Linux Mint Team finally announced the release of 17.1 “Rebecca” Cinnamon and MATE editions, which is a long term support release based on Ubuntu 14.04 that will be supported until 2019.
According to the release note, the Linux Mint 17.1 “Rebecca” comes with updated software and brings refinements and many new features to make your desktop even more comfortable to use.
Linux Mint 17.1 features:
Cinnamon 2.4 / MATE 1.8
MDM 1.8
Out of the box support for Compiz (MATE edition)
Linux kernel 3.13
Ubuntu 14.04 package base
Update Manager now groups packages together according to their source package.
Redesigned UI of Language Settings.
Redesigned Login Window Preferences.
System, Artwork, and Other Improvements.
Both the Linux Mint 17 and 17.1 RC can upgrade to the new release through Updater Manager. For the 17.1 RC release just install any level 1 update you haven’t installed already.
The Midori Browser 0.5.9 “Ballet” was released recently with various important bug fixes. The developer announced in the blog post:
Seven months of sweat and tears… oh well, not quite so dramatic. In any event Midori 0.5.9 is out!
We’re already scheming… I mean planning for the next cycle. We want to go WebKit2 and GTK+3 only now and do away with the fourfold compatibility setup. Anyone who finds this thrilling is more than welcome to join in; the fun is going to start soon.
According to the changelog, the 0.5.9 release brings below changes:
Fix the problem that Downloads do not work with WebKit2
about:new in urlbar for new tabs has been fixed.
Fix visibility of SpeedDial, Toolbar, Bookmarkbar context menu items
Fix crash right-clicking forms on local pages
Fix crash when activating the edit menu
Fix “open all in tabs” for bookmarks
Fix crash when saving with associated resources
Fixes tab history undo
Fix a few simple leaks
Show search menu upon left icon click in location bar
Connect bookmarks-db singleton correctly to fix menus
Make middle clicking reload button duplicate the current tab, similar to other browsers
For the detailed changes, read the ChangeLog file from the Source Code page.
How to Install / Upgrade to Midori 0.5.9:
The 0.5.9 release is not yet now available in the official PPA. If you really want to install or upgrade to the new release, use the Development PPA. Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04 are supported so far.
1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, run commands below to add the PPA:
Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn and its flavors including the newest Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, and Ubuntu Studio were officially released today.
According to the release note, there have been updates to many core packages, including a new 3.16-based kernel, a new AppArmor with fine-grained socket control, and more.
Ubuntu Desktop has seen incremental improvements, with newer versions of GTK and Qt, updates to major packages like Firefox and LibreOffice, and improvements to Unity, including improved High-DPI display support.
Ubuntu Server 14.10 includes the Juno release of OpenStack, alongside deployment and management tools that save devops teams time when deploying distributed applications – whether on private clouds, public clouds, x86 or ARM servers, or on developer laptops. Several key server technologies, from MAAS to Ceph, have been updated to new upstream versions with a variety of new features.
Kubuntu 14.10:
Kubuntu 14.10 comes in two flavours, the stable Plasma 4 running the desktop we know from previous releases, and a tech preview of the next generation Plasma 5 for early adopters.
LXQt, the next generation of LXDE, has just reached release 0.8.0, which brings full Qt 5 compatibility, two beautiful new themes, and a lot of new features.
LXQt is the Qt port and the upcoming version of LXDE, the Lightweight Desktop Environment. It is the product of the merge between the LXDE-Qt and the Razor-qt projects.
According to the release note, LXQt 0.8.0 brings below changes:
Full Qt 5 support. Run cmake with -DUSE_QT5 to enable it.
New component: lxqt-admin. This brings an optional set of basic admin tools such as configuration for date & time as well as users and groups.
New theme: Plasma Next. Based on KDE Plasma Next theme.
New theme: Dark Alpha, by Inti Alonso.
Much improved support for multiple displays.
Support for RGBA transparency if compositing is available.
lxqt-config-randr has been removed. It has been replaced by lxqt-config-monitor.
pcmanfm-qt: Support single-click to activate items
pcmanfm-qt: Support drag & drop on the desktop
pcmanfm-qt: Implement integration with the ark archive manager
pcmanfm-qt: Improve readability in icon view
lxqt-panel: Support reordering of taskbar buttons
lxqt-panel: Support “urgency” hint
lxqt-panel: Add support for OSS in volume control, if available
lxqt-powermanagement: Improved compatibility with systemd/logind
Integrate with compton if available (disabled by default)
Add support for setting a default UI font
Lots of performances improvements.
