Help test Xubuntu!

March 25, 2012 — Articles — 12.04

Xubuntu Beta 2 is coming out this week and we need testers!

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!

Xubuntu 12.04 beta 1 released

March 1, 2012 — News — 12.04

The Xubuntu team is proud to announce the Beta1 release of Xubuntu 12.04, Precise Pangolin!

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.

Bringing our web presence to 2012

February 3, 2012 — Articles

After a long, long wait and much hard work, we are ready to proudly present the new Xubuntu website!

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.

Xubuntu 12.04 alpha 2 released

February 2, 2012 — News — 12.04

The Xubuntu team is proud to announce the Alpha2 release of Xubuntu 12.04, Precise Pangolin!

Updates for this release include

New greeter + theme
xfdesktop4 has been updated to support single click to open items, thumbnail support for the desktop.
xfce4-settings has been updated to include the new mouche/touchpad dialog (backported from 4.9.x)
Some other syncs, updates and patches from Debian and upstream, including: xfce4-power-manager, Ristretto and gmusicbrowser
Minor updates to default settings and packages, mostly appearance (including Terminal font size change)

Known issues

For the desktop images, installing from the CD menu is failing, however, allowing the CD to spin until it stops at “try Xubuntu”, “Install Xubuntu” works
Xubuntu upgrade testing is not done for Alpha2

FAQ for Xubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

November 19, 2011 — Articles — 11.10 — Frequently Asked Questions

1. I can’t hear a sound. How can I get my sound back?

There are many reasons why sound can be lost on a system, most of them if you try to use different audio protocols. The usual way to get sound back is to run sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart.

If this doesn’t work you can try running sudo alsa force-unload and sudo alsa force-reload.

Pulseaudio can sometimes cause conflicts with ALSA. If you are sure you don’t need one or the other, you could try purging pulseaudio with sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio.

If you still have problems please join the forums or IRC channels and feel free to ask all the questions you need.

2. I need a program (to do thing) X, how do I install it?

Xubuntu uses the same software sources (package repositories) than the rest of the Ubuntu family, that means you can install any software in Ubuntu in Xubuntu as well. To do this, use one of the following:

Ubuntu Software Center in Applications menu » Ubuntu Software Center
Synaptic Package Manager in Applications menu » System » Synaptic Package Manager
apt-get

3. How do I configure my network connection?

You can configure networking with the Network manager from the main panel or by running it with Alt+F2 and running nm-connection-editor. For PPPoE connections, you should use pppoeconf.

4. Gnome Keyring keeps asking me for the correct password, how do I remove the prompt?

You have to delete ~/.gnome2/keyrings and start over.

5. My window decorations/panels are gone! How do I get them back?

You can restore window decorations by pressing Alt+F2 and running xfwm4. To restore panels, press Alt+F2 and run xfce4-panel.

If the window decorations and/or panels don’t start automatically on login, add the respective commands to your session from Applications Menu » Settings » Settings Manager in Session and Startup on the Application Autostart tab.

6. How can I edit the Start Menu?

In Xfce 4.8 (Xubuntu 11.04 and newer):

Install Alacarte from terminal, sudo apt-get install alacarte --no-install-recommends
Run Alacarte and edit the menu

In Xfce 4.6 (Xubuntu 10.10 and older):

Copy /etc/xdg/menus/xfce-applications.menu to ~/.config/xdg/menus and customize it
You can also create desktop entries in ~/.local/share/applications to override the existing applications (change or hide) or add new ones.

See http://wiki.xfce.org/howto/customize-menu for more information.

7. How can I add custom themes or new themes to Xubuntu

Yes, you can use themes for GTK and install themes directly to ~/.themes or /usr/share/themes. You can obtain more themes from various sites, like xfce-look.org.

8. My mouse pointer/cursor doesn’t change on demand, how do I fix that?

If the cursor doesn’t follow the theme set for 11.04 and above, try chmod +x ~/.Xdefaults. .Xdefaults also must be executable for Xfce 4.8, this is a change from Xfce 4.6.

9. Can I install Compiz on Xubuntu?

Yes, yes you can, but keep in mind that Xubuntu doesn’t package Compiz and does not provide any support for it. You can install Compiz by running sudo apt-get install compiz

Once Compiz is installed you need to replace xfwm with Compiz. Do this by pressing Alt+F2 and running compiz --replace.

Also see “How do I enable Compiz in Xubuntu?” at askubuntu.com. If you still have problems please join the forums or IRC channels and feel free to ask all the questions you need.

My question is not covered here, how can I get more help?

Visit the Help & Support page to learn about the available help resources.

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