Yet another Unity version (0.2.28) was released today in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat (Netbook Edition), featuring a new home screen (which will probably remind you of the old Ubuntu Netbook Edition interface) when you click the Ubuntu button - this is the first thing you see when you click the Ubuntu logo. The Home Screen is not finished yet and the artwork for it should land sometime next week. Here is a screenshot with how it looks for now:
Another change brings your USB keys/Cameras/CD-Drives to the Unity launcher (dock) so you can easily launch a file manager with their location or eject them.
(Unity maximized window - new buttons, no window decorations)
Other changes:
Maximized windows no longer have window decorations but once you unmaximize the applications, they get the window decorations back.
The window buttons have been updated to use the Ambience beta theme if it's installed
The workspace switcher should be performing much better now and it also allows you to move windows between the workspaces.
Yet another Update in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat (the packages aren't build yet, but expect an update really soon!) Netbook Edition brings a lot of changes to the way Unity looks and also new features.
Firstly, the Unity Place Files and Applications got a slight redesign and the search now actually works and the folder browsing mode almost works (for a second, then disappears, so no screenshot - sorry). Also, you can no longer switch between files and apps from the top panel:
Instead, you can now access them from the Unity dock. Clicking the Ubuntu logo in the top left corner will open the last accessed: files or applications. You can also go directly to a specific category for the files or applications, straight from the Unity dock:
Besides the files and applications applets, there have been 2 more new applets added to the Unity dock: a workspace switcher - here is a screenshot with the workspaces:
And a trash applet:
And the last change (that I've noticed, there might be more): maximized window control buttons show up on the top panel, on the left of the Application Menu (Global Menu). Soon, the window titlebar will be removed altogether for maximized windows:
And a mandatory video with all these changes:
And a final note: Unity is still quite buggy for now - you can notice this in the video too - so if you want to use it already, don't forget to submit the bugs to Launchpad!
Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Maverick Meerkat (but this might be used in Ubuntu 10.10 desktop too) will get a new Datetime Indicator which will only display the time and the date will only show up upon clicking the indicator. This is how the Indicator Datetime used to look until today:
But an update today brings a new widget for the Indicator Datetime: a calendar:
The Light Themes were also updated to support this new widget.
Please keep in mind this is the very first release of the calendar widget!
Indicator-keylock is one of those tiny but extremely useful applications. Like the name says, it's an appindicator for viewing the status of the keyboard lock keys for machines which don't have keyboard LEDs like netbooks or even laptops. That means that you can quickly see if Caps Lock, Num Lock or Scroll Lock is turned on/off even if your machine doesn't have a keyboard LEDs to indicate this.
To install Indicator Keylock in Ubuntu, simply use the following commands:
Unity received yet another update in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Maverick Meerkat yesterday. This version partially fixes the application search in the Unity application launcher and file browser - also known as Dash (the file search actually looks completely fixed). Also, Unity doesn't display all the files at once anymore - for this, a new toggle button was introduced for both the files and applications.
The Sound Indicator also got an update 2 days ago and it can now display the album artwork - but this might be working for some time now, I'm not really sure.
I took this opportunity to record a video with Unity (along with the new AppMenu, also known as Global Menu) so WebUpd8 readers can see where Ubuntu Netbook Edition stands right now. Since I promised this when Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 was released, I also recorded the new Ubuntu Software Center. And finally to make this complete, you can also see the new Sound Indicator in action.
(You can also watch this video in HTML5 (with out without WebM) @ YouTube)
Make sure you watch the video in 720p or 1080p!
You can also spot a lot of the errors which exist in Unity right now in the above video (like not being able to click the indicator applet area or close applications at the end, the Unity applications and files search working but with some bugs and so on).
