Introduction

The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer. The Precise Pangolin Alpha 2 Release of Ubuntu 12.04 is a developer snapshot to give you a very early glance at the next version of Ubuntu.

Get Ubuntu 12.04

Upgrading from Ubuntu 11.10

To upgrade from Ubuntu 11.10 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 '12.04' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 11.10 on a server system: not recommended at this time due to known issue. (923685)

Upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04

Upgrading from 10.04 to 12.04 still has some known issues and is not recommended at this time. (917173, 922485)

Download the Alpha 2

This release is for developers only. The Ubuntu Desktop images are oversized; you can use either a DVD or USB for installation instead of a CD.

You can download Alpha 2 ISOs from:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/alpha-2/ (Ubuntu Desktop and Server)
http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/precise/alpha-2/ (Ubuntu Cloud Server)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/releases/precise/alpha-2/ (Ubuntu Core)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/precise/ (Ubuntu Netboot)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/precise/alpha-2/ (Edubuntu DVD)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/precise/alpha-2/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/precise/alpha-2/ (Lubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/precise/alpha-2/ (Mythbuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/precise/alpha-2/ (Xubuntu)

New features in Precise

Please see the Precise blueprint list for details.

Please test and report any bugs you find:

• http://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

General

Until Ubuntu 11.10, the Unix group for administrators with root privileges through sudo had been admin. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, it is now sudo, for compatibility with Debian and sudo itself. However, for backwards compatibility, admin group members are still recognized as administrators.

Automatic Apport crash reporting has been enabled by default again to catch problems early on. It now checks for duplicates on the client side, which will avoid uploading debug data and creating Launchpad bug reports unnecessarily in many cases now.

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 testing branch, others have been explicitly pulled in for 12.04 Precise Pangolin.

For a list of all packages being accepted for 12.04 Precise Pangolin, please subscribe to precise-changes: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/precise-changes

Linux kernel 3.2

Alpha-2 includes the 3.2.0-12.21 Ubuntu kernel which is based on the most recent v3.2.2 upstream stable kernel. This is an update from the 3.2.0-2.5 kernel which shipped in Alpha-1 (based on upstream v3.2-rc3 ). As with Alpha-1, the Alpha-2 kernel no longer carries a separate amd64 -server and -generic kernel flavor. These have been merged to help reduce the maintenance burden over the life of this LTS release. AUFS also remains disabled in the Alpha-2 kernel. Anyone needing AUFS is encouraged to migrate to overlayfs. We have pulled in the latest overlayfs updates to the Alpha-2 kernel. We have also dropped a set of seccomp_filter patches we were carrying as there were no consumers of these patches at this time. We will re-evaluate their necessity in future Ubuntu releases.

We do have some notable additions to mention as well for the Alpha-2 kernel.

• We've backported an improved set of jack detection patches from the upstream v3.3 kernel.

• A set of kexec fixes for arm from v3.3-rc1 have also been backported.

• We've also conducted an extensive review of Ubuntu kernel configs and made numerous config changes as a result.

Upstart 1.4

Upstart 1.4 provides a number of minor fixes, improved documentation, a number of new features including:

• New "setuid" and "setgid" stanzas to allow a job to be run as a specified user.

• Default logging of job output:

  • All job output is logged to "/var/log/upstart/<job>.log" by default.

  • Log files are rotated daily by default using logrotate(8). See "/etc/logrotate.d/upstart".

  • Logging can be controlled via the console stanza and by new command-line options "--default-console", "--logdir" and "--no-log".

  • Improved "upstart-udev-bridge" to handle bad hardware that exposes garbage data to userspace.

For further details see init(5), init(8), upstart-events(7) and The Upstart Cookbook.

Toolchain

• upstream updates have been applied to Python 2.7, Python 3.2, gcc 4.6.2.

• Python 3 newly ported packages include: python-dbus, python-feedparser, germinate, lazr.ui, wadllib, python-defer, python-keyring, python-qt4

Ubuntu

Desktop

• Until Ubuntu 11.10, the Unix group for administrators with root privileges through sudo had been admin. Starting with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, it is now sudo, for compatibility with Debian and sudo itself. However, for backwards compatibility, admin group members are still recognized as administrators.
• Automatic Apport crash reporting has been enabled by default again to catch problems early on. It now checks for duplicates on the client side, which will avoid uploading debug data and creating Launchpad bug reports unnecessarily in many cases now.

