It’s already less than a month before Xubuntu 12.04 is released, and we thought it would be a good thing to finally provide you something to build up the excitement (and hype) with. So here it is…
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>
The Xubuntu team is proud to announce the Beta2 release of Xubuntu 12.04, Precise Pangolin!
Updates for this release include
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.
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!
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.
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.