Lots and lots of bugfixes.
How to install LXQt in Ubuntu:
A daily build PPA is available in ppa:lubuntu-dev/lubuntu-daily, so far it supports Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 and derivatives.
Press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal and run below commands one by one to add the PPA and install LXQt session:
Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn Beta 2 and its official flavors are now available for download.
This Beta features images for Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, UbuntuKylin, Ubuntu Studio, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Cloud.
The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of Ubuntu 14.10 Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.
Codenamed “Utopic Unicorn”, 14.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.
This beta release includes images from not only the Ubuntu Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, but also the Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu Studio and Xubuntu flavours.
The beta images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of 14.10 that should be representative of the features intended to ship with the final release expected on October 23rd, 2014.
According to Ubuntu 14.10’s release schedule, there will be:
Kernel Freeze on October 9th
Final Freeze and Release Candidate on October 16th
Final Release of Ubuntu 14.10 (Stable) on October 23rd
What to expect in the Ubuntu 14.10 Final:
Both Unity 8 (Mir) and Unity 7 (X.org) available.
Ubuntu 14.10 will bring better 3G mobile modems.
Kubuntu 14.10 will be using KDE Plasma 5.
Download Ubuntu 14.10 Beta 2:
For Unity: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/14.10/
For Kubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/14.10/
For Lubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/14.10/
For Ubuntu Gnome: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-gnome/releases/14.10/
For UbuntuKylin: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntukylin/releases/14.10/
For UbuntuStudio: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/14.10/
For Xubuntu: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/14.10/
For Ubuntu Cloud: http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/utopic/
Ubuntu MATE 14.10, an unofficial Ubuntu flavor maintained by Ubuntu community, has just reached its second beta release.
What’s Ubuntu MATE?
Ubuntu MATE is a new Ubuntu flavor started a few months ago. The first release will be Ubuntu MATE 14.10, Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic integrated with MATE Desktop Environment.
Ubuntu MATE is a Ubuntu community project developed by the core MATE Desktop development team, and maintained by the heroes from the Debian packaging team.
At the moment, Ubuntu MATE is not an official Ubuntu “flavor”. The team are working towards that.
MATE Desktop Environment is the continuation of classic GNOME 2. It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
Ubuntu MATE
The Beta2 release has been focused on fixing broken things and improving what was already present in Beta1. See the official release note for details.
PlayOnLinux, Wine GUI for installing Windows applications and games in Linux, has just released version 4.2.5 which added compatibility with Debian 8 & Mac OS 10.10.
PlayOnLinux is a graphical front-end for the Wine software compatibility layer which allows Linux users to install Windows-based video games, as well as many other applications such as Apple iTunes, Safari, Microsoft Office (2000 to 2010), Microsoft Internet Explorer. See a list of supported software.
The latest PlayOnLinux 4.2.5 was released with below changes:
Fix reading/writing values containing ‘=’ symbol in configuration files
Make POL_Wine_InstallFonts preserve current directory (regression since 4.2.3)
Disable “Install” component button until a component is selected
Compatibility with wxpython 3.0, Debian 8, Mac OS 10.10
Mention URL in POL_Download and POL_Download_Resource error messages
Add POL_Config_Win16 to check if the host can run win16 programs.
How to install PlayOnLinux:
For Ubuntu, you can install always install the latest PlayOnLinux via its official repository:
1. First of first install wine. Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and run one by one:
Open source racing game Stunt Rally just reached 2.4 release with lots of updates.
According to the changelog, the new release comes with all 147 tracks (6 new, 12 old deleted, some renewed), 2 new sceneries (Crystals, GreeceWhite), 3 new cars (4 renewed, 2 old deleted). Also there are a few improvements on UI and game experiences.
The lightweight Linux native music player DeaDBeeF has been updated to v0.6.2 with lots of new features, improvements and bug fixes.
DeadBeef is a fully-featured music player takes use of very few RAM. Since v0.6, it has a design mode (view -> design mode) that allows you to customize the UI the way you like.
The latest 0.6.2 release was released days ago on August 5th with lots of changes:
added “Stop playback after current album finished” (Aleksejs Popovs)
The first point release, Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS (Long-Term-Support) for its Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, as well as other flavors, has been announced just a few hours ago.
José Antonio Rey said in the release note:
As usual, this point release includes many updates, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
Users of Ubuntu 12.04 will soon be offered an automatic upgrade to 14.04.1 via Update Manager. If you’re running on Ubuntu 14.04, regular update via Software Updater will bring you to this point release.