Everybody is welcome to submit ideas to the roadmap brainstorm until the end of week 19 (13th of May). To do this, edit the table in the section New features, major bugs, improvements to community on the roadmap page for Quantal. Please add new ideas to the end of the table so it is easier to follow submissions.

If you are willing to implement a feature too (or work on an item when “implementing” is not applicable), you can add yourself to the assignee field on any item with no assignee, including your own submission. Please note that the default application specifications will need assignees as well. Feel free to add yourself as an assignee to any of these too, even if they had an assignee already – multiple assignees will most probably lead to better objectivity.

If you set yourself as assignee to any item and are not an active member in the Xubuntu community, please send an email to the Xubuntu development mailing list to introduce yourself quickly. Unless we hear from assignees before the end of week 20 (20th of May), ideas will not be approved anyway. Approving will happen during week 20 by the Xubuntu team.

To read more about approving and the roadmap phases generally, refer to the Roadmap phases or refer to the partly simplified infographic above.

Yes, using Gigolo. If you are not able to see the network check if gvfs-backends is installed.

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

Unfortunately, this is a known bug. There are two possible solutions:

• Edit the file /usr/share/gvfs/mounts/network.mount (as root) and change AutoMount to false. This disables the Network browsing when Thunar starts up, but still lets you mount network storage such as Samba shares on demand. Please note that this solution leaves you with a broken “Network” link in Thunar.
• If you don’t use Samba (Windows shares), remove gvfs-backends

3. I can’t resize windows because the window borders are too tiny!

The suggested way to resize windows is to hold the Alt key, right-click somewhere inside the window and drag to resize. See Window resizing in Xubuntu (and Xfce) for all the different methods.

4. Is there a way to use Dropbox with Thunar?

There is an unofficial and unsupported plugin for Dropbox on Thunar.

To compile the package, you need to install libthunarx-2-dev. In addition, you need to install Dropbox as well as start the daemon installation with dropbox start -i. Please note that this will install the propietary Dropbox daemon. Running this command will also start a wizard to set up your Dropbox account, including a possibility to create one.

5. How do I configure multiple monitors?

To set up and configure multiple monitors and/or other output devices you can use arandr, which is a simple drag-and-drop front-end for xrandr.

If you are using the propietary Nvidia driver, you can use the nvidia-settings tool.

6. Installing package X installs a lot of other packages!

There is a way to stop installing the so-called “recommends” packages automatically. For single packages, you should use the --no-install-recommends switch with apt-get. To turn off installing recommends for all packages, do one of the following:

• In Synaptic, go to Settings » Preferences » tab General and uncheck “Consider recommended packages as dependencies”
• Create the file /usr/apt/apt.conf.d/05norecommends and add the following line in the file:
  APT::Install-Recommends "false";

7. How do I disable guest login? How do I enable autologin?

Edit the file /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf;

• To disable guest login, set allow-guest to false
• To enable autologin, edit the file to look like this:

  [SeatDefaults]
  autologin-user=<USERNAME>
  autologin-user-timeout=0
  user-session=xubuntu
  greeter-session=lightdm-gtk-greeter

8. How can I edit the applications menu?

Xubuntu 12.04 has the Alacarte menu editor installed by default. You can launch it from Applications menu » Settings » Main menu.

9. My theme shows white text on light background. Help!

You are most probably using the Albatross theme. Unfortunately, this theme is not updated yet to fully support GTK3. There is a bug about this (LP #989814) with an attached patch which provides a quick workaround, too.

For the best GTK3 support, we advise to use the Greybird theme, which is the default for Xubuntu 12.04.

Still having issues?

Please see the earlier FAQ articles on our website. While some of the questions are release-specific, most of them are still applicable to 12.04. Topics include changing and installing themes, Compiz on Xubuntu and much more. If you are still having issues, refer to the Help & Support section for a list of available support methods.

Thanks

Joshua O’Leary for the AutoMount workaround for question 2. Everybody contributing to the top FAQ creation and proof-reading.

Download Xubuntu 12.04 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.

