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.

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

“With Ubuntu 12.10, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Lubuntu, and Ubuntu Studio also reached Beta 1 status today. These images, along with Xubuntu will continue to have daily updates for the remainder of the release.”

You read right, Xubuntu didn’t release a Beta 1 this time around but we are continuing to work on our daily builds.

Currently we’re working to get the image to fit on a single CD, fix up some visual regressions and there are a few outstanding bugs that we really want to tackle. We putting all our effort into getting this all completed so we can have have a great Beta 2 release!

If you download one of the daily images, you will notice new features, including:

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

For more details, visit the Quantal Quetzal Beta 1 Technical Overview and browse to the Xubuntu sections.

Users using Xubuntu 12.04 will be upgraded to 12.04.1 automatically along with normal upgrades.

We don’t have any major changes from the Alpha2, but there are a few known issues you should be aware of:

• There are no alternate images for this release
• The image is still oversized for 700M CDs (see related bugs: 1028486, 1029552), please use a USB stick, DVD or other method for installing these oversized images
• All applications using Gtk3 currently have some mismatched colors in menus and buttons because of a bug in the Unico engine (1016713). A fix has been applied upstream but has not yet made it to Xubuntu.
• The installer locks when attempting to do the “Install Xubuntu 12.10 alongside…” auto-resize (1027461), manual method for editing partitions and resizing works

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 IRC channel on irc.freenode.net. Before testing this release, make sure to review the release notes.