ReleaseNotes

Revision 62 as of 2013-10-17 11:07:24

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Introduction

The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer.

Get the Ubuntu 13.10

Upgrading from Ubuntu 13.04

To upgrade from Ubuntu 13.04 on a desktop system:

  • Open Software Sources.
  • Press Alt+F2 and type in "update-manager" (without the quotes) into the command box.
  • Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '13.10' is available.
  • Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 13.04 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.

  • Follow the on-screen instructions.

Note that the server upgrade will use GNU screen and automatically re-attach in case of dropped connection problems.

Offline upgrade options via alternate CDs are no longer offered for Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server. Please ensure you have network connectivity to one of the official mirrors or to a locally accessible mirror and follow the instructions above.

Upgrading from other releases

Users of other Ubuntu releases need to upgrade first to 13.04, and then to 13.10.

For further information on upgrading to 13.04, please see its upgrade instructions.

Ubuntu downloader for Windows discontinued

Due to various bugs in Wubi that were not addressed for 13.04, the Wubi installer is again not releasing with 13.10. You can read more about this decision here. Users who wish to try out Ubuntu without repartitioning a Windows system are encouraged to use a live system instead, booted from either a DVD or a USB disk.

Support lifespan

Ubuntu 13.10 will only be supported for 9 months. Non-LTS releases prior to Ubuntu 13.04 were supported for 18 months. For more information, please read the announcements here or here.

Download Ubuntu 13.10

Images can be downloaded from a location near you.

You can download ISOs from:

http://releases.ubuntu.com/13.10/ (Ubuntu Desktop and Server)
http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/13.10/release/ (Ubuntu Cloud Server)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/netboot/13.10/ (Ubuntu Netboot)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-core/releases/13.10/release/ (Ubuntu Core)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/13.10/release/ (Edubuntu DVD)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/13.10/release/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/13.10/release/ (Lubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/13.10/release/ (Ubuntu Studio)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/13.10/release/ (Ubuntu-GNOME)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/13.10/release/ (UbuntuKylin)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/13.10/release/ (Xubuntu)

To install Ubuntu 13.10 for phones, follow the instructions found at Touch/Install to download and flash an image to your device.

New features in 13.10

Please see the Saucy 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 Ubuntu 13.10.

For a list of all packages being accepted for Ubuntu 13.10, please subscribe to saucy-changes.

Linux kernel 3.11

Ubuntu 13.10 includes the 3.11.0-12.19 Ubuntu Linux kernel which was based on the v3.11.3 upstream Linux kernel.

Upstart 1.10

This release provides a new bridge, the upstart-file-bridge(8) that allows jobs to react to filesystem changes. For example, to have a job start when a particular file is created:

start on file FILE=/var/log/foo.log EVENT=create

Or to start a job when a file matching a glob pattern is deleted:

start on file FILE=/var/app/*.foo EVENT=delete

See upstart-file-bridge(8) and file-event(7) for further details.

Additionally, a new upstart-monitor(8) tool is available that allows event flows to be observed in real-time. This tool can run as a graphical or console application.

CUPS 1.6.2 and cups-filters 1.0.34

We had already switched to CUPS 1.6.x in Quantal (12.10) but had to apply a huge, awkward Ubuntu-specific patch to avoid regressions. Now we are up to all new standards without needing to do anything Ubuntu-specific.

Most important change here is the way how network printing works. Formerly, a CUPS-specific mechanism was used. The server broadcasted information about the printers it shares and the clients listen to these broadcasts making the printers available on the client side, looking like local print queues for the applications.

Recently, the Printer Working Group (PWG), an association of printer and software industry for developing standards related to digital printing, has created a standard for broadcasting information about shared printers. This standard is broadcasting the information via Bonjour, a protocol also used for many other network services, like shared files systems, screens, music/video servers, ...

CUPS has adopted this standard in 1.6.x, but only broadcasts and does not listen to broadcasts of CUPS daemons (or generally print servers using Bonjour) on other machines, letting remote printers not automatically get available locally. CUPS also dropped the old broadcasting protocol without transition period.

