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KDE Operating Systems Ubuntu Upgrades Linux

Ubuntu, Kubuntu 13.10 Unleashed 143

llebeel writes "Canonical announced its free Ubuntu 13.10 Linux operating system (OS) release, on the same day as Microsoft's remedial Windows 8.1 service pack update. We speak to Canonical founder and Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth who tells us what to expect." Adds reader jrepin: "Kubuntu Linux 13.10 has just been released and is available for download. It comes with KDE Software Compilation 4.11, a new application for discovering and installing software, a simpler way to manage your system users. and a new Network Manager applet gives a simpler UI for connecting to a range of network types. You can now setup Wifi networking from the installer making it easier to install updates and extra packages during the install." ZDNet has a fairly tepid review of the incremental rather than startling improvements of the new release, and notes "Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, due for release on 17 April next year, will now perhaps come as even more of a shock if its promised big changes are fully realised."
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Ubuntu, Kubuntu 13.10 Unleashed

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  • Now maybe VMWare can get off their duff and provide a functional installer for 13.04

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Don't expect vendors to support non-LTS versions of Ubuntu (see: List of Ubuntu releases [wikipedia.org]).

      13.04 is only supported until Jan 2014, and 13.10 will only be supported until July 2014 (WTF only 9 months of support?), so there's no reason for vendors to bother supporting them.

      I wouldn't expect vendors to support anything other 10.04 LTS (server-only; still supported until April 2015), or 12.04 LTS (supported until April 2017).

  • Just me or is this a circular link?
  • Proper ZDNet Link (Score:5, Informative)

    by mike.rimov ( 1148959 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @09:58AM (#45152985) Homepage
    ZDNet link was bad. Proper one is Here [zdnet.com]
  • I shudder to think of what those might be. More change for change's own sake I suppose.

    • linux 'fragmentation' is a real problem.

      as soon as some distro gets their gui for mgmt working, they change it and start all over again ;(

      the state of guis for config and mgmt is piss-poor, given how long linux has been on the desktop. you still can't do that much via the supplied guis, and that's just really unacceptable.

      each distro wants to be 'special' and I think this works against us.

      android fragmentation is a major fuck-up, and many people see that and agree. but linux desktop fragmentation is also

      • by pmontra ( 738736 )

        Yeah, well, I think everybody agrees that Gnome 2 (replace with your favorite DE) was the only true DE and everything else was and will be much worse. Oh, doesn't everybody agree on that and somebody even dares to code his own GUI still now? O_o

        Seriously, it's an unsolvable problem given the nature of open source and maybe it's not even a problem until somebody keeps coding a GUI that I can tweak into something I can accept to use. You see what's the problem? :-)

        With a Mac or a PC you must surrender to Appl

        • by ebh ( 116526 )

          Mint+Mate is just fine for me. Nice to know I can hack it if the need arises, though.

      • by 0123456 ( 636235 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @12:14PM (#45154597)

        linux 'fragmentation' is a real problem.

        as soon as some distro gets their gui for mgmt working, they change it and start all over again ;(

        Windows fragmentation is a real problem. As soon as we get used to the latest version of their GUI, they change it and start all over again.

        • Lol, funny how that works, isn't it?

          I don't see what's the big deal about having a plethora of possibilities. I personally have run Arch+KDE4 for the past few years and have loved it. Why? Because it works for ME, and I can customize, adjust, etc. things just the way I want them, which is very likely unique to my needs and probably wouldn't be great for someone else to use. But that's the beauty of running Linux on the desktop, you can configure the 'appliance' for your specific need rather than be confi
          • by Sipper ( 462582 )

            ...

            I personally have run Arch+KDE4 for the past few years and have loved it. Why? Because it works for ME, and I can customize, adjust, etc. things just the way I want them, which is very likely unique to my needs and probably wouldn't be great for someone else to use. But that's the beauty of running Linux on the desktop, you can configure the 'appliance' for your specific need rather than be confined to what someone else thinks is the best way to run a GUI.

