23 Sep

Lubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn Final Beta

Testing has begun for the Final Beta (Beta 2) of Lubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn. Head on over to the ISO tracker to download images, view testcases, and report results. If you’re new to testing, anyone can join and they don’t have to be
Linux Jedis or anything. You can find all the information you need to get started here.

Please note that we especially need testers for PPC chips and Intel Macs. We have a special section discussing it here. In particular, if you have an Intel Mac, I have a few questions for you that might help us trim down the workload of the testing team.

Also, if you have a PPC chip, we’re about the only distro actively supporting this architecture. However, we are community supported, so without formal testing, the arch will lose more support. So please, join in testing!

10 Sep

[Results] Community wallpaper contest

The results are in!

I’d like to start with addressing some of the issues with running this type of contest. We try to communicate the rules for this contest as clearly as possible, for example, you cannot even join the Flickr group without accepting the rules. However, we cannot force people to read terms and conditions, so we try to warn contestants if they aren’t following the rules in order for them to correct their submission before deadline. Unfortunately we cannot force people to read their emails either, so we always have a few popular submissions that get disqualified. This contest was no different, we’ve had a few problems with wallpaper sizes and of course — licensing issues. 
With that being said, full contest results can be seen here, and down below are the five wallpapers that will be included in Lubuntu 14.10, a big congratulations to you all:
 Sunset Over Lake by Andrei Daniel Ticlean
 Turn Back by Kari Wagner
 Void by Marxco
 DragonFly4 by Earl Lunt
 Colori D’autunno by Quellicol1000
I would also like to thank our friend Guillaume at Picompete for helping us host this contest. He’s been helping us for years now, and we really appreciate everything he’s done for us. It’s a trustworthy service that we really recommend if you wish to host similar contests like this. Guillaume is also a big fan of open source and Linux, and he has offered to help other distributions if they ever need to host a poll.
http://picompete.com/contest/1441/lubuntu-14-10-community-wallpaper-contest/
28 Aug

Lubuntu Utopic Unicorn 14.10 β1

We’re preparing Lubuntu 14.10, the Utopic Unicorn, for distribution in
October 2014. With this early Beta pre-release, you can see what we are
trying out in preparation for our next version (with  3.16.0-11 Ubuntu Linux kernel). Remember that this is an early beta pre-release, so don’t use it on daily production computers.

We’d like you to join us for testing, especially if you have a PPC machine. We didn’t have PPC testers this release, do there is no PPC release.

Read the release notes before getting the disc images, and contact us with feedback.

25 Aug

LXPanel 0.7.0 released

A huge update to the GTK+ panel was released. See the list below for some changes. Full log of changes can be fund in git. Lots of new functionalities like:

  • new plugin ‘launchtaskbar’ combining ‘launchbar’ and ‘taskbar’
  • replaced ‘pager’ plugin with former ‘wnckpager’ one
  • allowed drag applications from system menu plugin
  • using human readable sensor names if available (like ‘Core 0′, etc)
  • renamed button to configure plugin from ‘Edit’ to ‘Properties’
  • etc.

Soon in Lubuntu repositories. More info here.

Via LXDE Blog

24 Aug

Community wallpaper contest

It’s that time of year when Lubuntu asks the community to contribute an artistic touch to the distribution.

We know… We’re late… But here we go again!

Please feel free to join us at Flickr and upload your favourite creation, that’s right, one submission per user this time.

Submissions are accepted until 4th September 23:59:59 UTC+01:00, and the polls will open shortly after that. The polls will be open until 9th September, and the top five wallpapers will be included by default in Lubuntu Utopic Unicorn.

Please make sure to follow the rules, as failing to do so will get you disqualified.

Again, sorry for the late announcement. We actually had another concept in mind for this release, but unfortunately it will have to wait.

Good luck to all contestants and please help us spread the word :).

02 Aug

Lubuntu Utopic Unicorn α2

Second alpha for Lubuntu Utopic Unicorn released. This is just for testing, don’t use it as a stable system. This snapshot includes the 3.15.0.6 Ubuntu Linux kernel which is based on the the upstream v3.15 Linux kernel. The 3.15 release includes mixed mode UEFI support, as well as improvements to suspend and resume times, open-source graphics drivers, newer laptop support ACPI and power management, ext4 filesystem, audio and sound, to name a few; additional highlights are described here. A few problems still present:

  • Alt + F2 shortcut does not work
  • power manager has wierd black background on lxpanel
  • iBus does not support certain keyboard layouts (affected chromium, not firefox, now resolved with current version of the browser)

Only standard PC images, due to the lack of testers, Lubuntu won’t drop Mac ISOs, we need more time and machines for testing. More info and download here.

28 Jul

Lubuntu 14.04.1 LTS

It’s already available Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS, the first update on Trusty Tahr, a recommended by-default setup for all flavours including, of course, Lubuntu. This comes with extended support (until 2019). Various bugs that required updates are rolled into this update:

  • A bug for btrfs has been found, this is scheduled to be fixed in 14.04.2
  • A bug affecting Alt-F2 is still present
  • For PPC the bug affecting the resizing of partitions is still there

You can get it here, and read the release notes here.

22 Jul

Box for Qt

Box’s evolution continues ahead. Due to the Qt development, the main theme for Lubuntu must grow a bit more to cover more apps, devices and, of course, environments. Now it’s Qt, the sub-system for the next Lubuntu desktop, but this will allow its use for KDE5 and Plasma Next. For now it’s just a project, but the Dolphin file manager looks fine!

Note: this is under heavy development, no downloads for now, sorry.