To overcome the problems and keeping network printing as easy as before (this is why 10 years ago the distros switched to CUPS) the cups-filters project of OpenPrinting introduced cups-browsed, an extra daemon which by default listens to Bonjour broadcasts of remote CUPS daemons (of IPP printers coming soon) and automatically creates local print queues pointing to the shared printers making pure CUPS 1.6.x networks working out-of-the-box.

If your network still contains machines running CUPS 1.5.x and older, cups-browsed also has legacy support for the old CUPS broadcasting, browsing (listening), and BrowsePoll. Please see the comments in /etc/cups/cups-browsed.conf, edit the file appropriately, and restart cups-browsed ("sudo restart cups-browsed") or reboot. When upgrading to Raring, BrowsePoll directives are overtaken from CUPS to cups-browsed automatically.

For everyone developing embedded or mobile systems based on Ubuntu, the CUPS package is split up into more binary packages to get a minimum client-only printing stack, of the packages cups-daemon, libcups2, and cups-browsed, occupying only ~1 MB. This only listens for Bonjour broadcasts (legacy CUPS broadcasts and BrowsePoll optional) of remote CUPS servers and makes the printers available locally. No drivers and filters for locally connected printers are available then.

Another thing to mention which was available before but never told about in release notes: When sharing local printers they are automatically available also for Apple's iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch).

Python 3.3

We eventually intend to ship only Python 3 with the Ubuntu desktop image, not Python 2. The Ubuntu 13.10 image continues this process, although we will not be able to convert everything to Python 3 for the Ubuntu 13.10 release.

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.

AppArmor

AppArmor has a number of new features in Ubuntu 13.10. Notably:

  • Support for fine-grained DBus mediation for bus, binding name, object path, interface and member/method (see man 5 apparmor.d for details)

  • The return of named AF_UNIX socket mediation
  • Integration with several services as part of the ApplicationConfinement work in support of click packages and the Ubuntu appstore

  • Better support for policy generation via the aa-easyprof tool and apparmor-easyprof-ubuntu policy

AppArmor policy has been adjusted for packages that ship it to work with these changes, but local policy may need to be adjusted, especially for named AF_UNIX sockets where policy created after Ubuntu 8.04 LTS may have missing 'rw' rules allowing the access. For DBus policy, as a transitional step, existing policy for packages that use DBus will continue to have full access to DBus, but future Ubuntu releases may provide fine-grained DBus rules for this software.

64-bit ARM architecture

Ubuntu 13.10 includes a new port to 64-bit ARM systems (the "arm64" architecture, also known as AArch64 or ARMv8) as a developer preview. This is an incomplete port which we expect to develop further in the future, but it is useful today for development work and for experimenting with server workloads. The Ubuntu Core arm64 image provides a root filesystem which may be booted in the ARMv8 Foundation Model, with the addition of a kernel (not provided in Ubuntu 13.10).

Due to time constraints, only a subset of the Ubuntu archive has been built for arm64; compared to armhf, 94% of the binary packages in the "main" component are available, and 69% of the binary packages in the archive as a whole. We expect this to be much more complete for Ubuntu 14.04.

Ubuntu

Upstart User Sessions

This Ubuntu release includes Upstart User Sessions by default, allowing Upstart to supervise a user's desktop session.

To see details of the running Upstart session, either echo $UPSTART_SESSION to see the D-Bus address the Session Init process is listening to, or run the following command which lists the process id of the Upstart session along with the value of $UPSTART_SESSION:

$ initctl list-sessions

The normal suite of Upstart commands is available (such as initctl, start, and stop). For example, to list all session jobs, run:

$ initctl list

To list system jobs from within a user session, run one of the following two commands:

$ initctl --system list
$ sudo initctl list

Session jobs are read from /usr/share/upstart/sessions/ and $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/upstart/ (or $HOME/.config/upstart if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set).

Session job output is logged to $XDG_CACHE_HOME/upstart/ (or $HOME/.cache/upstart/ if $XDG_CACHE_HOME is not set).

See init(5) for full details.

