Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn finally reached the end of its life on July 23, 2015. No more package updates will be accepted to 14.10. That means 14.10 users won’t get latest software (e.g, Firefox, Thunderbird), security notices/fixes through Software Updater. And Launchpad PPAs will no longer update for 14.10.
Ubuntu 14.10 was released 9 months ago, on October 23, 2014. As a non-LTS release, it has a 9-month month support cycle and, as such, the support reached the end of life on last Thursday. Users of Ubuntu 14.10 may upgrade to Ubuntu 15.04 (ends on January 2016), or install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS which has a 5-year support (until 2019).
Oracle finally made the Virtualbox binary packages for Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic available in its official Linux repository. Which means running regular system updates via Software Updater will keep your Virtualbox release always up-to-date.
While Ubuntu 14.10 repositories provide the Virtualbox 4.3.18, the latest has reached the version 4.3.20. For the changelog, see the web page.
How to Add Virtualbox Repository in Ubuntu:
Open terminal from the Unity Dash or just press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard. When it opens, paste the command below into terminal and run to get the key:
This quick tutorial shows how to improve your Ubuntu experience by speeding up the Unity Dash (search utility) response in Ubuntu 14.10 or Ubuntu 14.04.
1. Remove undesired search results
By default, the Dash displays Unity lens, scopes, Amazon online search results, and records file and application usage. You can disable some of them via below tips:
Disable online search results:
Launch System Settings and go to Security & Privacy, under “Search” tab turn off the switch which says “When searching in the Dash: include online search results”
Stop recording file and app usage:
Also launch System Settings and go to Security & Privacy, under “Files & Applications” tab first clear records and then turn off the switch:
Remove unwanted Unity lens, scopes:
Open Ubuntu Software Center and search for unity-scope. In the results, check the information of installed scopes and remove the scopes you don’t need.
Do same to Unity lens by searching unity-lens.
2. Reduce Graphics Settings.
First click the link below to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and click install Compiz Config Settings Manager.
Run Windows only applications in Ubuntu? Well, here’s how to install the latest Wine development release with bug fixes and new features in Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic.
For those who don’t know about Wine:
Wine (originally an acronym for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”) is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, Mac OSX, & BSD. Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop.
Wine began in 1993 under the initial coordination of Bob Amstadt as a way to support running Windows 3.1 programs on Linux. Very early on, leadership over Wine’s development passed to Alexandre Julliard, who has managed the project ever since. Over the years, as the Windows API and applications have evolved to take advantage of new hardware and software, Wine has adapted to support new features, all while being ported to other OSes, becoming more stable, and providing a better user-experience.
An ambitious project by definition, work on Wine would steadily continue for 15 years before the program finally reached v1.0, the first stable release, in 2008. Several releases later, Wine is still under active development today, and although there is more work to be done, millions of people are estimated to use Wine to run their Windows software on the OS of their choice.
open Windows .exe file directly with Wine
Install Wine Development in Ubuntu:
While Ubuntu repositories provide the stable Wine 1.6 release, the latest development Wine 1.7 with bug fixes and new supports is available in Wine official PPA. So far, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 14.10 are supported.
To add the PPA, press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit Enter to run:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
Type in your user password when it asks.
After added the PPA, install Wine1.7 from Synaptic Package Manger after clicking Reload button. Or just run the commands below in terminal:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.7
That’s it.
When a future release is out and made into the PPA, running regular system update via Software Updates will automatically upgrade the wine1.7 to the latest.
The Hibernate option is available in Beta and Alpha releases of Ubuntu 14.10, but the final release removed this option in the Unity desktop.
This quick guide is going to show you how to re-enable this feature so that you can hibernate your machine from the shutdown menu (top-right gear button).
1. Before getting started, you may run command below in terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) to test if hibernate works in your case:
sudo pm-hibernate
After you computer turns off, switch it back on. Did your open applications re-open? If hibernate doesn’t work, check if your swap partition is at least as large as your available RAM.
2. To re-enable hibernate, run command below to edit the configuration file:
2. Thanks to Cruz, you can add below lines into the configuration file to make Hibernate work for multiple users:
[Re-enable hibernate for multiple users by default in logind]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.login1.hibernate-multiple-sessions
ResultActive=yes
3. If you want to hibernate your laptop when lid is closed, run command to edit the configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/systemd/logind.conf
Add HandleLidSwitch=hibernate as a new line into the end and save the file. It will work at next boot.