            I'm mainly a Debian user, I'm also running Arch (in a VM, for Desktop use, with LUKS/cryptfs) and I'm very pleased with what I find with it so far. However one thing I do notice is that for Daemons, Arch upgrades seem to create ".pacnew" configuration files that sit alongside the original configuration files and outputting a warning, somewhat similar to how RPMs upgrade with ".rpmnew" files. I don't particularly like that -- I much prefer the prompts for administrator input that the APT/dpkg system bri

      • by Teun ( 17872 )
        What you call fragmentation is one of Linux strengths, just looking at MS makes you realise fresh DNA can be the lifesaver. Let's (vainly) hope that was the reason Windows has over the last few years change so much...

        Anyhow, just about the last remaining fully functional Linux desktop is KDE and it goes from strength to strength.

        Regrettably a bunch of nitwits keeps blaming KDE on the less than perfect transition many popular distro's had between KDE version 3.5 and the present 4.
        Or even worse, they are s

      • "I wish there was a central config team that spanned the distro companies and concentrated on doing a mgmt interface ONCE AND FOR ALL."

        Because after all, the free market works best when it is centrally planned and controlled.

    • Totally untrue. Look at the unity 8 screen cap here:
      http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/unity8screen.png [arstechnica.net]

      This makes it clear that it's not changes for changes' sake, it blatant "we want to look like apple" changes.

      Seriously, am I the only one who would think it's ios7 if it wasn't for the top bar and background pattern?

  • by EmperorOfCanada ( 1332175 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @10:04AM (#45153045)
    I think in the early days Ubuntu was very good for linux. It showed that you could have a linux install that was fairly user friendly. Then it got better and better. But then suddenly it seemed to become Mark Shuttleworth's Ubuntu. Now it seemed to be a Red Hat envying I want to become a tech billionaire Ubuntu. Next it was an iPhone envying I want to be Steve Jobs Ubuntu. The key symptom of this being that it was both trying to appease the Linux crowd all the while annoying them to death all the while making sure their PR department was working overtime.

    Then along came the Linux Mints, they saw what Ubuntu had been and focused on that. As someone who is asked by many people "What kind of computer should I get?" I will only be advising Linux mint for those people where Linux is a good fit; that is those people who surf the web, send gmails, watch YouTube, and type the occasional document.

    The worst part of this for Ubuntu is that with all the hype hype hype they could make Ubuntu pretty awesome and I still wouldn't believe it and ever go back.
    • And nothing was lost.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SJHillman ( 1966756 )

      Ubuntu was my first real exposure to Linux, mostly thanks to being able to boot to a live CD from a high school computer to get around the Internet filtering. Once I actually started doing more than web browsing, games and word processing, I quickly moved on to Mint.

      I still use Ubuntu Server once in a while if I need to set up a basic, no frills server for some limited task. It's well documented, so it's pretty easy to get something up and running quickly although I'd likely never use it in a business produ

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Maskull ( 636191 )
      These days, I prefer to think of Ubuntu as being akin to Mac OS X or Android: it's an operating system which is built on a Unix core, but it doesn't want to be a "Unix OS". So you shouldn't expect it to act like a normal Linux distribution, because it's intentionally trying to hide all the things you expect to be there. Personally, that's not what I want.
      • by Dracos ( 107777 )

        it's intentionally trying to hide all the things you expect to be there

        This is what Windows has been doing for decades. Dumbing down the UI (GUI or otherwise) doesn't make the system "better", it just makes the quality of users worse.

    • by umafuckit ( 2980809 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @10:53AM (#45153585)

      I think in the early days Ubuntu was very good for linux. It showed that you could have a linux install that was fairly user friendly.

      Other distros, like SuSE, had achieved this before Ubuntu was released.

      • Says the techie who has no clue how incredibly out of touch with reality he is

        • Says the techie who has no clue how incredibly out of touch with reality he is

          Not at all. I hardly ever recommend Linux to non-techies because I've seen the issues it often causes. But I think it still stands that in 2004 SuSE was roughly equally as easy to install as Ubuntu. Someone who could have installed Ubuntu back then could have installed SuSE. Here's the Ubuntu 4 install: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEmm8-PgRHM [youtube.com] Here's the SuSE 9 install guide: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDQQFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.s [google.com]

          • Not at all. I hardly ever recommend Linux to non-techies because I've seen the issues it often causes.