Update: here are also some screenshots to go with this video:
(Sound Indicator - Rhythmbox closed)
(Sound Indicator - Rhythmbox playing)
(Unity applications - installed apps not expanded)
(Unity applications - installed apps expanded)
(Unity files (Dash) - Today and Yesterday not expanded)
(Unity files (Dash) - Today and Yesterday expanded)
No screenshots for Ubuntu Software Center since it's the same version as in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Alpha 2 and we already posted enough screenshots with it.
Please note that in this video, Unity and the AppMenu will be a part of Ubuntu Netbook Edition only while the Sound Indicator and Ubuntu Software Center versions are the same in both Ubuntu desktop and Ubuntu Netbook Edition.
If you want to install the Sound Indicator from Maverick in Lucid, Guiodic uploaded it to his PPA.
What do you think of Unity, Ubuntu Software Center and the Sound Indicator so far?
Before taking a look at the Unity launcher, a small off-topic message: like we announced on Facebook, the whole WebUpd8 team (even though I'm the only one posting lately, we're all there :D ) will be unavailable for 3 days because of THIS. I will however try to catch up during the night. Thanks for understanding & rock on!
We knew how the Unity launcher will look from the mockups Mark Shuttleworth posted 2 months ago, but I bet nobody imagined it will look so gorgeous:
And it's not just the looks, it's also smart because it integrates Zeitgeist.
The Ubuntu logo in the top left corner is not for Expose anymore, and it now triggers the Unity launcher which comes with 2 tabs: one for the applications - which you can see in the screenshot above, and another tab for files grouped by day and by type, using the power of Zeitgeist, as you can see in the screenshot below:
Unfortunately the Unity launcher is not very functional for now. In fact Unity itself it's very buggy: a white screen is displayed on my computer when logging in (although it used to work just fine before) so I have to launch both Unity and Mutter manually. And the Unity launcher needs a lot of work: there's no indicator telling you that you actually clicked a file / application and the search is not functional for now. But hey, it looks great, right?
If you want to try out Unity in Ubuntu 10.04, see the instructions @ Ubuntu Wiki.
For those who don't know: Unity is the new Ubuntu Netbook Edition interface which will be available for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.
This was something pretty much obvious, but now Mark Shuttleworth confirmed it: the Unity panel won't allow any kind of customizations. That means not only that you won't be able to add/edit applets like in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04 (which could be easily "fixed"), but the user won't even be able to right click the applets to move them or whatever - nothing will happen upon right-clicking.
I noticed this ever since I first tested Unity but I had hoped some kind of customization would be allowed in the end but it seems that won't be the case. The reason for this is to "feel cleaner":
That's why we only support left-click on the indicators. When in gnome-panel, the right-click is used to manage panel features, but in Unity there's no such capability, so it will feel cleaner.
Today's updates saw new Unity and Application Menu versions released for both Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and the Lucid testing PPA.
The Lucid PPA and Ubuntu 10.10 are finally synced - having the same Unity / App Menu version, the only difference being that in Lucid this continues to show up as "Unity" in your GDM login screen, while in Maverick it shows up as "Netbook Edition".
The biggest change in this version is Application Menu support for the Unity panel (the Application Menu is now enabled by default in Unity). The applications still get to keep their menu in this new release since the Application Menu is still in its very early development stages.
Another small change came to the sound applet which doesn't have an orange volume slider anymore and there's less roundness:
This is how it used to look:
Instructions for installing Unity for both Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and 10.10 Maverick Meerkat can be found @ Ubuntu wiki.
Unity is the new Ubuntu Netbook Edition interface which will be available for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.
Unity has finally been uploaded to the Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat repositories, until now being available only in a PPA for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx.
The version in Ubuntu 10.10 is 0.2.7 and the one in the PPA 0.1.38 (a lot older), yet there aren't too many improvements. In fact there's no visible improvement, only regressions: there's no search bar anymore and the Expose effect no longer works - but this might be due to the fact that if you install it in Ubuntu 10.10 desktop (not UNE), it doesn't create a new entry in the GDM login screen and you must start it manually.