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 default shortcut keys

In addition, you can stick a window (making it appear in all workspaces) with Alt F8. The shortcuts for moving and resizing windows have been removed in favor of more powerful mouse gestures. Naturally, if you need these shortcuts, you can enable them from the Settings Manager.

The aforementioned shortcuts are bound to exo-open launchers. This means they will always open any browser, mail reader, file manager or terminal emulator you have set as the default. In addition, there is six new application shortcut keys:

• Super R for Application finder
• Super E for Leafpad
• Super 1 for Gmusicbrowser
• Super 2 for Pidgin
• Super 3 for Abiword
• Super 4 for Gnumeric

Known issues

Problems with keyboard shortcuts after upgrading

There is a change in how the shortcuts are handled, which will render all shortcuts with the Control key ususable on upgrade. To fix this, you need to update all your current shortcuts with Control: In Settings Manager » Keyboard » tab Application shortcuts, double click on the Shortcut column where it reads <Control> and press the (same) key combination. This will change the part <Control> to <Primary> and the shortcut will work again. The other option is to revert the keyboard shortcut settings back to defaults and readd your custom shortcuts.

Some users might experience problems with any other keyboard shortcuts as well. To fix this, you need to revert the keyboard shortcut settings back to defaults and readd your custom shortcuts.

With respect to our default theme, “Greybird”, I have been striving to expand the supported window-managers in the last release “Oneiric Ocelot, 11.10″ (metacity, emerald), to give people who want to use Compiz in Xubuntu an easy way to use our default look.

So for this cycle (“Precise Pangolin”) I started working on adding support for Unity in Greybird. Unfortunately there were so many things to do in the artwork-department during this cycle that I could only start a very short while ago, so we’re far past the freezes. So far our testers report that things are working well and if there are no blockers coming up, this will hopefully land in Precise via the -proposed repository.

Try for yourself!

You can try this version of Greybird even before it lands in any repository very easily by downloading the 0.8.1 release and unpacking the theme into ~/.themes (if that directory doesn’t exist, simply create it).

Unfortunately there is currently no built-in way of switching to any other than the short list of themes that Ubuntu ships by default in Unity, so those of you who want to give this a try will have to use something like “GNOME Tweak Tool”, “Ubuntu Tweak” or “My Unity”.

If you find any bugs please file them on launchpad! Thanks in advance and happy testing!

A few screenshots

And finally, since everyone loves screenshots, here go a few of Unity with Greybird in action, taken by our tester Carlos.

The author of this post is Simon Steinbeiß, who is the Xubuntu Artwork Lead. In addition to Xubuntu, he works extensively on the Shimmer Project and the Xfce Design SIG.

The five methods

Method 1: Using the resize grip

Resize grips (usually small triangles) are positioned in the bottom right corner of a window, often as part of a statusbar. Before 12.04 (Precise Pangolin), Ubuntu had patched Gtk2 to add these resize grips to all applications. This would allow people to easily grab each window and resize it, even with theme with thin borders.

Unfortunately, this patch had some regressions; for example, clicking OpenOffice’s resize grip would open the file menu. The regressions made Ubuntu developers drop the feature from 12.04. Starting from 12.04, Gtk2 applications will have to use one of the other resizing methods for applications that don’t have a built-in resize grip. All the Gtk3 applications will have a resize grip in Greybird (Xubuntu’s default theme).

Method 2: Alt + right-click + drag

This is maybe the easiest and most useful way of resizing windows. I’m tempted to say that once you got accustomed to this it’s hard to go back. Simply hold the Alt key, right-click somewhere inside the window and drag to resize. It works intriguingly well and is a very nice complement to the easiest way of moving windows: holding Alt and left-click drag.

Method 3: Keyboard shortcut

Xfwm4, Xfce’s window manager, supports a number of keyboard shortcuts (which can be edited by going to the Settings Manager > Window Manager > Keyboard). One of them is for resizing windows with your keyboard. There is currently no keyboard shortcut set by default, but you can set one in the Window Manager dialog.

As soon as your keyboard-shortcut (in Xfce upstream its Alt+F8) is hit, you can then resize the window by either moving your mouse (no need to click or drag) or use your keyboard arrow keys.

