Kubuntu

We’re preparing Kubuntu 13.04, the Raring Ringtail, for distribution in April 2013. With this early Alpha pre-release, you can see what we are trying out in preparation for our next version. We have some interesting things happening, so read on for highlights and information.

NOTE: This is an alpha pre-release. Kubuntu Pre-releases are NOT recommended for:

  • Regular users who are not aware of pre-release issues
  • Anyone who needs a stable system
  • Anyone uncomfortable running a possibly frequently broken system
  • Anyone in a production environment with data or workflows that need to be reliable

Kubuntu Pre-releases ARE recommended for:

  • Regular users who want to help us test by finding, reporting, and/or fixing bugs
  • Kubuntu developers

Getting Kubuntu 13.04 Alpha 2

Download a Disk Image

Instructions for burning the image to a DVD or USB flash drive can be found on the Burning ISO Howto.

We recommend you learn how to check your image file so your pre-release is as it’s supposed to be. Compare your MD5 checksum with the correct ones found alongside the images.

Alpha 2 Highlights

Software Updates

KDE Plasma and Applications 4.10

http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.10/

The latest release of KDE's Plasma Workspaces and Applications 4.10 adds a new screen locker, Qt Quick notifications, colour correction in Gwenview and faster indexing in the semantic desktop.

Infrastructure

Secure Boot

Kubuntu should now be able to support UEFI Secure Boot, a standard for controlling what software can be run on a computer. Supporting Secure Boot, a part of the Windows 8 certification requirements for client systems, ensures that Ubuntu will continue to provide an "it just works" experience on new hardware.

If you have hardware for this, we would appreciate your help in testing it out.

Linux kernel 3.8-rc6

The Alpha 2 Raring Ringtail snapshot includes a the 3.8.0-6.11 Ubuntu Linux kernel which is based on the the upstream v3.8-rc6 Linux kernel. Notable changes include initial support for arm multiplatform support for TI omap3/4 and Freescale imx6, alx ethernet driver support, misc config updates and security fixes.

GNU Toolchain

13.04 is distributed with an updated default toolchain that includes: GCC 4.7.2-21ubuntu1 (was GCC 4.7.2 in 12.10) and eglibc 2.17-0ubuntu4. ARM 64 bit cross compiler (gcc-4.7-arm64-cross 0.4) is also available.

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

Java Toolchain

OpenJDK7 is the default Java implementation. Current revision is: OpenJDK-7 7u9-2.3.5~pre1-1ubuntu1.

Known Problems

Kubuntu

  • 1086840 Missing bookmarks.xml error

Installation

  • 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)

  • ARM OMAP4 machines will sometimes boot to 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 then Alt+F7) to get graphics. (1065902)

  • On a mac with an external display can not run in framebuffer mode error occurs on the 2nd reboot onwards. (1066883)

Kernel

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

  • On certain ASUS machines with AMD graphic chips, a WMI event and ACPI interrupt are sent at the same time when hitting the hotkey to change display mode, resulting in the display mode being changed twice in succession. Users can work around this using the Displays panel in System Settings for changing display modes. (1052278)

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

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.

Feedback

Development of Kubuntu 13.04, the Raring Ringtail is ongoing and bugs are fixed every day. Before reporting bugs, please ensure your system is up to date. For verifying installation related bugs, updated disk images are available from Daily bootable images for standard PCs/laptops/netbooks.

You can give us feedback on the Kubuntu Google+ page.

RaringRingtail/Alpha2/Kubuntu (last edited 2013-02-13 19:05:56 by vorlon)