Ubuntu 14.04 final released.

[exploder]

Ubuntu 14.04 turned out very well! Hardware support is great and it has been pretty much problem free for me even through it's development cycle. For those of us that have come to like Unity, it has some nice refinements and it is very polished and nice in this release! The other flavors have also been released so most people should be pretty happy now. My personal preference is Unity, it works out very nice on my HP 655 laptop.

Also, I find myself enjoying the non-traditional desktop these days. I am a fan of fresh ideas and in my opinion the new ideas are drawing in more people to Linux. The Ubuntu Team seems less focused on bleeding edge stuff and more focused on stability and reliability and I am all for that. The developers seem to be paying more attention to what people want, maybe they have learned from Microsoft's mistakes with Windows 8?

I think too that Unity in no way resembles Windows so new users do not expect it to act and behave like Windows and that helps a lot. People have gotten used to Android and iOS, that also helps. I got my first experience with secure boot and GTP partitions last week and 14.04 had no real issues with this. I turned secure boot back on after I installed 14.04 x64 because I saw that it provided me with a signed kernel! Although I have some reading to do, it seemed like a good idea to have secure boot turned on and I was happy to see that the OS had no problems with it.

I like the 5 years of support the LTS release has and I think I will be perfectly happy with the version of Unity in this release until Unity 8 has time to mature. The Linux Mint versions of the LTS should be very good this time around for those seeking a traditional desktop. Development versions of eOS are also showing up and it will be nice to see how their release turns out this time around.

I have 14.04 installed on 3 machines with completely different hardware and all of them are running perfectly. In the past I have had problems with some of my hardware but that is not the case with 14.04, there was no jumping through hoops to get anything working! I had some problems with on-board NVidea graphics on an older computer my kids use but I booted into fail safe mode, installed the legacy 304 drivers and everything was fine. I have systems with NVidea, ATI/AMD and Intel graphics and all of them work great with 14.04!

I think most people are going to have a good experience with the 14.04 base regardless of what desktop environment or derivative they choose to go with.

[austin.texas]

I installed Kubuntu 14.04, the KDE variation of Ubuntu, and spent some time exploring it today.
I wanted KDE instead of Unity because I won't waste my time with Unity - don't like it.
Overall, Kubuntu is pretty nice. No problems with graphics or wireless. The file manager is almost as good as Nemo. Kubuntu is very attractive and configurable.
The software manager is worse than useless. I searched it for synaptic, among other things, with zero results. I had to install that software, including synaptic, in a terminal.
There were some lags in some of the eye candy effects that I didn't expect on my machine. I would have to disable those for everyday use.
The installation program was somewhat improved from the Mint installer that I am accustomed to. I hope we see those improvements.

I won't be leaving Mint Cinnamon... Looking forward to Mint 17 !!!

[Brahim Salem]

This is the best Ubuntu release ever out Dead fast and rock solid. Thumbs up Ubuntu team

[exploder]

I have to agree with you Zorba! The quality really shows in the 14.04 release. Ever since Canonical started developing their own user interface the quality has greatly improved. It is clear that the developers are trying very hard to increase the user base and attract corporate users. I sincerely hope they are successful with convergence and beat the competition to the punch!

I had always felt that Ubuntu releases were half baked but they have really turned things around. Ubuntu always used to get a lot of press over nothing, now they are getting press over real accomplishments and their reputation is so much better than it used to be. I am impressed with 14.04 and plan to keep it on my laptop for the foreseeable future.

[KBD47]

I agree, 14.04 seems rock solid, lighter and faster. Did 3 installs, 1 Unity and 2 Xubuntu. Ram difference on the same machine running Unity and Xubuntu:
Unity 642 mb ram with 3 Chrome tabs open, 1 streaming music.
Xubuntu 430 mb ram with 3 Chrome tabs open, 1 streaming music.
Ubuntu 14.04 is going to be a great Mint base. I'm looking forward to seeing the new Mint Mate release next month

[Brahim Salem]

I think Linux Mint 17 will be a T. rex My brother already calls Linux Mint "T. rex" (Tyrannosaurus rex) and sometimes "tractor" because of its stability . It never breaks down no matter what If fact Ubuntu 14.04 looks like a promising release too and I'm really surprised at its polish and stability :DNew partners are in the air But hey guys we must not forget that 2014 is the year of Linux

[benali72]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm gonna download and try it out. I'm not a fan of the handheld-influenced interfaces like Unity (Win 8, Gnome 3, et al), but I'd like to try it. I'll be joining you soon in testing 14.04 (assuming it still runs on my old AMD 64x2 box). Cheers.

