Software and development

On the software side, apt-offline will be included in our default installation after a few cycles of preparing and writing documentation for it. This will help our users who have impaired-bandwidth situations and usage documentation is already present in the 13.04 offline documentation. The team is also considering the possibility to add a keyboard shortcuts overlay to help new (and why not old) users with their shortcuts-fu. Finally, the team is looking to improve the Pavucontrol user interface to make it more intuitive.

The team also discussed if a heads-up display (HUD) would fit to the Xubuntu paradigm and if it would be viable to implement. The team decided that including or working with one should be postponed until after the long-term support (LTS) release since there isn’t a proof of concept of a HUD suitable for Xubuntu ready and developing one would take a lot of developer time. Further inquiry can take place, though.

Besides the additions and improvements to software, the team roughly discussed including a Xubuntu core meta package which would include only a basic system without various applications seen in the current default installation. Some team members are working on drafts for the contents for the package as you read this article. The meta package would be installable instead of the Xubuntu desktop package during installation.

Documentation

The team is keeping the pressure up on the documentation improvements. The team is looking to extend the re-written Xubuntu documentation from a few releases ago even further as well as to get the infrastructure rights to enable translations for the documentation.

In addition, another goal is to get started with the 12.04 documentation review to supply a more up-to-date version via a stable release update for the LTS users as well.

Community

As with the previous cycles, we will keep on focusing on community. One of our targets this cycle is to get several people new upload rights to the Xubuntu package set. We also hope the prospective developers can help create processes with the newly appointed QA team lead to help reinforce the QA team as well as help with their testing duties.

Milestone participation

As usually, Xubuntu is following the Ubuntu release schedule. While the release schedule is far from final, the Xubuntu team is planning to release one alpha and both betas. At the moment the alpha participation looks pretty certain but the details depend on the Xfce 4.12 release. We will keep sending updates as soon as we have any news.

Summary

In the end, this is a final tune-up before we head into developing the LTS release that is expected to be unleashed in April 2014.  Xubuntu presents a conservative desktop choice among the Ubuntu flavours.  As we head into the Saucy Salamander development cycle, we will be striving for excellence once more.

To read the full notes from the three meetings, refer to the following URLs: night 1, night 2, night 3. If you are interested in the original agenda for the nights, refer to the following URLs: development and milestone participation, forward-looking issues, software.

Due to the size of the Xubuntu ISOs starting from Raring (13.04), they no longer fit on a standard CD. This guide will help you if your BIOS doesn’t support booting off of USB drives by showing you how to use Plop boot manager.

Getting Plop

Executing Plop

Xubuntu 13.04 will be supported for 9 months and will need other media such as a USB device or a DVD to install. Read more below.

Download Xubuntu 13.04 here!

What’s new in Xubuntu 13.04?

Xubuntu 13.04 is mostly a maintenance release, and there aren’t many new features. However, there are some changes, which include:

• Gnumeric and GIMP are reintroduced on the ISO
• New application versions: Catfish 0.6.3 and Parole 0.5.0 with many bug fixes
• Updates for the Greybird theme and a new wallpaper
• Duplicate partitions are no longer shown on desktop or Thunar
• Updated documentation

Notes

Starting with 13.04, Xubuntu will have a support period of 9 months for the interim (non-LTS) releases. To read more about the background for the support window and maintenance changes, refer to the Ubuntu Technical Board meeting minutes from 18th of March.

Also starting with 13.04, the Xubuntu images will not fit on standard CDs. This is an effect of changing the target size to a 1GB USB device. To install Xubuntu 13.04 and beyond, you will need other media such as a USB device or a DVD. The Xubuntu 13.04 image size is approximately 800 MB.

To read the complete release notes including technical overview, refer to the Ubuntu 13.04 Release Notes.

Note: Starting from 13.04, the Xubuntu images will not fit on standard CDs any more. This affects the Beta 2 images as well. To install Xubuntu you will need other media such as a USB device or a DVD. The Xubuntu 13.04 Beta 2 image size is approximately 800 MB.