• The default music player has been switched to Rhythmbox. There is no UbuntuOne Music Store yet, this still needs to be ported to GTK 3.

• LibreOffice has been updated to 3.5 beta 2. Please report any regressions that you notice.

• When installing new software through software-center, corresponding language support packages (translations, spell check modules particular to that software, help files, etc.) are now installed along automatically. This removes the need to open "Language Support" after installing new software.

• pm-utils now has two new scripts to power down USB and various PCI devices in battery mode. A number of desktop packages were fixed to wake up less often. Both of these changes help increase battery life.

• DNS resolution is now done through dnsmasq, which should help split-DNS VPNs and faster DNS resolution.
• Nautilus quicklist support has been added to Unity launcher.
• The control-center's "User Interface" panel now allows users to easily configure some properties of Unity.

Unity 5.0

• Many compiz crashes have now been fixed.
• Quicklist items can now be selected with one right click.
• There are improvements with behaviour of maximized windows.
• There are theming fixes in LightDM.

Ubuntu One

• Minor bug fixes in Alpha 2 with new features coming in for feature freeze including proxy support and the Ubuntu One music store in Rhythmbox

Ubuntu ARM

• With the Precise Pangolin Alpha2 release the Ubuntu ARM team is happy to announce the first set of images which are fully built with hardfloat support. Simply pick the images with "armhf" in the filename (or the tag "Hard Float") from the download page. Note that binary graphics drivers do not exist yet for this architecture (for the OMAP chips TI will provide hardfloat capable drivers before the final release of 12.04).
• If you are a developer and encounter problems with your package builds on armhf,please contact the ubuntu-arm team in the #ubuntu-arm channel on freenode or drop a mail to the ubuntu-devel mailing list.

Ubuntu Core

• Ubuntu Core saw no significant changes beyond the usual package upgrades.

Ubuntu Server

• OpenStack projects have been updated to the Essex 3 upstream milestone.

  • /bin/false is now the default for the nova user (upgrade transition handled)

  • New binary package, nova-cert is now needed to decrypt images which removes M2Crypto as a requirement.

  • Quantum has been divided into quantum and quantum client
  • libvirt is no longer default connection type
  • Glance has new configuration file structure.
  • nova uses nova-rootwrap by default, which provides a more fine grained security layer.
  • openstackx has been removed from horizon
  • ajaxconsole has been dropped, in favour of a VNC based solution.
  • ec2 admin api removed
  • Quantum, Melange, and Nova network model has been merged
  • Many OSAPI extenstions added
  • euca-upload-bundle now works with keystone
• Significant work around the bare metal deployment offering, which isn't all present in Alpha2.
• Automated testing of upstream Openstack components, before that land in Ubuntu have provided further confidence.
• Juju charms allowing Openstack deployment using Charms

Ubuntu Server & Cloud Workloads

• The following packages have had significant updates:

  • HortonWorks Hadoop

• Automated frameworks for Juju Charms and OpenStack.

• Beta availability of S3-backed EC2 Mirrors in all AWS Regions, although the mirrors are not enabled by default. To use the S3 mirrors, run "sed -i 's,ec2.archive.ubuntu.com,ec2.archive.ubuntu.com.s3.amazonaws.com,g' /etc/apt/sources.lists

Kubuntu

• KDE Plasma and Applications 4.8 provide new features and improved performance

• Key packages updated include:
  • Qt 4.8
  • KDE Platform 4.8
  • KDevelop 4.3 beta

Xubuntu

• Updates for this release include
  • New greeter + theme
  • xfdesktop4 has been updated to support single click to open items, thumbnail support for the desktop.
  • xfce4-settings has been updated to include the new mouche/touchpad dialog (backported from 4.9.x)
  • Some other syncs, updates and patches from Debian and upstream, including: xfce4-power-manager, Ristretto and gmusicbrowser
  • Minor updates to default settings and packages, mostly appearance (including Terminal font size change)