If you're using Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat already, you can install unity using the following command:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install unity
Then, like I told you, Unity must be started manually, so in a terminal type this:
unity & mutter --replace &
You may want to move the top panel to the side as it will cover the Unity panel.
To exit Unity, simply type this in a terminal:
metacity --replace compiz --replace #if you're using compiz
I was just reading our Ubuntu Netbook Remix Optimization Guide and realized there are some things I'd do differently right now so I decided to share this with you.
I'll skip the parts in the initial post, so make sure you check out that post too - some things such as Guake are incredibly useful on a netbook (and not only).
Mega post ahead, read on!
Before we start, please note that the GNOME panel is locked in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04 so you need to unlock it. As far as I know, this will only work if you installed Ubuntu Netbook Edition, not if you installed Ubuntu desktop and then installed the netbook interface! To unlock it, paste this in a terminal:
A) Ubuntu Netbook Edition for Netbooks with 3D acceleration support
sudo ln -s /etc/xdg/xdg-une/autostart/maximus-autostart.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/ #this makes Maximus run at login sudo ln -s /etc/xdg/xdg-une/autostart/netbook-launcher.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/ #this launches the UNE interface at login sudo ln -s /usr/share/gconf/une/default/20_une-gconf-default /usr/share/gconf/defaults/ sudo ln -s /usr/share/gconf/une/mandatory/20_une-gconf-mandatory /usr/share/gconf/defaults/ sudo update-gconf-defaults
B) Ubuntu Netbook Edition 2D (for non 3D acceleration capable netbooks)
sudo ln -s /etc/xdg/xdg-une/autostart/maximus-autostart.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/ #this makes Maximus run at login sudo ln -s /etc/xdg/xdg-une-efl/autostart/netbook-launcher-efl.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/ #this launches the UNE interface at login sudo ln -s /usr/share/gconf/une/default/20_une-gconf-default /usr/share/gconf/defaults/ sudo ln -s /usr/share/gconf/une/mandatory/20_une-gconf-mandatory /usr/share/gconf/defaults/ sudo update-gconf-defaults
Then log out and in the the GDM login screen, chose "GNOME" as the session instead of "Ubuntu Netbook Edition" or "Ubuntu Netbook Edition 2D".
Then right click the panel, select "Add to panel" and add Gnome Global Menu. The menu will only be functional after you log out and log back in!
Global Menu doesn't work with every application out there but you'll feel the difference once you try it out!
2. Window Applets and DockBarX
If in our Ubuntu Netbook Remix optimization guide we talked about replacing Window-picker-applet with Namebar, this time we're going to use Window Applets. Why? Well, because you can place the minimize-maximize-close buttons wherever you want on the panel, without the window title. We don't need a window title because that's included into Global Menu (step 1). For the window switcher we're going to stick with DockBarX but you can use Talika instead if you want.
To install Window Applets, download the .deb from HERE, then install it, right click on the panel and select "Add to panel" and add "Window buttons", then place it wherever you want in the panel - I set mine to the left but you can of course place it on the right, next to the Session Indicator.
Then, to install DockBarX, use the following commands:
DockBarX is great because besides a window switcher, it can also be used as a launcher (simply right click an application and select "Pin application").
If you're not satisfied with the default themes, you can download about a douzen extra DockBarX themes from HERE.
Since we're going to use the upper panel for the Global Menu, close buttons and notification area, it's a good idea to create a vertical panel and place DockBarX on it. If the theme you're using doesn't support vertical panels (vertical panels look ugly), you can use THIS script to fix it.
You can see both DockBarX and Window Applets (just the Window Buttons part of it) throughout all the screenshots in this post.
3. Battery Status
Battery Status is an amazingly useful applet which can replace fully replace the power icon - and comes with some extra new features such as:
Battery Status dialog
Power Statistics (provided by GNOME Power Manager)
"Show" setting
CPU frequency scaling (provided by gnome-applets/cpufreq-applet)
Power Management preferences (provided by GNOME Power Manager)
Once installed, right click your Gnome panel, select "Add to panel" and then add the "Battery applet". When you first add it, it will ask you if you want to remove the power icon since it's no longer needed - select "Remove" (so it will remove it).