Xubuntu 13.04 is mostly a maintenance release, and there won’t be too many new features. In Beta 2, we’ve fixed the following bugs:

• Documentation is updated to 13.04
• New version of Catfish (0.6.1) is included and fixes a lot of bugs
• More updates for the Greybird theme

In addition, new features and bug fixes introduced in Beta 1 and earlier include:

• Gnumeric and GIMP are reintroduced
• New version of Parole (0.5.0) is included
• Duplicate partitions are no longer shown on desktop or Thunar
• Some updates for the Greybird theme

Download

Please note that the Beta 2 version is not suitable for production machines or anybody who doesn’t wish to have an unstable system. If you want to help Xubuntu testing the new release and are wondering how to help, please refer to our article on Testing Raring.

Those who are fine with having an unstable and promise to do backups before upgrading or installing can download Xubuntu 13.04 Beta 2 here.

Note: Starting from 13.04, the Xubuntu images will not fit on standard CDs any more. This affects the Beta 1 images as well. To install Xubuntu, you will need other media such as a USB device or a DVD. The Xubuntu 13.04 Beta 1 image size is approximately 850 MB.

Xubuntu 13.04 is mostly a maintenance release, and there won’t be too many new features. New features and bug fixes worth mentioning in Beta 1 include:

• Gnumeric and GIMP are reintroduced
• New version of Parole (0.5.0) is included
• Duplicate partitions are no longer shown on desktop or Thunar
• Some updates for the Greybird theme

Download

Please note that the Beta 1 version is not suitable for production machines or anybody who doesn’t wish to have an unstable system.

If you want to help Xubuntu testing the new release and are wondering how to help, please refer to our article on Testing Raring. This article will be appropriate for daily images as well as Beta 2 images which will be released later.

Those who are fine with having an unstable and promise to do backups before upgrading or installing can download Xubuntu 13.04 Beta 1 here.

Why help with testing?

Testing is an excellent and easy way to get involved with Xubuntu. It’s a vital part of our release cycle and anyone with a virtual machine (or even better, a spare computer!) can help out with it. When you do testing you will work with most of the people involved in Xubuntu. Don’t be afraid, we won’t bite you!

What do I need to do?

There are different ways of testing the ISOs for all of our releases. Here’s a quick overview of the different tests we need to run:

1. Installation testing to make sure our ISO’s are installable
2. Live CD testing to make sure the live CD environment works as expected (and to make sure persistency works on live USB)
3. Post-installation testing to make sure our applications work as expected
4. Upgrade testing to make sure upgrades from old releases work as expected

All the results from different tests are reported and recorded on the Ubuntu ISO Tracker. You will need a Ubuntu Single Sign-On account to log in and send results.

Finally, to run a test and report it so it helps the Xubuntu team, you need to do the following:

1. Go to the Ubuntu ISO Tracker and Log in
2. Click Raring Beta 1 and select your infrastructure from the Xubuntu product at the bottom of the page
3. Download the appropriate ISO (see Link to download information at the top of the page for download links as well as zsync commands)
4. Select a test you want to run – it’s best to start with an installation test and then advance to post-installation tests to get the most out of your time
5. On any test page, you should see the testcase instructions (if you don’t, click on Testcase) and follow them step by step
6. If you find bugs while running the test, add them to the report and if they don’t exist, file them
7. In the Bugs to look for section you will see bugs that people have been experiencing with the same test before – specifically look out for these
8. Once you’ve finished with the testcase, report your results; select the overall result for the test and list any bugs you experienced during testing. Remember to click Submit result when you’re done – if you don’t do this, the Xubuntu team doesn’t get any benefit from the test!

Need more information or help?

All of the different testing areas for Xubuntu follow more or less the same pattern. To get detailed instructions with pictures on how to report test results refer to the ISO testing Walkthrough on the Ubuntu wiki. You can also ask for help in our developer IRC channel #xubuntu-devel on Freenode.

Once you get more into testing, there are ways to make downloading the latest images and testing them easier for you. These include but are not limited to zsyncing new images, using Testdrive to manage your tests, etc… To read more about the Ubuntu Testing framework and the Ubuntu Quality Assurance team, read the QA Team wiki.

After a thorough discussion, which included the obvious drawback that will no longer fit on a CD and the amount of developer time currently spent keeping the ISO small enough to fit on a CD, the team decided that Xubuntu will have a 1GB ISO by clear vote of 8-0. The bigger ISO size will be featured starting from Raring, which is due to be released in April.

With this extra 300MB of space, the team has decided to reintroduce both Gnumeric spreadsheet application and GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) image editor, both of which were dropped for the 12.10 release due to space constraints. Discussion about reintroduction of more of the most popular language packs and extra artwork will continue on the IRC channel #xubuntu-devel and on the Xubuntu development mailing list in the following weeks. As always, the team will adhere to the tenants of the Strategy Document when discussing these changes and strive to not add things to the ISO just because space is available.