Edubuntu

• Edubuntu has been approved as an LTS release by the Ubuntu Technical Board, once released, it'll be supported for 5 years. To achieve this, we've been reviewing our package selection a bit, trying to cut down on unnecessary dependencies.
  • Geogebra and Freemind were both removed as we'd like to avoid java for this release, suggestions for alternatives are welcome.
  • iTalc was replaced by Epoptes, the classroom management tool developed by Alkis Georgopoulos (Edubuntu developer) and his team.
  • The KDE based Edubuntu desktop (edubuntu-desktop-kde) will not be covered by the LTS, so bugfixes and security fixes for it will be done on a best effort basis. The package description has been updated to reflect this.
• Our default settings (edubuntu-artwork) has been updated to work with GSettings and to fix potential issues on removal and upgrades.
• Some bugfixes also went into our ubiquity plugins (edubuntu-live) as well as making LTSP-Live more reliable and using a similar code path as the installer LTSP.
• And last but not least, Edubuntu is now proud to offer you a python-support and python-central free environment, making the system more consistent and reducing the number of packages.

Lubuntu

• Only Alternate images are available for Alpha 2
• A new software-center optimized for Lubuntu available by default.

Ubuntu Studio

• Ubuntu Studio images have been reorganized to be a live-dvd, and the new installation images aren't quite ready to ship with Alpha 2. Please see the daily images for the latest version. Changes since Alpha 1 that have been incorporated are:
  • New XFCE theme / UI / default setting
  • New "desktop" applications for new typical desktop uses
• Feedback and testing on the following features would be appreciated, Please send feedback to the ubuntustudio-devel mailing list.
  • feedback on new XFCE theme /UI / default settings
  • typical desktop applications choices

  • pulse audio <-> jack integration

Mythbuntu

• An updated MythTV 0.24 snapshot is included. If MythTV 0.25 feature freezes in time for Ubuntu's feature freeze, that will be included instead for next alpha.
• Update some of the mythbuntu tools for infrastructural changes in Ubuntu.

Known issues

As is to be expected, at this very early stage of the release process, there are some significant known bugs that developers may run into with the Precise 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:

Boot, installation and post-install

• Because of a race condition on first boot, users may have to wait up to 90s for the first boot to complete. If it affects your system, once the system is booted, run 'sudo start resolvconf' from a terminal and reboot the system. (924836)

• On the pre-installed ARM images, sometimes the installer packages are not removed after first-boot setup, which will cause the first-boot setup to be re-run after next boot. The workaround is to manually remove the packages ubiquity oem-config oem-config-gtk jasper. (871785)

• There is no network support on some Beagle board versions. (838200)

• Users of VMWare Workstation 8 or VMWare Player may experience boot problems. (858122)

• If you are installing Ubuntu on a windows system, you may run into a race condition that causes the installer to crash. A fix for this will be available in the dailies soon. (912031)

• Some systems with nVidia hardware are seeing a kernel NULL pointer dereference at 00000000000001f0. This is under investigation. (924400)

• On AC100 ARM images no keyboard selection is offered, a manual workaround is shown in the bug (925482)

• On OMAP4 Pandaboard images a camera is detected falsely resulting in the installer trying to take a picture while this is not possible (924419)

Upgrades

• The ia32-libs package that used to provide 32-bit libraries on 64-bit (amd64) installations has been removed in favour of multiarch. Systems using ia32-libs must migrate to multiarch in order to upgrade to 12.04. In most cases, this should be set up automatically by the upgrade process. Some users who upgraded through previous development releases may have removed /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/multiarch, and must restore it with the contents foreign-architecture i386 in order to have 32-bit library support in 12.04.

• In some cases, the package manager in Ubuntu 11.10 may not be able to decide on a correct unpack ordering when upgrading 64-bit systems with the ia32-libs package installed; if this is the case, it will fail before starting to unpack any new packages with a message something like "Couldn't configure pre-depend libtinfo5 for libncurses5, probably a dependency cycle". A workaround is to install the apt and libapt-pkg4.12 packages from precise before starting the upgrade. (924079)

• Landscape is currently incompatible with multiarch. We hope that this will be fixed in time for 12.04; but if you are using Landscape then you will need to either remain with 11.10 or remove any 32-bit libraries.

Graphics and Display

• On Intel N10 Graphics, plugging in external monitor to VGA port makes both displays corrupted with thick slanted lines. (830949)

• Remote Desktop does not work with the -fglrx video driver, nor with the legacy nvidia drivers. You can establish a connection but the remote screen does not update. As a workaround use Unity2d, or switch to the free drivers or nvidia-current. (772873, 918815 )

• The Onboard window in Unity2d when maximized puts the window on top of everything and has no window controls when maximised as it refuses focus, and you can't double click the title bar to restore it. Once maximised your only real option is to switch to another workspace using a hard keyboard ctrl+alt+arrow keys then run gconf-editor and in the apps\onboard section change the height, or reboot into Unity3d and double click or drag down the top panel. (859288).

