Beta1
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DRAFT
Introduction
The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer. The Quantal Quetzal Alpha 3 Release of Ubuntu 12.10 is a developer snapshot to give you a very early glance at the next version of Ubuntu.
Get Ubuntu 12.10
Upgrading from Ubuntu 12.04
To upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 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 '12.10' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.
To upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 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 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. The Ubuntu Desktop images are now bigger than a standard CD, and you should use a USB for installation.
You can download Alpha 3 ISOs from:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/quantal/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu Desktop and Server)
http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/quantal/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu Cloud Server)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/quantal/alpha-3/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/quantal/alpha-3/ (Lubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/quantal/alpha-3/ (Edubuntu DVD)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/quantal/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu Studio)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/quantal/alpha-3/ (Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/quantal/ (Ubuntu Netboot)
New features in Quantal
Please see the Quantal 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 12.10 Quantal Quetzal.
For a list of all packages being accepted for 12.10 Quantal Quetzal, please subscribe to quantal-changes: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/quantal-changes
Linux kernel 3.5
Quantal Alpha-3 includes the 3.5.0-6.6 Ubuntu kernel which was based on the v3.5 upstream Linux kernel. This is an update from the 3.5.0-2.2 Ubuntu kernel which shipped in the Quantal Alpha-2 release and was based on the v3.5-rc4 upstream Linux kernel. Other notable changes with the Quantal Alpha-3 kernel include changing the default scheduler back to Deadline for both the server and desktop, homogenization of the kernel configs for supported flavors and arch's, removal of redundant firmware files, and misc bug fixes. As with the Quantal Alpha-1 and Alpha-2 releases, the Quantal Alpha-3 kernel continues to include the transitioning of the i386 generic-pae flavor to become the generic flavor offering, collapsing of the virtual flavor back into the generic flavor, and standardizing of the entire linux-meta package.
Python 3.0
For 12.10, we intend to ship only Python 3 with the Ubuntu desktop image, not Python 2. Alpha-3 continues this process.
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.
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.
Ubuntu
TODO: seb128
Ubuntu Server
TODO: arosales, Daviey, smoser
We are continuing to trial the removal of i386 Ubuntu Server CD image. This means that the primary supported installation method is AMD64, the 64-bit release (X86_64). However, other supported installations mechanisms for i386, such as mini.iso and netboot are still supported, which are an initial minimal download; and install directly from the network. i386 images for Alpha is also available, but is not declared as part of the Alpha 2 release. Feedback is most appreciated, if this causes issues for particular hardware.
Kubuntu
TODO: Riddell
Xubuntu
TODO: knome or astraljava'
Edubuntu
TODO: highvoltabe or stgraber
Lubuntu
TODO: gilir
Ubuntu Studio
TODO: ScottL
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 Quantal 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
Ubiquity displays scrollbars inside of slideshow. (1008717)
Migration
Upgrade from Precise Desktop with update-manager fails with "can't load DistUpgradeViewGtk (No module named vte)" (1009226) The command line version of the upgrader works correctly (do-release-upgrade -d).
In some cases, update-manager crashes with ImportError in main: No module named UpdateManager.UpdateManage (1013276)
Graphics and Display
On systems with an ATI Radeon 9200 graphics card the system will boot to a black screen. As a work around edit the kernel command line in the boot loader and add "nomodeset". (725580)
On some systems, gnome-settings-daemon crashed with SIGSEGV in xft_settings_set_xsettings(). (948347)
Desktop
Nautilus is missing the Preferences menu item. (999827)
Kernel
- ...
Ubuntu Server
Unexpected prompt for nameserver IP when using DHCP occurs. (1018271)
Ubuntu Core
- ...
Kubuntu
- update-manager testing has not been tried with Kubuntu yet, and is not recommended at this time.
Edubuntu
libwebkitgtk-3.0-0 is pulling in gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad and gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg which might make the image larger than normal (1028486).
- ...
Xubuntu
libwebkitgtk-3.0-0 is pulling in gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad and gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg which might make the image larger than normal (1028486).
All applications using Gtk3 currently have some mismatched colors in menus and buttons because of a bug in the Unico engine (1016713).
Lubuntu
Some iso's for A1 are over sized for CD use. (1009896)
Manual partitionning is not working if you want to modify an existing partition. (1018533). To workaround the problem, change the theme to "Raleigh" before making the change in Ubiquity.
Installation will fail if you want to install grub on anything else that the first drive (sda or sda1) (1015880)
libwebkitgtk-3.0-0 is pulling in gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad and gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg which might make the image larger than normal (1028486).
Ubuntu Studio
libwebkitgtk-3.0-0 is pulling in gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad and gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg which might make the image larger than normal (1028486).
- ...
For a listing of more known issues, please refer to the Quantal Quetzal bug tracker in Launchpad.
Reporting bugs
It should come as no surprise that this Alpha 3 release of Quantal Quetzal 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
These images were able to be made available to you thanks to the help of our QA Community
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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