Welcome! To provide a better experience to all the Xubuntu users we gather what we consider to be common questions any user might come to find.
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.
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.
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.
The Xubuntu team is glad to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 12.10, codenamed Quantal Quetzal! Xubuntu 12.10 will be supported for 18 months.
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.
The Xubuntu team is glad to announce the immediate release of Xubuntu 12.10 Beta 2!
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:
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
When you go to “Help” in the main menu in Xubuntu Firefox will launch and bring you to an offline documentation page where users can learn the basics.
After a couple of cycles without updates, the Xubuntu team worked hard this cycle to take a fresh look at the documentation. The team spent time reorganizing the structure, updating to reflect current default applications and in many cases completely rewriting whole sections. The look was also refreshed to reflect the current style and branding that the project has adopted.
The team would like to formally thank the following volunteers who made this effort possible:
Pasi Lallinaho (knome) for leading up the effort in lieu of a formal Documentation Lead this cycle. Pasi also contributed directly to the documentation itself, tracked reviews, updated documentation branding, converted everything back into DocBook and worked with the Ubuntu Doc team to get the documentation uploaded and released before the documentation freeze.
Elizabeth Krumbach (lyz) for setting up, hosting and maintaining the wiki that was used by the team during the rewrite and coordinating some of the work between volunteers and the Ubuntu Doc team.
Sean Davis (smd-seandavis), Jack Fromm (jjfrv8-gmail), Kev (elfy) and Jay van Cooten (skippersboss) for their extensive edits both the writing of the documentation and efforts during the rushed review process.
But that’s not all…
The work of a documentation writer is never truly finished! The team has already defined several areas where we’d like to improve upon the documentation for the 13.04 cycle, including: improvements to packaging, translations support, routine documentation review and expanding some of the shorter sections.
To see the complete and current list of things we are planning to improve even further, see our documentation blueprint for the R cycle. If you want to help us with the planning, want to take part in the discussion or want to get your hands dirty when it’s time to work again, subscribe to the blueprint, apply to the xubuntu-doc Launchpad team and be in touch with us (see the starting points at Get Involved)!
You may have noticed in the release announcement for Beta 1 today from Kate Stewart this line:
“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.