Ubuntu Touch

Ubuntu Server

OpenStack 2013.2 (Havana)

Ubuntu 13.10 includes the 2013.2 Havana release of OpenStack. OpenStack projects supported in 13.10 include: Nova, Glance, Swift, Keystone, Horizon, Cinder, Neutron and Ceilometer. Heat is also included in 13.10 in Ubuntu Universe.

Please note that Quantum (OpenStack Networking) has changed name to Neutron; package updates will install the required transitions - however configuration files under /etc/quantum must be manually transitioned to /etc/neutron with appropriate configuration review and updates.

OpenStack Havana is also available for Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS in the Ubuntu Cloud Archive.

Juju 1.16.0

Ubuntu 13.10 includes the 1.16.0 release of Juju. This includes the following new features:

Currently its not possible to transition an environment built using Juju 0.7 to 1.16.0; for backwards compatibility, Juju 0.7 has been retained in the archive for 13.10.

You can revert to Juju 0.7 client tools by using the following:

sudo update-alternatives --set juju /usr/lib/juju-0.7/bin/juju

or switch back to the new 1.16.0 release using:

sudo update-alternatives --set juju /usr/lib/juju-1.16.0/bin/juju

See the Juju documentation for full details.

Juju 1.16.0 is also available for Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS in the Ubuntu Cloud Tools Archive.

MAAS 1.4

Ubuntu 13.10 includes the latest MAAS release (1.4). This new upstream release includes various bug fixes and improvements. New features include:

  • Network discovery during server commissioning using LLDP.
  • Faster installations using the Curtin installer (a new alternative to the Debian Installer).
  • Extensible templates for DHCP, power control, PXE and DNS under /etc/maas/templates.
  • Support in the maas-cli for managing SSH keys and API credentials.
  • Support for HP Moonshot systems (users will need to provide iLO credentials for power management manually).

For more information about the new features and bug fixes, please review the MAAS ChangeLog.

MAAS 1.4 is also available for Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS in the Ubuntu Cloud Tools Archive.

LXC 1.0~alpha1

After many years of development, LXC has now been promoted to main and will benefit from the attention of the Ubuntu Security team.

Ubuntu 13.10 includes LXC 1.0~alpha1 which is the first upstream snapshot of what will be the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS version of LXC. That version will come with 5 years of bug fixes and security updates provided by upstream LXC.

LXC 1.0~alpha1 provides the following new features:

  • Improved API and language bindings.
  • Flexible backing store system, container cloning and snapshot support.
  • A more coherent set of of tools to control LXC containers.
  • Improvements to the various LXC templates.
  • Support for Android as both a host and container.
  • Initial support for unprivileged containers.

More on LXC's new website or in the Ubuntu Server guide.

Virtualization

Ubuntu 13.10 includes Qemu 1.5.0 and libvirt 1.1.1.

Qemu 1.5.0 and libvirt 1.1.1 are also available for Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS as part of the Ubuntu Cloud Archive for OpenStack Havana.

Apache 2.4 and PHP 5.5

Ubuntu 13.10 includes Apache 2.4 and PHP 5.5. Users of these packages should review their configuration prior to upgrade to ensure compatibility with Apache 2.4 directives and the new tooling and directory structure for managing configuration snippets in the Ubuntu packages.

For more details refer to the Apache 2.4 upgrade guide and the PHP 5.5 migration guide.

Ceph 0.67.4

Ubuntu 13.10 includes the latest Ceph Dumpling LTS release (0.67.4), providing improved performance and efficiency and block device encryption.

For full details on upgrading please see the Ceph release notes.

Ceph Dumpling is also available for Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS as part of the Ubuntu Cloud Archive for OpenStack Havana.

Open vSwitch 1.10.2

Ubuntu 13.10 includes Open vSwitch 1.10.2 with support for VXLAN overlay networks.

