Ubuntu 12.10 Won't Feature Unity 2D

As we've announced back in May 2012, Canonical planned the removal of the Unity 2D project and make a single, stronger and smarter Unity interface for the upcoming Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) operating system.

Now it's official! Canonical removed a few days ago the 2D variant (the Qt non-accelerated version) of the Unity interface from the current development version of the Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) operating system, which will be released on October 18th, 2012.

The reason behind this decision is probably the too much work involved in the main Unity version - maintaining a "clone" requires even more man power - which brings us to the new Preview feature detailed in this article.

For the Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal) release, Canonical will definitely prepare an improved and revamped Unity interface.

SolusOS 1.2

Ikey Doherty has announced the release of SolusOS 1.2, a beginner-friendly desktop Linux distribution based on the latest stable release of Debian GNU/Linux: "The SolusOS team is pleased to announce the release of SolusOS 1.2. This is a maintenance release for the 'Eveline' 1.x series. This release brings many fixes and updates to SolusOS 1, including better printer, GPU and Bluetooth support. Brief overview of software versions Firefox 14.0.1, Thunderbird 14.0, LibreOffice 3.6.0, Linux kernel 3.3.6, iptables 1.4.8, ufw 0.31.1, hplip 3.12, GNOME 2.30. Many new applications are available in the software repository. he main reason for an updated ISO image is so that users do not have to download hundreds of megabytes in updates for a new install of 'Eveline'." Here is the full release announcement. Download: SolusOS-x86-1-2.iso (995MB, MD5), SolusOS-amd64-1-2.iso (988MB, MD5).

Tomdroid 0.7 Beta Adds Support For Creating And Editing Notes, More [Android]

 

The stable Tomdroid, an application compatible with Tomboy Notes that you can use to sync notes between your desktop computer and Android device, works in read-only mode for now so you can only read the notes created on your computer, but you can't edit them or create new notes.

But there's some good news. Tomdroid 0.7 beta was released recently, adding support for editing and creating new notes along with other new features. The new beta version isn't available on the Android market (Google Play), but you can download the apk from Launchpad.

Tomdroid 0.7 beta features:

• basic tablet support
• two way sync along with the ability to create, edit and delete notes
• rich text editor
• automatic renaming of notes with duplicate title
• automatic note saving on pause
• ability to revert changes
• note conflict resolution screen when notes are of different date and both older or newer than last sync date
• automatic authentication - if you use Ubuntu One, pressing "Sync" on first launch is enough to authenticate and sync
• updating progress bar with information on current task, number of notes
• switching sync services/servers doesn't clear notes database anymore
• Preference tweaks: change base font size, back up notes to SD card, remove all notes from remote service, show/hide note templates, clear local notes database

You can download Tomdroid 0.7 beta "House of Fun" from Launchpad (apk).

This is a beta release, so you'll probably find bugs - report them @ Launchpad.

BlankOn 8.0

The BlankOn development team has announced the release of BlankOn 8.0, a Debian-based Indonesian distribution featuring the GNOME 3 desktop with a custom desktop shell called "Manokwari". Built with HTML 5 and CSS 3, Manokwari is an evolution from the project's earlier shell called "BlankOn Panel"; it features a standard panel with a number of common applets, as well as a comprehensive menu system for quick access to applications and utilities. Other features of this release include a new DVD edition with extra software (a CD edition is also available), support for six languages used in Indonesia, Stardict dictionary, the Chromium web browser version 21, and an online package repository developed specifically for BlankOn. See the full press release (in Indonesian) for further information. Download links: BlankOn-8.0-dvd-desktop-i386.iso (977MB, SHA256, torrent), BlankOn-8.0-dvd-desktop-amd64.iso (966MB, SHA256, torrent).

AV Linux 6.0

Glen MacArthur has announced the release of AV Linux 6.0, a Debian-based distribution geared towards media production: "After a very turbulent development period AV Linux 6.0 is finally here. This will be the final release of AV Linux for a variety of reasons however don't stop reading at the word 'final', this is a state-of-the-art release that culminates over 5 versions and 5 years of experience and refinement into the best release to date. Changelog: update to Linux kernel 3.0.36; update to X.Org from 'Squeeze' backports; cleaned up and improved boot with dependency-based booting; allow all users access to X server; rolled Qt stack back to clean 'Squeeze' version to solve breakages from Qt 4.8; new Control Panel; move to Nautilus file manager; added new Hydrogen drum kits; added Nitrogen...." Read the rest of the release announcement for a full changelog and screenshots. Download: avlinux6.0-lxde-i386-en.iso (2,523MB, MD5, torrent).

Install AMD Catalyst 12.8 On Ubuntu 12.04/Linux Mint 13

AMD has released the Catalyst 12.8 driver for Linux systems recently bringing some improvements and bug fixes. This driver is based on the fglrx 8.982 release and it improves support for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. In this tutorial, we will as usual help you install the AMD Catalyst 12.8 driver under Ubuntu/Linux Mint systems.

AMD Catalyst 12.8 Driver  Installation

Uninstall first the old driver with the following commands:

sudo sh /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh

sudo apt-get remove --purge fglrx fglrx_* fglrx-amdcccle* fglrx-dev* xorg-driver-fglrx

To install Catalyst 12.8 on Ubuntu 12.10/12.04/11.10/Linux Mint 13 or older, open the terminal and run the following commands (for both i386 & amd64 platforms):

cd /tmp && wget -O amd-driver-installer-12-8-x86.x86_64.zip http://goo.gl/ZZkYR

unzip amd-driver-installer-12-8-x86.x86_64.zip

chmod +x amd-driver-installer-8.982-x86.x86_64.run

sudo sh amd-driver-installer-8.982-x86.x86_64.run

A window will pop-up which will guide you in installing the driver on your system:

When you finsih the installation, run this command:

sudo aticonfig --initial -f

Finally, reboot your system to get this driver working.