4. Browser
Firefox requires A LOT of customization to be truly efficient on a netbook so it would be a good idea to replace it with Chromium - a lot of saved space.
Since Chromium dev builds added WebM support, you may prefer it to the stable build. Install it using the following commands:
Chromium is a great vertical space saver. But to save some more (actually we'll save about 1 inch of horizontal space in the tab bar), in the options set it to "Use system title bar and borders", then restart it. Ubuntu Netbook Edition automatically removes the title bar for maximized windows so using this you won't have a title bar in Chromium but now you'll also have 1 inch of extra space where the close-minimize-maximize buttons used to be - we don't need those since these buttons are already available on the panel. You can see the result of this small tweak in the screenshot above - no window buttons on Chromium.
(Youtube in HTML5 + WebM)
Since Flash uses so many system resources, it's a nightmare to use it on a low-equipped netbook, not to mention the fact that because it uses a lot of CPU, the battery life decreases a lot when viewing flash content. For this reason you may want to enable HTML5 in YouTube.
5. Nautilus Elementary
Because it's so customizable, Nautilus Elementary is an indispensable application for a netbook running Ubuntu - you can customize the toolbar, hide the statusbar, sidebar, use a vertical toolbar and much more!
Ubuntu default applications are usually enough (and great choices most of the times) however for a netbook, I find DeadBeef and Gnome Media Player to be a lot better.
DeadBeef is a fully-featured music player which uses very few system resources (around 9 mb of RAM on my system) and comes with an user interface great for netbooks: minimalistic and with tabs support. You can read some more about DeadBeef, HERE.
Install DeadBeef by pasting the following commands in a terminal:
Gnome Media Player doesn't come with many features but is amazing under-the-hood as it supports the VLC, Xine and Gstreamer engines for playing media - you can either choose the engine manually or allow Gnome Media Player to automatically select the best one for the video you're trying to view.
OpenOffice requires a lot of system resources and it's not exactly suited for a netbook. You could use Zoho Webservice instead - a new project Canonical is working on to integrate Zoho into the Ubuntu desktop.
Install Zoho Webservice using the following command:
sudo apt-get install webservice-office-zoho
Then you'll be able to access the normal document writer, presentations and so on via the Office menu in Ubuntu Netbook Edition:
8. Email
Desktop Webmail, just like Zoho Webservice is a new package in Ubuntu 10.04. Desktop Webmail lets you set your default email client as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or Zoho instead of regular email clients such as Evolution or Thunderbird.
Install Desktop Webmail:
sudo apt-get install desktop-webmail
Once you install it, set Desktop Webmail as your default email application under Preferred Applications.
The Global Menu for Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 has just been uploaded to a PPA (it's still building, but should be ready in a few minutes). The new "global menu" is called "Application Menu" and it can be installed in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx already (both in GNOME and KDE). Here's how.
4. Start any Qt/KDE application, the menu should be embedded in the panel. You can enable double menus by setting the APPMENU_DISPLAY_BOTH env. variable. Example:
APPMENU_DISPLAY_BOTH=1 dolphin
Note: for now, running an application using the Application Menu will result in having both the normal menu for each application as well as the Indicator Applet Appmenu on the panel - that's because this is the very first public version of Application Menu so it's for testing purposes only!
Eventually, the application menu will be dropped and the menu will only be available on the panel:
Also, many applications won't work with the Application Menu. More info @ Ubuntu Wiki.
Battery Status is a project for GNOME, that shows information about laptop battery state. It comes with a lot of additional features, so usual icon of GNOME Power Manager can be removed from Notification/Indicator Area. Don't worry about the battery icon in Ubuntu being a part of the Indicator Applet, when you first add Battery Status to the panel, it will ask to remove the default battery icon (but will keep the Indicator Applet).