Method 4: Using the top corners of a window

While the resize grip has been removed from Gtk2 in Ubuntu and isn’t present in every application, you can always resize windows by using the two top corners with the mouse. In most Xfwm4 themes the area of the top corners is large enough to easily grab and drag it with the mouse.

Method 5: Using the window-menu

You can also initiate the same action as proposed in Method 3 above via the window-menu. Accessing the window-menu works either by clicking the menu-button in your window-titlebar (if your Xfwm4 theme has one), or by simply right-clicking the titlebar. There’s also a keyboard-shortcut to access the window-menu, but if you only want to resize the window, it’s easier to use the direct shortcut for that (again, see Method 3).

Example images

The author of this post is Simon Steinbeiß, who is the Xubuntu Artwork Lead. In addition to Xubuntu, he works extensively on the Shimmer Project and the Xfce Design SIG.

Countdown banners for Xubuntu 12.04

The “normal”, legacy-sized banner:

…and the alternative, wide version:

How to add these to my site?

You only need a short snippet of code:

<a href="http://xubuntu.org/">
  <img src="http://xubuntu.org/countdown/" alt="Countdown to Xubuntu 12.04" />
</a>

or, for the wide version:

<a href="http://xubuntu.org/">
  <img src="http://xubuntu.org/countdown/?alt=w" alt="Countdown to Xubuntu 12.04" />
</a>

Updates for this release include

• The i386 images use a non-PAE kernel to support a bigger variety of machines
• Pavucontrol is now used over xfce4-mixer
• Some default shortcuts have been changed and some added, see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu/Roadmap/Specifications/Precise/DefaultShortcutKeys#Detailed_specification for the complete list
• Lots of appearance tweaks and improvements, including fixes for Ubiquity, Plymouth and the Greybird theme
• New branding

Try it!

Visit the download page to give it a try. Be sure to report your testing results to help the Xubuntu developers – see the ISO testing tracker. Bugs can be reported in Launchpad. If you are looking for support, please see the #ubuntu+1 or #xubuntu IRC channels on irc.freenode.net. Before testing this release, make sure to review the release notes.

Our new branding

Along with the Beta 2 release of Xubuntu, we are proudly presenting our new branding, including a brand new and shiny logo, refreshed website looks and the few-days-old wallpaper for Precise. Our website also includes a page for Xubuntu marketing resources, including PNG and SVG versions of the new logo as well as some shiny, new web banners for public use.

Without further babble, our new logo in all its glory

The new logo has a more condensed look and features a more saturated blue. To avoid being superfluous on blue, the logotype is printed on dark grey. It can also be easily replaced with white on darker backgrounds.

The picmark is still based on the Xfce mouse, but it’s more simplified and designed to work better in different contexts and sizes. While the picmark has lost some similarity with the Xfce mouse, reducing the complexity is a logical step from the last logo change.

Xubuntu Precise wallpaper: a better experience for dual-head users

The new wallpaper consists of two parts to give dual-head users a better experience with default wallpapers for once. Here’s the wallpaper in one, wide piece.

As some of you notice, the wallpaper has lots of elements previously seen on the Xubuntu wallpapers. That’s right, it’s intentional. Time to give some homage for the old times. We don’t want to go too rusty or dusty, so there’s some nice green stuff in, too.

The right side of the wallpaper with the flying bird will be the default wallpaper. If you don’t like birds, rather just watch a more plain wallpaper, need to set a wallpaper to the other monitor too or just for fun: we encourage you to try out the left side too!

There’s no certainty that we will keep on providing these wide wallpapers in the future releases, so starting from now is the right time to give feedback. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Should every operating system provide such wallpapers? Should we stick to providing one wallpaper only to keep the decision-making to a minimum? Express your thoughts at the Xubuntu-devel mailing list or the #xubuntu-devel IRC channel on Freenode.

Testing is an excellent 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.

The Xubuntu community maintains extensive documents related to testing, we highly recommend you browse through these as you get more involved with testing:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu/Testing

But as a quick start…

Testing Xubuntu is made up of two key sections:

The Xubuntu Testing Info page, explaining more about the testing process, including which tests you should conduct.

