TechnicalOverview

Revision 84 as of 2012-02-28 15:35:38

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Please add any release notes for Beta 1 here. Template will be populated starting 2/24.

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 Beta 1 Release of Ubuntu 12.04 gives a preview of the next LTS 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: 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.

Upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04

TO DO - double check no known blocker/corrupter bugs right now (Alpha 2 ones fixed)

Download the Beta 1

Beta 1 images can be downloaded from a location near you:

In addition they can be found at the following links:

New features in Precise

Please see the Precise blueprint list for details.

Please test and report any bugs you find:

Ubuntu Kernel

Beta 1 includes the ??? Ubuntu kernel which is based on the most recent ??? upstream stable kernel. This is an update from the 3.2.0-12.21 kernel which shipped in Alpha-2 (based on upstream v3.2.2 ).

We do have some notable additions to mention as well for the Beta-1 kernel.

  • power management.... etc.

TODO: ogasawara to review/improve

Ubuntu Desktop

Interface updates

TODO: Cimi or Ollie

!ClickPad support

  • ClickPad devices are trackpads where the physical button is integrated into the trackpad surface. Ubuntu Precise now has enhanced support for these devices. When the button is pressed on a ClickPad device, a second finger may be used to drag the cursor.

    ClickPad support requires extra handling that conflicts with "Click Action" support. Click Actions allow for separate actions when multiple fingers are active on a trackpad. The default Ubuntu settings enable right button behavior when two fingers are in contact with the trackpad surface and the physical trackpad button is pressed. Because of conflicting behavior, ClickPad devices do not support Click Actions in this release.

    Most Synaptics brand ClickPads are recognized out of the box. Apple MacBook trackpads are recognized as well. Support for Apple Magic Trackpads and more Synaptics brand ClickPads will follow in the next release.

Unity

A new release of compiz and Unity has been included with this milestone. Highlights of this release are:

TODO: dbarth

New Applications and Defaults

Software Center updates

TODO joshuahoover

Ubuntu Core

TODO slangasek

Ubuntu Server

TODO Daveiy

Ubuntu Server and Cloud Workloads

TODO arosales

Kubuntu

TODO Riddell

Plasma and KDE Applications

Additional information about this release of Kubuntu can be found here.

Xubuntu

TODO pasi

Edubuntu

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

Mythbuntu

TODO superm1

Lubuntu

TODO gilir

Ubuntu Studio

TODO ScottL

Known issues

Boot, installation and post-install

  • When installing with accessibility enabled, choosing "manual partitioning" will crash the installer. Either choose one of the proposed partitioning schemes or start the installer without accessibility support (for example, through the live session). (939450)

  • 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)

  • 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.

Default keybindings

  • Unity 3D keybindings are by default Ctrl + Alt + arrow keys for switching workspaces and Ctrl + Alt + Shift + arrow keys for moving a window between workspaces. However Unity 2D keybindings are still on the newer changes that has been reverted for 3D, meaning Shift + Super + arrow keys for switching workspace, and Super + Alt + arrows keys for movig a window between workspaces. A metacity upload is staged to revert it as well to the previous defaults. (940085)

Migration

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 )

  • 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

  • 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.

Ubuntu Server

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

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

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

Ubuntu Cloud

  • ?

Ubuntu Core

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

Kubuntu

  • 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)

  • 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.

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)

  • 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 Beta 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

More information

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

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