher as well as shortcuts. Dismissing the dash by clicking outside of it is broken as well.
  • We had to revert from unity-window-decorator to gtk-window-decorator for performance reasons. This means that the "1 px border" for resizing window is temporary back

Upgrades

  • During upgrade a debconf prompt about DM to use is displayed (806559)

  • Ubuntu 11.10 has migrated away from /var/run, /var/lock and /dev/shm and now uses /run, /run/lock and /run/shm instead (respectively). While the Ubuntu AppArmor packages and shipped policy have been adjusted for this, custom policy may need to be updated. The following my be used to aid in migration (it allows both the old an the new paths):

    $ sed -i -e 's#/var/run#/{,var/}run#' -e 's#/var/lock#/{run,var}/lock#' -e 's#/dev/shm/#/{dev,run}/shm/#' <profile>

Graphics and Display

  • Unity-2D is not working on KVM with xen and cirrus video devices. As a workaround, use the -vga vmware option. (759803)


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

Desktop

  • Some icons are missing in the lightdm login screen. (796793)

Kernel

  • Sound is muted in live session and first boot of fresh installation with many sound cards. (770349)

Ubuntu Server

  • When running an i386 system under a virtual machine without enough memory allocated a kernel error is detected during installation. (790712)

  • Disk device need to be readded manually to RAID array after device failure (791454)

Ubuntu Cloud

  • Eucalyptus fails to start up (791607)

  • Oneiric cluster compute instances do not boot in some cases; further details still being investigated. (791850)

  • /mnt not mounted, swap not used, disk is xvde (784937)

Xubuntu

  • User must choose a session when logging in after an installation or upgrade. (799754)

  • Live system and installs use the wrong default settings for background images, indicators, and others. (803499, 804734)

  • Live session can not be started. (799238)

Edubuntu

  • You may have to wait over 5 minutes for Network Manager to timeout before starting LTSP Live. Also, LTSP Live will start a gnome 3.0 fallback session instead of unity-2d. A rewrite of it is in progress which will address the issue. (791611)

  • Edubuntu now uses Unity by default and offers the user to use the "gnome 3.0 fallback session" if they want to. Selecting the fallback session won't work because lightdm, the new display manager doesn't support changing the default session. The only known workaround is to select the session manually at every login. (806064)

Ubuntu Core

  • DRM libraries are always installed, even for users who are not enabling graphical environments (819802)

Mythbuntu

Lubuntu

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

Reporting bugs

It should come as no surprise that this Alpha 2 release of Oneiric Ocelot 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:

OneiricOcelot/TechnicalOverview (last edited 2011-10-13 15:13:40 by c-71-198-25-218)