The Open vSwitch switch daemons are now controlled using Upstart configurations to allow Open vSwitch to be used early in the boot process; the 'force-reload-kmod' command from openvswitch-switch init script has been replaced with a new Upstart configuration 'openvswitch-force-reload-kmod' which can be used to force a full reload of the Open vSwitch kernel module and daemons:

sudo start openvswitch-force-reload-kmod

As of this release, the bridge compatibility module has been removed - users must migrate to using the native Open vSwitch integration for Ubuntu network scripts - see the package README for more details.

Open vSwitch 1.10.2 is also available for Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS as part of the Ubuntu Cloud Archive for OpenStack Havana.

Cloud-Init 0.7.3 and Cloud Images

Ubuntu 13.10 includes Cloud-Init 0.7.3, providing the following new features:

  • Support for provisioning with user-data support on Microsoft Azure, Joyent Cloud (SmartOS) and OpenNebula

  • Support for merging multipart cloud-config input via JSONP

  • Support for partitioning and creating filesystems ephemeral disks. Enabled by default for Microsoft Azure and Joyent Cloud (SmartOS)

Starting with 13.10, Joyent Cloud (SmartOS) is a supported target for the Ubuntu Cloud Images. Images will be delivered shortly after release. Cloud-init support for SmartOS includes user-data and user-scripts via the 'smartdc' tools. Users are advised to base64 encode their user-data.

Cloud Images available on Windows Azure are now provisioned completely with cloud-init. Previously images were provisioned with cloud-init and walinuxagent. walinuxagent has had all provisioning functions disabled and cloud-init handles all provisioning functions.

Puppet 3

Ubuntu 13.10 includes Puppet 3. This is a major version upgrade from previous Ubuntu releases and includes many changes which are not compatible with Puppet 2.7.x.

Please review the upstream release notes to determine which breaking changes apply to your installation.

Kubuntu

Further notes about this release of Kubuntu can be found at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SaucySalamander/Beta2/Kubuntu

Xubuntu

Further notes about this release of Xubuntu can be found at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SaucySalamander/Beta2/Xubuntu

Edubuntu

Further notes about this release of Edubuntu can be found at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SaucySalamander/Beta2/Edubuntu

Lubuntu

Further notes about this release of Lubuntu can be found at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SaucySalamander/Beta2/Lubuntu

Ubuntu Studio

Further notes about this release of Ubuntu Studio can be found at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SaucySalamander/Beta2/UbuntuStudio

UbuntuKylin

Further notes about this release of UbuntuKylin can be found at: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuKylin/1310-ReleaseNotes

Ubuntu GNOME

Please have a read at: Ubuntu GNOME Release Notes.

Known issues

As is to be expected, at this stage of the release process, there are some significant known bugs that users may run into with this release of Ubuntu 13.10. 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

  • When deleting and recreating partitions in manual partitioning where the disk has many partitions the installer may hang when attempting to mark the partition to be formatted. Resetting and restarting the install will allow the installation to be completed. (1240794)

  • In some cases, when installing to a disk that was previously partitioned, the installer (both text and GUI versions) will give an error about being unable to inform the kernel about partition changes. The workaround for this is to remove the partition table entirely and then reboot back into the installer. (1229432)

  • 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)

  • When using installer to upgrade or reinstall an existing installation with encrypted swap, the installer may fail to reuse the partition. A warning will be shown, however the installation can be completed. The installed system will not have swap activated and users are advised to recreate swap on their systems. Please see advice about adding and activating swap at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq (LP: #1172002)

  • Installs on very small memory systems may fail to start or exit without completing with no error. It is recommended that swap be created before install for such systems. Please see advice about adding and activating swap at: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq (LP: #1172161)

  • In rare circumstances the 'Next' button on the installer 'Install Type' screen is non-functional. This is intermittent and may be resolved by hitting 'Back' and retrying. (LP: #1172572)

  • In Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 error in video driver. (LP: #1199345)

  • In Windows Virtual PC can't boot 64-bit ISO. (LP: #1228086)

Migration

Graphics and Display

Networking

  • When connecting to MPA2/PEAP/MSCHAPv2 wifi networks which do not have a CA Certificate network manager may incorrectly mark the CA certificate as needing verification and fail that verification. See the bug for workarounds. (1104476)

Desktop

  • Tab support has been removed from webapps as part of a transitional effort to run webapps in a standalone webapps container, instead of inside your existing browser window. (LP: #1230382)

  • Gmail integration: message counters and labels support require an update to unity-webapps-gmail, which is available in a PPA: https://launchpad.net/~webapps/+archive/staging (see ). The fix will be part of the next SRU batch.

Kernel

Ubuntu Touch

Application Confinement

An important part of Ubuntu Touch is running 3rd party software in a safe manner, and a lot of work in support of ApplicationConfinement was completed. Specifically, when applications are installed on Ubuntu Touch via the Ubuntu appstore, they are installed using click packaging and run under AppArmor. While a very meaningful level of isolation between apps is achieved in Ubuntu 13.10 for Ubuntu Touch, the work is not completed and will continue in 14.04. Specifically:

  • Mir does not currently support a method for another process to display a confirmation dialog over the current foreground app (1224756). As such, users are not prompted for the following common services:

    Other services like online accounts, calendar and contacts are also affected, but access to these services is reserved for applications on a case-by-case basis in 13.10
  • AppStore apps with access to the audio policy group may trigger loading of pulseaudio system modules (1211380)

  • Several shared memory files are not application-specific (1197060, 1226569, 1224751)

  • Android services accessed via binder are not properly mediated (ie, apps are able to access the sensors and camera service when policy doesn't explicitly allow it, 1197134)

  • AppArmor mediation for signals, ptrace and some other forms of IPC for processes with the same UID is not yet implemented

  • AppArmor mediation for process-specific files in /proc in not implemented which discloses more information to apps than is required

  • AppArmor mediation of the environment is not implemented. Ubuntu 13.10 Touch AppArmor policy makes up for this by disallowing execution of less-restricted processes

  • X is not mediated (ie, keyboard/mouse sniffing, drag and drop, screen grabs, xsettings module loading). This is not a problem for Ubuntu Touch since it uses Mir, but is listed for people wanting to use Ubuntu appstore apps on X (eg, Ubuntu Desktop)
  • The YAMA kernel LSM is not available for Galaxy Nexus (maguro) and Nexus 7 (grouper) and not enabled on Nexus 4 (mako) and Nexus 10 (manta). As such kernel protections such as ptrace and link restrictions are not present

Browser

  • No support for hardware rendering when doing HTML5 video streaming playback (poor performance, due extra buffer copy)
  • Replaying video crashes browser (1236599)

Camera

  • Still photos only, no video recording

Clock

  • Alarms functionality not completely implemented (cannot save, no notification)

Dropping Letters

  • No audio (music & effects) during game (1196865)

Language and shell

  • After changing the system language, you need to reboot to get the shell picking your change

Location

  • Devices take a long time to get a GPS satellite lock - no AGPS/SUPL support

Media Player

  • Software decode and rendering is currently not supported (1234722)

  • Playing multiple videos in two different media players not supported
  • Flickering video playback on maguro
  • Replaying video crashes app (1236599)

Media Scanner

  • Maguro: incorrect color conversion when producing thumbnails (240264)

  • Copying large files over mtp causes mediascanner to consume CPU.

Mir

  • Unity8 display flickers and stop responding on grouper (1238695)

  • Not supported on Manta (Nexus 10) (1203268)

Telephony

  • No vibration on ring or sms

Ubuntu Server

MAAS

  • MAAS Server install fails without a network connection during install of maas-region-controller (LP: #1172566)

  • Need to use generic kernel for highbank on ARM (LP: #1166994)

  • Need to use generic-lpae kernel for midway on ARM (LP: #1240183)

OpenStack

  • Neutron services need re-scheduling to renamed agents post upgrade from Grizzly LP: #1236439

Ubuntu Core

Kubuntu

  • On boot of the installed system the graphical display is not initialised until late in the boot exposing boot messages unnecessarily. Updating kubuntu-settings will resolve this for subsequent boots. (1171099)

Xubuntu

Lubuntu

Ubuntu Studio

UbuntuKylin


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

Reporting 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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