• The Short Test page, containing specific instructions on how to perform a basic test of Xubuntu. This page includes procedures for both the desktop cd and post-install testing.
• The Long Test page, containing instructions on how to perform a more thorough test of Xubuntu.

The QA ISO Testing Tracker page, where testers should report their ISO test results.

• This tracker is used by both the Ubuntu Release Manager and Ubuntu QA to determine which images will be released for any given milestone.

These two testing methods are typically used in tandem, but when you’re just starting out you can “get your feet wet” by trying what you’re most comfortable with. You may notice that our testing document document includes more fine-tuned distinctions between Daily images and Milestone releases with specific tests we ask people do for each which will help determine whether we’re moving forward with a specific milestone release.

To do either of these, you’ll first want to download the ISO as documented on the Testing Info page.

Once you have your .iso file:

• Burn it to a CD-ROM
• Put it on a USB stick (try usb-creator-gtk or UNetbootin)
• Use the ISO to load up a new virtual machine in VirtualBox (or similar)

Now you can select what tests you wish to run. Can you do an install to test the ISO on the QA ISO Testing Tracker? Or perhaps just do a live session where you do a Short Test?

While doing these tests  it is important to file bugs. If you find a bug, please, search if it has already been reported, and if it hasn’t, report it yourself. You should also refer to the debugging guide for that specific package (if available) to make sure you are aware of known issues and have attached the relevant log files.

Have any trouble? Have any questions? Not sure where to report a bug, or if it’s a bug? Join us in #xubuntu-devel on irc.freenode.net (use a client, or access via your browser here) or on the xubuntu-devel mailing list. Please be patient when using either of these resources, our team is small so it may take us some time to respond.

Happy testing!

Updates for this release include

• Using new maybe-ubiquity greeter
• Alacarte is seeded by default in Xubuntu Precise beta, and will show all Xfce-related menu items on Xubuntu as well.
• Some default shortcuts have been changed and some added, see DefaultShortcutKeys for the complete list
• New wallpaper and other tweaks and improvements to the looks of Xubuntu are in, including lots of GTK3 fixes for the Greybird theme.

Visit the download page to give it a try. Be sure to report your testing results to help the Xubuntu developers – see the ISO testing tracker. Bugs can be reported in Launchpad. If you are looking for support, please see the #ubuntu+1 or #xubuntu IRC channels on irc.freenode.net. Before testing this release, make sure to review the release notes.

Known issues

• For some live sessions, the network-manager indicator might be hidden. Running nm-connection-editor allows you to access the network management interface.

New looks

The appearance is updated and more sleek, clean, professional, informative, beautiful and representative. It’s easier to navigate on the site. The header area is less obtrusive. Generally speaking, you get faster to the content. We are also finally using our new branding.

The long-awaited migration

We’ve switched from Drupal to WordPress under the hood. We are no longer depending on any hacks, neither in the technical side or the appearance side. Administration is easier, which will hopefully result in more frequently updated website. The Xubuntu website team is also much more familiar with WordPress than Drupal, so working the site technically should be much easier in the future as well. The theme was hand-built from scratch, so we do know how to work with that as well. Even in the case we needed to extend or update it.

The most important thing – content

The site is undergoing a massive review of content and content-related issues as well. These things include, but are not limited to:

• Hand-picked Frequently Asked Questions -article (and the FAQ-category), which covers all the most frequently asked questions and will be updated for each release
• Developer tools, which presents you all the useful tools to get started or keep going with Xubuntu development
• Article browsing on the sidebar
• Up-to-date screenshots

We’re really sorry that we aren’t able to present you all the fruits of the content-reviewing process. While it would have been optimal to release the new website with all-new or at least all-reviewed content, it was more sensible to release what we have now, and fix the rest of the site later. This being said, if you notice any issues in the content, or are willing to help us work on it, please contact us. The best way is to file a bug or send email to our developer mailing list.

Finally, thanks to the following people who helped make this happen: Pasi Lallinaho (knome), Elizabeth Krumbach (pleia2), madnick, Bruno A. Benitez (GridCube), Simon Steinbeiß (ochosi), Phil Whitaker (beardygnome), Unit193, Steve Dodier (SiDi) and all the others who helped us testing the site or gave any feedback.