Full logs and minutes from our meeting are available on our wiki here.

We have been doing this for the last few releases, check the previous FAQ to find out interesting and probably helpful information about your system.

In this particular release of Xubuntu we have moved out of Xfce 4.8, into the most recent 4.10, this carries some issues when updating that we would like to help you overcome:

1. After upgrading to Xubuntu 12.10 my panel icons are all group together to one side of the panel, how do I make them occupy the whole of it?

This happens because of some changes on the xfce 4.10 panel structures, you need to add a separator item to the panel and set it to expand to fix this issue.

2. Where did the messaging menu go?

Due to constraints unavoidable by the Xubuntu team the messaging menu is not available in Xubuntu 12.10, you must use Xubuntu 12.04 if you wish to have this menu/indicator.

3. I don’t see my sound indicator anymore, how do I get it back?

Right-click on a blank area of the panel and select Panel » Add New Items… Find the Indicator Plugin in the list, select it and click the “Add” button.

Note: Use Panel » Panel Preferences… » Items to move it to a location of your preferences.

4. Duplicated partitions are shown in the Thunar sidebar and the desktop

Unfortunately, this is a known bug for some users. There is a fix in the -proposed repository, which you may enable in the Software Center and upgrade thunar to the new version.

Warning: This archive is “proposed” because it’s now available for testing, it is not yet a fully-tested part of the system and may have packages that are unstable.

5. Alternate images are no longer available, how do I install Xubuntu with the text installer?

Use the ubuntu-core image and choose the selection for installing Xubuntu.

6. When I drag a window to the upper border of the screen, it resizes to the width of the screen and half its height, how do I prevent this?

This is a new feature in Xfce 4.10, which is included in Xubuntu 12.10. To disable this, go into Settings Manager » Window Manager Tweaks » Accessibility and uncheck “Automatically tile windows when moving toward the screen edge”.

7. How do I search for proprietary drivers available on my system?

In order to enable proprietary drivers which are packaged for Xubuntu, you open the Ubuntu Software Center and go to Edit » Software Sources » Additional Drivers. This will allow you to select which drivers you wish to use.

8. Thunar loads very slowly on first launch, how do I fix that?

Unfortunately, this is a known bug. See FAQ for Xubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin for more on how to work around this.

9. Is there a way to use folders shared from Windows?

Yes, using Gigolo. See FAQ for Xubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin for more.

Download Xubuntu 12.10 here!

For support with the release, navigate to Help & Support for a full listing of methods to get help.

To see the complete release notes along with list of updates and issues in common infrastructure and more, please refer to the Xubuntu release notes at the Ubuntu wiki.

New features

• Xfce 4.10
• Completely rewritten offline documentation
• In the application menu, all settings-related launchers are now grouped under the Settings Manager
• Updated artwork, including new wallpaper, documentation looks and updates to LightDM, Greybird and Ubiquity slideshow
• New versions of Catfish and Parole

Notable bug fixes

• No more window traces or “black on black” in installer

Known issues

• The messaging indicator is not available for 12.10
• Duplicated partitions might be shown at Thunar sidebar and the desktop

Other mentions

Alternate images are not available for 12.10. LVM, cryptsetup and manual partitioning options previously available with alternate only are now available with the desktop image. Those who need the RAID installation option should wait until future releases, as it will be added to the list as soon as possible.

In addition to all the updates and changes mentioned above, the Xubuntu team has worked hard on community  and marketing tasks. The Xubuntu website content has been updated thoroughly and Xubuntu now has several social media outlets. In addition, work has been done to be able to provide our users merchandise in the near future.

Along with new features and completely new looks, Beta 2 comes with other changes too: the Xubuntu team has decided to drop the alternate images at least for 12.10 due to the lack of manpower.

New features include:

• Updated artwork, including new wallpaper, documentation looks and updates to LightDM, Greybird and Ubiquity slideshow
• Completely reviewed and rewritten offline documentation
• New versions of Catfish and Parole

Notable bug fixes include:

• ISO now fits on a standard 700M CD
• No more window traces or “black on black” in installer

Known issues:

• The messaging indicator is not available for 12.10
• Duplicated partitions might be shown at Thunar sidebar and desktop