            I have absolutely no problem with intelligent discussion with anyone on the pros and cons of Linux, but why do so many of the anti-Linux people make these generalised, sweeping statements about Linux without putting any meat into their points?

            Precisely what issues have you seen Linux cause?

            I've given a number of friends and family the opportunity to try Linux out, mainly because they themselves tell me they

            • Precisely what issues have you seen Linux cause?

              I can attest that for the most part it works just fine. My completely computer illiterate dad uses it on a machine at home - he didn't know how to use Windows when he joined a fantasy football league that required use of the computer, so I started him on Linux and he's fine there. On the odd chance he has a question I ssh into his machine and tunnel into VNC over that to look at anything that needs to be done.

              My sister also uses it just fine. Her laptop died so I've lent her mine since I mostly use my d

              • Granted, I did the setup work on both those machines myself - I don't think they could have done the install, but many people can't install Windows either. As long as the system is up and running already though I don't think its too complicated for most people to use.

                I agree. The problems mostly come when some people have set ideas of what they expect from the experience (based on Windows, usually) and these preconceptions are not met. Unless they're motivated to learn the new way, they will end up back on Windows pretty soon. Support doesn't help in this case.

                I've seen the same thing trying to get my girlfriend to analyse her data in R rather than Excel. I explained why R was better for stats and how it could be much quicker for making graphs. I wrote R scripts to a

            • Not at all. I hardly ever recommend Linux to non-techies because I've seen the issues it often causes.

              I have absolutely no problem with intelligent discussion with anyone on the pros and cons of Linux, but why do so many of the anti-Linux people make these generalised, sweeping statements about Linux without putting any meat into their points?

              Calm down, I'm on your side, I was just responding to the previous guy who seemed to be claiming that SuSE install was hard in 2004. The point of my post was that it wasn't hard (or was no harder than Ubuntu was back then). I'm not anti-Linux, I've been using it for over a decade. What I was getting at with the comment you picked up is that I don't rabidly promote it or expect others to like it. I have got others to use Linux in the past but for various reasons (e.g. they just preferred Windows and couldn'

            • I have absolutely no problem with intelligent discussion with anyone on the pros and cons of Linux, but why do so many of the anti-Linux people make these generalised, sweeping statements about Linux without putting any meat into their points?

              Precisely what issues have you seen Linux cause?

              Once upon a time, you had to go out and search down drivers.

              To these people, that means that you will always have to do that.

              Once upon a time, installing a program would take you back to the mid 1980's.

              To these people installing programs was then, is now, and always shall be difficult

              A few weeks ago, I installed Linux Mint over my Ubuntu distro. It was so ridiculously easy, I was surprised. And just like the Ubuntu distros of the last several years, all the drivers I needed were installed, and every pa

              • Agreed. And I've never had a single occasion where I've done a Windows installation where I've not had to go off and download drivers from somewhere else to get all the hardware working.

                That doesn't mean it's a problem because when you've done it, everything works fine and everyone is happy - but the Windows people seem to conveniently forget these things when they accuse Linux of being difficult to install.

                • That doesn't mean it's a problem because when you've done it, everything works fine and everyone is happy - but the Windows people seem to conveniently forget these things when they accuse Linux of being difficult to install.

                  I don't recall anyone on this thread saying thta Linux was difficult to install. I think you're seeing anti-Linux sentiments where none exist.

            • I have absolutely no problem with intelligent discussion with anyone on the pros and cons of Linux, but why do so many of the anti-Linux people make these generalised, sweeping statements about Linux without putting any meat into their points?

              Precisely what issues have you seen Linux cause?