• Maximized windows can be accidentally closed from wrong monitor.(865701)

• For languages that are read right to left (arabic, hebrew), there is some inconsistency in display between the login screen (lightDM) and the desktop environment (unity). (871764, 834386)

Desktop

• Sometimes when locking the screen, a "num lock is on" warning may appear even though num lock isn't actually on. (841541)

• There are several audio issues on the OMAP and OMAP4 images (925094, 925069)

Kernel

• Sandy Bridge power regression still present (30% more power at idle) (818830) -- Platforms affected by this power consumption regression are sixth generation i915 GPUs having the following PCI identifiers: 8086:0102, 8086:0112, 8086:0122, 8086:0106, 8086:0116, 8086:0126, 8086:010A. A nice summary of the issue written by Eugeni Dodonov of Intel can be read here. RC6 will remain disabled by default for 12.04 due to the potential issues such as hangs or graphics corruption. If you do choose to enable RC6 (ie boot with i915.i915_enable_rc6=1) please let us know if you experience any problems.

• Black screen at boot on Thinkpad L520. Fix is upstream. Test kernel available in the bug report. (924989)

• "scheduling while atomic: swapper" issue has been fixed upstream and is queued for upstream stable v3.2.y. (917962)

Ubuntu Server

• glance - db migration failing when upgrading glance - trying to create existing tables (883988)

• bacula - package bacula-common-mysql (not installed) failed to install/upgrade: trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/bacula/libbaccats.la', which is also in package bacula-common 5.2.1-0ubuntu2 (913009)

• juju - LXC local provider does not respect 'series' (only installs oneiric) (914392)

• python-eventlet - Nova API does not listen on IPv6 (850443)

• Software RAID fails to rebuild after testing degraded cold boot (925280)

Ubuntu Cloud

• cloud-init - fsck.ext3: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/xvda2 - if the ephemeral store has a dirty filesystem, the instance will not boot (898373)

Ubuntu Core

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

Kubuntu

• network-manager does not tell plymouth it has started. (924836)

• There are audio issues on the OMAP and OMAP4 images (925094, 925069)

Edubuntu

• As Edubuntu includes a standard Ubuntu desktop, most of the issues above also apply to Edubuntu.

Xubuntu

• When using the new plymouth splash screen, occasionally using the desktop cd to install, the message "hit any key to continue" does not appear. Should you get a black screen with text and the sliding throbber, when the throbber stops moving and the cd ejects, remove the cd and hit enter on the keyboard to continue.(872472)

• Was required to enter new account name and password both in wubi.exe and in the second phase Xubuntu installer. This should be fixed in an upcoming daily build. (924899, 924535)

• For the desktop images installing from the CD menu is failing, however, allowing the CD to spin until it stops at "try Xubuntu" fixes this and "Install Xubuntu" works again.
• Xubuntu upgrade testing is not done for Alpha2.

Lubuntu

• Install windows too big for netbook screen (744834)

• Ubiquity requires more than 4 Gb of free space to install, please use alternate ISO if you are in this case (775124)

• Keyboard layout can't be saved using LXKeymap. Please run "sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration" (729880)

• In persistent mode, items created on the desktop are not displayed until next reboot. (837470)

• Lubuntu xfce4-power-manager displays a "broken" icon in lxpanel. (871553)

• ubiquity crashed with TypeError in partman_column_name(): argument of type 'NoneType' is not iterable. (912031)

• Lubuntu Precise live CD boots to a Unity-like DE (925358)

Ubuntu Studio

• package flashplugin-downloader 11.0.1.152ubuntu1 failed to install/upgrade. (870643)

• live user does not have access to rt privileges
• installed user does not have access to rt privileges by default (jackd is not configured properly)

• lightdm does not configure correctly preventing x from starting (922424)

• menu is not optimally organized

• ubiquity Hangs on 12.04 alpha install (925240)

Mythbuntu

• No known issues at this time.

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

Reporting bugs

It should come as no surprise that this Alpha 1 release of Precise Pangolin 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

• http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate/

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:

• http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce