Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Thread

Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) released!

Kate Stewart kate.stewart at ubuntu.com
Thu Apr 26 12:04:11 UTC 2012

"Imagination is as vital to any advance in science as learning and
precision are essential for starting points." - Percival Lowell


The Ubuntu team is very pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Long-Term Support) for Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.

Codenamed "Precise Pangolin", 12.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing a few new features and improving quality control.

To be a bit more precise about what we're releasing today...There are 54 product images and 2 cloud images being shipped with this 12.04 LTS release, with translations available in 41 languages. The Ubuntu project's 12.04 archive currently has 39,226 binary packages in it, built from 19,179 source packages, so lots of good starting points for your imagination!

For PC users, Ubuntu 12.04 supports laptops, desktops, and netbooks with a unified look and feel based on an updated version of the desktop shell called "Unity", which introduces "Head-Up Display" search capabilities. Finding and installing software using the Ubuntu Software Centre is now easier thanks to improvements in speed, search and usability.

Ubuntu Server 12.04 has made it much easier to provision, deploy, host, manage, and orchestrate enterprise data centre infrastructure services with the introduction of new technologies such as "Metal as a Service" (MAAS), the Juju Charm Store, and the latest OpenStack version, codenamed Essex. These technologies further position Ubuntu Server as the best OS for scale-out computing.

Read more about the new features of Ubuntu 12.04 in the following press releases:

http://www.canonical.com/content/ubu...perscale-world
http://www.canonical.com/content/ubu...rprise-desktop

Long term support maintenance updates will be provided for Ubuntu 12.04 for five years, through April 2017. For those working on the ARM architecture, an 18 month supported release is also provided for the ARM server using the ARM Hard Float (HF) architecture.

Thanks to the efforts of the global translation community, Ubuntu is now available in 41 languages. For a list of available languages and detailed translation statistics for these and other languages, see:

http://people.canonical.com/~dpm/sta...ion-stats.html

The newest Kubuntu 12.04 (LTS), Edubuntu 12.04 (LTS), Xubuntu 12.04 (LTS), Mythbuntu 12.04, Lubuntu 12.04 and Ubuntu Studio 12.04 are also being
released today. More details can be found in their announcements:

Kubuntu: http://kubuntu.org/news/12.04-release
Xubuntu: http://xubuntu.org/news/12-04-release
Edubuntu http://edubuntu.org/news/12.04-release
Mythbuntu: http://mythbuntu.org/12.04/release
Lubuntu: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Announcement/12.04
Ubuntu Studio: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/12.04release_notes


To get Ubuntu 12.04
-------------------

In order to download Ubuntu 12.04, visit:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Users of Ubuntu 11.10 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 12.04 via Update Manager. For further information about upgrading, see:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/upgrade

As always, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge.

We recommend that all users read the release notes, which document caveats, workarounds for known issues, as well as more in-depth notes on the release
itself. They are available at:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/releasenotes

Find out what's new in this release with a graphical overview:

http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/whats-new
http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/features

If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but aren't sure, you can try asking in any of the following places:

#ubuntu on irc.freenode.net
http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
http://www.ubuntuforums.org
http://askubuntu.com.

Release notes

The i386 images use a non-PAE kernel. The non-PAE kernel will not be available in future Xubuntu releases.
Some default shortcuts have been changed, added and deleted. See New default shortcut keys for the complete list.
Pavucontrol is used instead of xfce4-mixer due to latter not supporting Pulseaudio
The Alacarte menu editor is installed by default and will work with Xfce-related menu items as well
Lots of appearance improvements, including new branding, fixes for Greybird, Ubiquity, Plymouth, LightDM and Terminal theming
Syncs, updates and patches from Debian and upstream, including xfce4-power-manager, Ristretto and gmusicbrowser
xfdesktop4 updated to support single-click opening and thumbnail support for the desktop
xfce4-settings has been updated to include the new mouse and touchpad dialog
New branding

About Mythbuntu
http://www.mythbuntu.org/12.04/release

Mythbuntu is a community supported add-on for Ubuntu focused upon setting up a standalone MythTV based PVR system. It can be used to prepare a standalone system or for integration with an existing MythTV network. Unlike similar projects, Mythbuntu keeps close ties with Ubuntu and all development is given back to Ubuntu. This architecture allows simple conversions from a standard desktop to a Mythbuntu machine and vice versa.

Ubuntu Studio is the Ubuntu flavour designed for content creation. It's produced as a DVD image that can also be converted to an USB stick and includes support for most languages by default. Ubuntu Studio 12.04 LTS is a 3 year long-term support release and will be supported until April 2015. New features include: live DVD; GUI-based installation; low-latency kernel installed by default; i386 images use the low-latency PAE kernel; Xfce as the default desktop environment; Pulse Audio with JACK bridging enabled by default; new theme, icons and default font.

Originally Posted by Ericglo

LOL, then you probably don't know the pain of Unity.

Originally Posted by waterhead

Will there be Gnome 3 available for it?

Originally Posted by tux99

What do ya mean? These days (given all the recent restrictive laws, new NSA super-surveillance centers and executive orders I keep reading about) I would be at least as wary about spyware in software coming from the US than from anywhere else (including China)...
In fact Adobe Flash is right at the top of my personal "suspicious to possibly contain spyware" list...

Originally Posted by Ericglo

No offense, but I bet most people coming into this sub-forum probably know the difference.

I haven't checked the last time I installed gnome-shell, but on this desktop I have Gnome 3. I installed it in Nov. I think it is just called Gnome on the Log In screen. I just checked and you can install it from the software center.

Originally Posted by waterhead

I enabled a Gnome ppa and let it do an upgrade. My Ubuntu system will no longer boot!

I'm done with Ubuntu. From now on I will use either Fedora or openSUSE. Fedora has a 13 monthe life cycle, while openSUSE has an 18 month life cycle. Not as long as Ubuntu's LTS, but I gotta take a stand. Ubuntu is going downhill at a rapid pace!

Originally Posted by kwisher

I'm not sure where you get your info but I run apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade regularly on all my Ubuntu/Debian machines with no ill effects. I try not to use any third-party PPA's unless absolutely necessary.

Originally Posted by Ericglo

Isn't Mint using Gnome 3? It looks like Mint is going in the direction that most Ubuntu users wanted Ubuntu to go in. I only tried it once briefly.