              "Anti-Linux" is among the least-accurate labels you could use to describe me. However, I've been using it as my primary desktop OS for long enough to develop a memory of a range of bugs that range from "minor annoyance" to "headache" to "complete showstopper." As my Linux knowledge has increased over the last eight years, and as my skills have improved, the issues have become easier to deal with.

              However, what is today a "minor annoyance" to me would be a "complete showstopper" for non-techies like, say, my

              • In years of using Ubuntu and Fedora, I never had problems like those.

                • I'm glad for you. But suspend (never really tried hibernate) has always been an on-again, off-again problem for me on three laptops over the years... most of the years were spent using Ubuntu. It'll be working fine, and then seemingly out of nowhere, it'll stop working. Or only work intermittently, as it does now with Debian Jessie (after being fine for my first few months with the ThinkPad). But the huge log file problem is unlike anything I've ever had before.
            • but none of it's an "issue" because I help them fix it

              That's an issue right there. YOU have to fix it for them.

      • Other distros, like SuSE, had achieved this before Ubuntu was released.

        ... S.u.S.E. had achieved this before Ubuntu was released.

        FTFY

      • by ffflala ( 793437 )
        "User friendly" is necessarily going to be subjective, but I think it's fair to characterize early Ubuntu as more user friendly than other distros at the time. Specifically, they seemed to really focus on making it accessible to people who were unfamiliar with Linux. Early on they would even mail out free install discs on request.
    • by div_2n ( 525075 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @11:39AM (#45154075)

      It's not rocket science. Rightly or wrongly Canonical has decided that the future of general computing is in the mobile space and they are working on getting Ubuntu there and bridging the gap between the mobile computing experience and the desktop computing experience.

      In simplest of terms, they're trying to make a distro that can be both a phone and a desktop all in the same device. Again -- rightly or wrongly -- they have decided that they needed to move certain things in house to best accomplish that goal (Mir) and needed a specific interface they were in control of to scale between display form factors (Unity).

      If you are a person that thinks this direction is wrong and will hurt Linux in the long run, then you belong in the "bad for Linux" category. I'm a person that thinks this is absolutely the best way for Linux to finally have its "year of the desktop" similar to how Apple made their comeback but with a twist -- by providing a compelling mobile experience with a device that just so happens to be able to double as someone's desktop when they want a bigger screen.

      Pay attention to plunging desktop sales numbers. As people find ways to make mobile devices and tablets their only computing devices, this strategy will start to look smarter and smarter. Whatever else you think of Canonical (and by extension Ubuntu), this will either make them or break them.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      Well, Red Hat found a profitable market. Apple found a profitable market. Google found a profitable market. Has Canonical? They're a private company so we don't really know but as late as a call this year announcing Ubuntu for Tablets they said they were not. Nor can I spot any big and obvious cash flows to indicate they would be, they're a contender in various areas but no big cash cows. It's the same as when Red Hat shut down Red Hat Linux (not Red Hat *Enterprise* Linux) in favor of the Fedora project, s

      • I think in the process though Ubuntu has killed what draws a lot of people to it.

        I'm no OSS hippie. I'm cool with binary graphics drivers and even full programs where necessary. However, one thing that was always great about Linux was that the direction generally felt like it was following what the community wanted. We won't change things simply to release a new version we can charge for. We won't do stupid things to make shareholders happy. Its never been simply that it was "free" (because pirated Win

    • I agree. I've been an off-and-on user of Linux since 1998 when I was in high school. I downloaded and dual-booted an old version of Mandrake back then, and it was a neat toy.

      Then when I got into college I got a 2nd system just for Linux (and started using Slackware, then later Gentoo) and used a KVM, but I mostly just did my CompSci homework on my Linux system. I still didn't like actually doing my day to day browsing and general computer usage in Linux.

      That continued after I got out of school until even

    • "What kind of computer should I get?" I will only be advising Linux mint for those people where Linux is a good fit; that is those people who surf the web, send gmails, watch YouTube, and type the occasional document.

