New Features

Common Infrastructure

• Up until Ubuntu 11.10, administrator access using the sudo tool was granted via the "admin" Unix group. Since Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, administrator access is granted via the "sudo" group. This makes Ubuntu more consistent with the upstream implementation and Debian. For compatibility purposes, the "admin" group continues to provide sudo/administrator access in 12.10.

• The tool responsible for migrating user accounts from other operating systems to Ubuntu (migration-assistant) has been removed from the installer.

Linux kernel 3.5.5

The Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal release includes the 3.5.0-17.28 Ubuntu Linux kernel which was based on the v3.5.5 upstream Linux kernel. This is an update from the 3.2.0-23.36 Ubuntu Linux kernel which shipped in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin and was based on the v3.2 upstream Linux kernel. Other notable changes with the Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal kernel include:

• Transitioning of the i386 generic-pae flavor to become the generic flavor offering
• Collapsing of the virtual flavor back into the generic flavor
• Homogenizing the entire linux-meta package
• Arrival of a new highbank arm server kernel flavor
• Changing of the default scheduler from cfq to deadline
• Packaging updates for signed kernels

Python 3.2

The Ubuntu desktop has begun migrating from Python 2 to Python 3. Most Python applications included in the desktop and their dependent libraries have been ported to Python 3. In most cases, Python 3 versions of libraries are available alongside their Python 2 counterparts. Ported applications will only run with Python 3. Work will continue in Ubuntu 13.04.

If you have your own programs based on Python 2, fear not! Python 2 will continue to be available (as the python package) for the foreseeable future. However, to best support future versions of Ubuntu you should consider porting your code to Python 3. Python/3 has some advice and resources on this.

GNU Toolchain

Ubuntu 12.10 is distributed with an updated default toolchain that includes: GCC 4.7.2 (was GCC 4.6 in 12.04 LTS), a binutils snapshot from the 2.23 branch (was 2.22 in 12.04 LTS), eglibc 2.15, and gdb 7.5.

Further information can be found upstream (GCC-4.7, gdb).

Java Toolchain

Ubuntu 12.10 ships OpenJDK7 as the default Java implementation. This brings improved performance, new features and better compatibility with other Java 7 implementations.

Use of the OpenJDK6 is now deprecated and the openjdk-6-* packages in universe for Ubuntu 12.10 will not be provided in future releases of Ubuntu.

Known Issues

Installation

• On ARM hardware, if you get a black screen during installation, it's likely that the system has booted fine, but you will need to switch to another tty then back to tty7 (Ctrl+Alt+F1 and Alt+F7) to get graphics. (1065902)

• Users who were installing using the alternate CD:
  • to install with LVM or full-disk encryption you should now use the desktop image.
  • to install LTSP, please install using Ubuntu Server 12.10, then add ltsp post-install; or, stick with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and upgrade.
  • to install RAID there are several options:

    • install using the mini.iso (distributed from the 'debian-installer' directory on the mirrors)

    • install using the desktop CD and migrate the disks to RAID post-install.

    • install with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS alternate CD and upgrade.

• The desktop image installer cannot unlock existing encrypted (LUKS) volumes. If you need to make use of existing encrypted volumes during partitioning, then use the "Try Ubuntu without installing" boot option to start a live session, open the encrypted volumes (for example, by clicking on their icons in the Unity launcher), enter your password when prompted to unlock them, close them again, and run ubiquity to start the installer. (1066480)

• On ARM Panda boards with no external storage attached, the installer interface will be confusing and installation is likely to fail. We strongly recommend attaching an external hard disk when installing on Panda boards. (1053030)

Updates

• With certain combinations of software sources, apt-get update and similar operations may fail with a segmentation fault (1066445). A temporary workaround is to open a terminal and

  echo 'APT::Cache-Start 50331648;' | sudo tee /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99cache-start

  This doubles the initial size of APT's cache in memory, thereby happening to avoid this problem. This will cause APT to use more memory, so you should remove /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99cache-start after upgrading to apt 0.9.7.5ubuntu4 or newer.

Kernel

• Haswell processor graphics is not fully supported. (1066975)

• On some systems, when opening lid, there is a kerneloops with a suspend/resume failure message seen. (1054732)

• On machines with AMD graphic chips, WMI event and ACPI interrupt are sent at the same time while hitting the hotkey. (1052278)

• On ASUS N53SN laptops, the kernel does not boot without noefi on commandline. (1053897)

• ARM Panda Board users are experiencing a black screen during installation. See known installation issues above for additional info. (1065902)

Networking

• In order to improve compatibility with other local nameserver packages, NetworkManager now assigns IP address 127.0.1.1 to the local nameserver process that it controls instead of 127.0.0.1. If the system's /etc/resolv.conf is absent or is a static file instead of the symbolic link to ../run/resolvconf/resolv.conf installed by default then this static file will have to be updated by the administrator in order to continue using the NetworkManager-controlled nameserver.

Libvirt

• Windows vms which previously worked with 'vga' video now need 'cirrus' video.

Toolchain

• Python 2.7.3 includes a fix for a security vulnerability affecting Python's dict and set implementations. Carefully crafted, untrusted input could lead to extremely long computation times and denials of service. Although disabled by default, vulnerable applications such as CGI scripts can explicitly enable "hash randomization" to prevent this exploit. Due to implementation details of this fix, virtualenvs created with older 2.7.x releases may not work with 2.7.3. Specifically, the os module may not appear to have a urandom function. This problem can be solved by recreating the broken virtualenvs with the newer Python 2.7.3 version. See http://bugs.python.org/issue13703 for full details. (954595)

VMware Player

• During the installation process of either VMware Player major version 4 or 5 on Ubuntu 12.10 you will receive a crash report regarding lsb_release as VMware ships a version of Python 2 with the installer and the installation process calls lsb_release which uses Python 3. (938869) We are not certain how this affects VMware Player.

Video Drivers

• Several video drivers are not functioning with some legacy chip-sets.

  • xserver-xorg-video-trident with some Trident Cyberblade chip-sets. Black screen and lock-up. Bugs

  • xserver-xorg-video-intel with i810 chip-sets. Segfault. 1060492

  • xserver-xorg-video-sis with 315 series (SiS 315/E/PRO, 550, [M]650, 651, 740, [M]661[FMG]X,[M]741[GX]) chip-sets. Black screen or loops around login screen. 1034812

• Workarounds

  • Test with a Live CD to see if your hardware is effected.

  • Trident Cyberblade - As the vesa driver doesn't work with this chip-set the only solution is to remain with 12.04.

  • Intel i810 - A new install can only be accomplished from the Alternate ISO. On reboot go to Recovery Mode and delete/blacklist video driver. On reboot create suitable xorg.conf or use RandR to get correct resolution if necessary.

  • SiS 315 Series - As Intel i810