Gnome's Power Manager battery icon only shows the remaining battery power. But using the Battery Status applet, the user can access:
Battery Status dialog
Power Statistics (provided by GNOME Power Manager)
"Show" setting
CPU frequency scaling (provided by gnome-applets/cpufreq-applet)
Power Management preferences (provided by GNOME Power Manager)
You can also set the icon display the remaining battery (either minutes or percentage) in the notification area. But that's not all Battery Status can do and Battery Status 0.1 has just been released so more tweaks to come! For more info, visit Battery Status webpage.
To install Battery Status in Ubuntu, simply paste this in a terminal:
Once installed, right click your Gnome panel, select "Add to panel" and then add the "Battery applet". If you're using Ubuntu Netbook Edition, the Gnome panel is locked and you cannot add/remove applets by default, but here is a fix for this: Add / Remove Gnome Panel Applets In Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04
Ubuntu users can even run the Battery Status as an indicator using the following command:
When we told you about some discussions on changing some default application in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10, Banshee was only being discussed. But today the blueprint for UNE default app selection changed and it now confirms Banshee as being evaluated for becoming default in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10. Of course, this doesn't confirm Banshee as default yet, but it does mean that there are some chances to see it in UNE 10.10 as the "unified media player" we were talking about.
To be able to get included in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10, Banshee still needs some tweaks. It is even considered to use Meego Banshee interface instead of the default Banshee.
The most important reason for considering Banshee as a default app in UNE 10.10 is the "unified media player" idea - as Banshee can play both video and audio files. And of course, Banshee supports the new UbuntuOne Music Store (there's already a plugin for that) so it has an advantage over similar applications.
Another application is also under evaluation for UNE 10.10 inclusion: Evolution Express - a netbook interface for Evolution. Here are some screenshots with a pre-release version of Evolution Express:
And finally, even though UNE 10.10 won't be getting Zoho webservice as the default office application, Zoho will be pushed as a featured application in the Ubuntu Software Center for UNE.
After a discussion @ UDS-m, the blueprint for UNE default app selection was updated seconds ago and it now points out that some default applications might be changed in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10.
The first on the list is Chromium, which might replace Firefox as the default browser. The blueprint says this will happen if there is enough space for Chromium and it will be used as the default application until Alpha 3 - and then it will be decided if UNE will switch to Chromium by default or not.
The blueprint also indicates a lot of issues with Chromium which might be in the way of it becoming the default browser in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Maverick Meerkat:
printing seems to be bad
menubar integration with global menu bar
the system theme does not apply for Chromium (close buttons, title bar and the scrollbars)
jdk works, openjdk in lucid does not
reports of some bank web sites and others that don't work in Chromium
Chromium currently comes with it's own ffmpeg package and it's not 100% sure that legal
Other possible new default applications in Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10 Maverick Meerkat:
Shotwell seems to be replacing F-Spot as the default photo manager. I for one would have loved to see the latest gThumb as the default photo manager, but Shotwell will do it too. At least this means one less mono application (not that I have something against mono apps, but a lot of people do).
Like it was with 10.04, there is a discussion which considers removing OpenOffice.org and replacing it with Abiword/Gnumeric and Glide for presentations (if it can fit the CD). Zoho Online Websuite is also mentioned but it has one problem: no offline support. This is still being discussed and no decision has been made so far.
There is also a long discussion regarding a unified media player. Among the alternatives are: Moblin media player - but which is dead upstream, XBMC but it doesn't use Gstreamer and has bad integration, Moovida and Banshee. Banshee seems to be the best alternative considering the unified media player needs UbuntuOne Music Store integration and the disk space shouldn't be an issue for it since Ubuntu already ships with Mono. It seems most if not all the unified media player alternatives are lacking some features which could make them default for UNE 10.10.