      I use linux to write software, play games on steam, lightly edit videos with kdenlive, record voice overs with audacity, and create posters with gimp. Linux doesn't have everything down perfectly, but it is a wonderful system for more than just web browsing and document editing. It's biggest f

  • by wjcofkc ( 964165 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @10:09AM (#45153107)
    Ubuntu GNOME, a version of Ubuntu that replaces Unity with GNOME was also release as a 13.10 final derivative today. I've been using it since the beta and it's pretty nice. While it ships with GNOME 3.8, it can be upgraded to 3.10

    http://ubuntugnome.org/ubuntu-gnome-13-10-is-released/ [ubuntugnome.org]
    • by binarylarry ( 1338699 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @10:18AM (#45153229)

      GNOME is the only DE more fucked up than Unity.

      • by wjcofkc ( 964165 )
        How? I'd like a breakdown please.
        • by Anonymous Coward

          It doesn't look like GNOME 2!

          Do you need more breakdown?

      • by kmg90 ( 957346 )
        GNOME 3+ yes... but I liked GNOME prior to it trying to mimic Unity and trying something radically different only to find it completely bloated and confusing
  • I left Ubuntu back when they started making their own UI and doing it terribly.

    I'd never go back, even if they had fixed all their flaws because of the inability to easily upgrade with each version.

    These days I run Debian Testing with XFCE. Mostly painless, rolling upgrades.
    • by armanox ( 826486 )

      It's a much nicer interface then GNOME. I'd install Unity on Fedora if it worked.

      • by DeathToBill ( 601486 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @10:17AM (#45153217) Journal

        I agree. I don't get all the Unity hate here. It's a GUI that lets me do most things without moving my hands from the keyboard. What's not to like?

        • I didn't like it because the application bar on the left only had a teeny little arrow pointing to the icon when the app was running. It wasn't obvious at first what that meant.

          All the HATE that you refer to is probably because unity sends your local search query out to the internet. That way, Canonical can see when you're searching your own hard disk for "Hot llama porn.mpg".
          • But why would I be searching my hard drive for "Hot llama porn.mpg"?
            That file would be under:
            /home/USERNAME/Tax/Backups/2010/Business/Online/2010tax.pdf/Pr0n/Animal/4legs/fuzzy/llamas/
            Obviously. I mean where else would it be?
            The point is, keep your files organized and you never need to search for them in the first place.
            • by Belial6 ( 794905 )
              Search is the primary interface for Unity. Apple convinced Mac users that doing a search for everything you want to access is better than an organized menu, and Ubuntu is trying to mimic that.
        • by fph il quozientatore ( 971015 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @10:41AM (#45153455)

          People like what they're used to, even if it's not necessarily the best thing.
          That's why it takes an awful lot of work to convince someone to switch from Windows to Linux, especially when they are at a point in which regedit-hacking is "natural" and "easy" to them.
          That's why neither Emacs nor Vi have adopted standard rest-of-the-world shortcuts such as ctrl+c, ctrl+v, after they've been around for, like, 30 years?
          That's why you can't remove an option or change something in a software without disrupting someone's workflow (I'm too lazy to look up the relevant xkcd).
          My answer is: forget about these old get-off-my-lawn users grumbling and go on, especially if what you are doing makes sense from a usability point of view. Focus on making things easy for new users instead.

          (I guess I can kiss my karma goodbye - I have probably offended every possible category of Slashdot users here.)

          • by Mathieu Lu ( 69 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @11:26AM (#45153911) Homepage

            oblig xkcd: http://xkcd.org/1172/ [xkcd.org] ;)

          • That's why neither Emacs nor Vi have adopted standard rest-of-the-world shortcuts such as ctrl+c, ctrl+v, after they've been around for, like, 30 years?

            The editors you're more likely to see preinstalled on these GUI Linux distributions, such as Gedit, Leafpad, Geany, and Kate, all support the well-known keyboard shortcuts out of the box. But I'll grant that that's not much help when you're accessing a remote computer through SSH.

          • by fa2k ( 881632 )

            My answer is: forget about these old get-off-my-lawn users grumbling and go on, especially if what you are doing makes sense from a usability point of view. Focus on making things easy for new users instead.

            Would have agreed if you said "focus on making things better instead". If you break the existing functions for high productivity, and replace it with something that's "easy for new users", it's no wonder people get upset. People are only "new users" for a few days or weeks, then many people require more advanced functionality. So optimising only for "new users" at the cost of more advanced functionality, like Ubuntu and Gnome seem to do, is bound to cause frustration.

          • by Anonymous Coward

            People like what they're used to, even if it's not necessarily the best thing...

            That's why neither Emacs nor Vi have adopted standard rest-of-the-world shortcuts such as ctrl+c, ctrl+v, after they've been around for, like, 30 years

            Uh, no. That's not why emacs and vi don't implement the windows shortcuts. The reason is that it wouldn't make sense. Both emacs and vi are more than just text editors -- they are editing paradigms. You have the emacs paradigm, you have the vi paradigm, and you have the windows pa

            • Please explain to me once again how switching the bindings of Alt-W and Ctrl-C would irremediably change the "editing paradigm".

              Re your other comment, Windows shortcuts are not better, they are standard.

              And no, you're wrong, I have been using Emacs for a while and I still use it every now and then today. I have kept the habit of pressing Ctrl-X Ctrl-S to save rather than simply Ctrl-S when I am using another editor. Doesn't do me any good and is occasionally dangerous (when I happen to have highlighted

          • by iris-n ( 1276146 )

            That's the kind of mentality that leads Firefox to shipping with a different interface every version.

        • Right now it's fashionable to hate Unity/Canonical.

          I use Unity on all of my desktops/laptops and find it fast, stable and productive. Incremental updates is what you want from a mature, well designed product, not massive changes every single release.
        • by IANAAC ( 692242 )

          ... I don't get all the Unity hate here.

          I get the hate, at least up until now. It's the horrible reliance on compiz. Way too many parts that can (and do) break on updates.

          • by pmontra ( 738736 )
            For me it's the menu at the top and the launcher at the left. I can't stand any of them. I always merged Gnome 2's top bar in the bottom one on any fresh install, deleted the parts of them that I don't use and thank's god Gnome 2 has no launcher/docker. The app menu or ALT-F2 are good enough. I'm working on 12.04 with fallback mode (I think it's called like that) and obviously I deinstalled the packages for the global menu. My screen is tall enough to handle per app menus (still a 16:10). The compiz cube is
        • by 0123456 ( 636235 )

          It's a GUI that lets me do most things without moving my hands from the keyboard. What's not to like?

          You don't quite get this GUI thing, do you?

  • by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Thursday October 17, 2013 @11:08AM (#45153713)
    Operating system updates should only have incremental improvements.
  • Don't forget Lubuntu. The LXDE variant of Ubuntu is, in my opinion, and under-appreciated distro. The stability and community support of Ubuntu, with the speed of the lightweight LXDE and without that distracting Unity stuff. For older PCs or machines with modest specs, this has repeatedly been my distro of choice. 13.10 added Zram for the live CD too, which will help with low spec machines. By the way, Lubuntu is a good choice for former windows users because of the familiar taskbar, window, and menu layo
    • Lubuntu is actually somewhat buggy. For example, just try changing the height of the default panel and see what happens. Also the configuration is lacking, there isn't even an option to disable touchpad tapping. For slower computers (actually, any computer) Xubuntu is a far more robust choice, and not essentially more heavyweight than Lubuntu.
      • I have found Lubuntu to be somewhat faster, but I can't argue with Xubuntu (or Linux Mint xfce) as very solid operating system for beginners or advanced users. Very good choices. Seems like the best things in the Ubuntu sphere are happening outside the core Ubuntu distro.
      • Try installing xSensors in Lubuntu for a truely wierd experience!
  • It was painless, took about 15 minutes and works fine now. The only issue I've noticed is that the windows titlebars become transparent when I click on them and when I right-click on them the popup menu (Move to Desktop / Activities / Minimize / ...) is transparent and unreadable. Searching through the options didn't give me any lead.

Trap full -- please empty.

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