And finally, the email client has also been brought up for discussion, but it seems the plan is to optimize Evolution for netbooks. There is already an Evolution netbook optimized Evolution build called Evolution Express, however some people seem to be against it.
Please note this is only a discussion for now so nothing has been officially decided.
Here is some interesting data regarding the applications mentioned in this post:
Shotwell got 9% in our Best Linux Photo Manager / Organizer poll. gThumb and F-Spot got 16% each. The winner was Google Picasa, even though it's not a native Linux application.
Chrome / Chromium seems very popular among Linux users nowadays, getting 38% of the votes in the Best Linux Web Browser poll.
Banshee (17%) is quite popular among Linux users, but nowhere near Rhythmbox (33%). See Best Linux Music Player.
If you are wishing to try out Ubuntu Netbook Edition and are considering purchasing a new netbook, there are many great options available. Current netbooks from HP, Dell, Asus and even a netbook with Lenovo, all work great with the latest version of Ubuntu Netbook Edition 10.10.
The new Unity interface for Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition and Ubuntu Light will remind you of Gnome Shell, but Unity seems more usable, with the "dock" panel on the left. We took Ubuntu Unity interface for a test drive, so here are some screenshots and video I just took, as well as explainations on how the Unity dock works.
Unity dock options / behavior: you can pin applications to the dock by right clicking them and selecting "Keep in Launcher", meaning you'll always have a shortcut available when the application is not running. Also, running applications have an arrow on the left, while the currently active application has an arrow on the right (thus the two arrows on Chrome in the screenshot below):
The dock is scrollable which will be a great advantage for touch devices. To scroll it, hold the dock with your mouse and drag. In the screenshots you'll also notice Google search in the top left corner - that's like a shortcut for Google that will open up a new tab in your default browser with the searched keywords.
You can also re-arrange the dock icons but in a somewhat unusual way. You must drag an icon to the right and then moving it to the new position:
The dock also has a really nice effect for applications demanding attention such as a new Pidgin or Empathy conversation. Unfortunately I didn't get this in the video and a screenshot would be useless so you'll have to see that for yourself.
The applications don't minimize to the dock like you would expect if you ever used a Linux dock or OSX's dock. The switching is done using the Ubuntu logo in the top left corner which resembles to Gnome Shell Activities button yet the behavior is similar to Mac OSX's Expose - which lists all running applications:
One thing missing from the Ubuntu Unity dock is handling multiple windows of the same app - there's no indicator in the dock pointing out how many instances / windows are running for the same application. But you can run Expose for the windows associated with an application by right clicking the application's icon in the dock.
The date has been removed from the Unity interface: only the time is displayed in the panel and upon clicking it, the user can see the date as well as adjust the date/time:
Impressions
I initially wanted to install Unity right away on my netbook as the main interface. But in the current state, Unity - or only Unity without another dock / app switcher - is not usable. There's no way to access applications which are not available in the Unity dock (you can only pin running applications - but to get them to run, you must have access to them somehow, and Unity doesn't provide this for now) so initially you must use something else for a launcher because the Ubuntu logo in the top left corner is used for Expose, not for bringing up a menu. Sure, you could use a terminal to launch some apps, but that's not in the Unity dock by default so if you don't have Gnome Do set up to autostart, it will take you a while before actually running an application.
Another feature I really missed in Unity is panel applets - just like in Gnome Shell - is that you can't add applets to the top panel. Sure, the top panel will be used in the future to hold the mighty Global Menu but for now it's a bit useless and annoying. You can't even right click it (you can, but nothing will happen).
And another option I would have wanted and found that it's missing is creating custom launchers in the Unity dock - that's not possible for now. You also can't change any dock icon.
Finally, a note: if you want to run Compiz using Unity... you can't, just the way you can't currently run it with Gnome Shell. Hopefully this will change in the future.
Here is a video with Ubuntu Unity in action
The video has been recorded in 1080p. You can also watch it @ Youtube.