[Brahim Salem]

There's one intolerable issue with Ubuntu 14.04 and that is the missing network manager applet especially for new XP migrants. I have to run

Code: Select all

nm-applet

everytime I boot and even following webupd8 solution at http://www.webupd8.org/2014/04/fix-lubu ... nager.html I still have to run this command all the time and this is very annoying guys. I think they have to respin it very soon. Otherwise everything is perfect with it. Now I dual-boot it with Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon

[KBD47]

There's one intolerable issue with Ubuntu 14.04 and that is the missing network manager applet especially for new XP migrants. I have to run

Code: Select all

nm-applet

everytime I boot and even following webupd8 solution at http://www.webupd8.org/2014/04/fix-lubu ... nager.html I still have to run this command all the time and this is very annoying guys. I think they have to respin it very soon. Otherwise everything is perfect with it. Now I dual-boot it with Linux Mint 16 Cinnamon

I only found that on Lubuntu 14.04. All the others worked fine for me. Here is the fix for Lubuntu:
go to preferences
default applications for lxsession
autostart
and in the box put: nm-applet
click on: add
Do a restart and it should be in the panel.

[Brahim Salem]

thanks for your tip but I'm running Unity and this bug affects me too

[The Dark Side]

14.04 it's Excellent !!!! I think it will be much better than 12.04. It works actually well, for my taste Kubuntu stands out above the rest of its competitors. Although Unity increasingly improves more when Unity is definitely switch to QT !! I think we will see a big improvement.....

Although here, I'm already expecting anxiously Linux Mint 17. Greetings.-

[DrHu]

Fine, but "what people want"

?? Which people
--if everything is being decided by popularity contest, then nothing outside current trends will be fashionable or developed: the public is so fickle, and will drop anything on a whim (or when it is no longer trendy)

• I expect the tablets phase to disappear also, maybe people ("the people") will decide they don't need a tablet or a phablet but instead can just do it all on a smartphone
  --even if the internet connection cost is much higher than a homebase internet connection or the free wifi in various restuarants et al..

Look at the popularity of tablet computers, which have the limitation of low storage and usually lack a decent keyboard and are minimum OS's (portable or mobile style)
I know, I know everybody's doing it so it must be the right way

Also I am not so sure that Ubuntu pays more attention to stability than new stuff..
--I actually think Debian is paying more attention to stability, making their releases slower to appear..

And I still use synaptic as my package manager, I just don't think the idea of using a vendor's package manager provides any extras (no matter which Linux distribution is being used..); though that is the obvious reason to offer it: as well as any advertising or promotion it can show..

• or the command line apt utility..

I admit to being considered old fashioned, though it doesn't bother me one bit
--I still prefer a desktop that I can customize to any extent I wish and a larger screen and a homebase internet connection, that offers me a more secure access route.

[craig10x]

Debian is too old fashioned for me...they are such stubborn purists that they won't even use the great patching ubuntu uses to make web page render so beautifully...
and though ubuntu is going into a lot of new territory, they have been greatly improving quality control and it is evident in 14.04 and even when i ran it during development cycle, i was amazed on how reliable it was...

[Previous1]

Debian is too old fashioned for me...they are such stubborn purists that they won't even use the great patching ubuntu uses to make web page render so beautifully...

Don't know if you're trolling here. All it takes is a .fonts.conf file and a different fontset and it looks just as well in Debian as in Ubuntu. And I'd rather have "stubborn purists" than kids breaking windows - how long has hibernate/suspend been broken in Ubuntu?

[Condorman]

Well, whichever side of the philosophical fence you lay on, Ubuntu 14.04 is a great release. I installed it on our laptop yesterday and we really love it. Mint 17 ought to be similarly awesome!

[craig10x]

@ Previous1: no not trolling at all...just don't care for their philosophy...and you shouldn't have to change things to make it better, they should provide it to begin with, that's the way i look at it, anyway... You can add the patching from ubuntu to debian...but i'd rather have it already there...anyway, it shows ubuntu is trying to provide the best experience possible by providing it as a default...

Suspend works fine on all the Ubuntu versions i have used, so not sure why you are having a problem...

Anyway, as Condorman just said... Ubuntu 14.04 is an awesome release for sure

[Adelante]

Thanks! That settled that.

I only found that on Lubuntu 14.04. All the others worked fine for me. Here is the fix for Lubuntu:
go to preferences
default applications for lxsession
autostart
and in the box put: nm-applet
click on: add
Do a restart and it should be in the panel.

[Previous1]

Writing this post from a new and shiny Xubuntu 14.04.

Installation was a bit odd - it said no internet connection was available, yet there was no problem pulling in additional packages. I had trouble to set the location correcty. And I couldn´t boot because it installed grub to the wrong partition. On the bright side, it now offers LVM and full-disk encryption.

After logging in, the first thing I've tried was standby. And it finally worked - but I had to authenticate to mount my DVD drive. Also, I couldn't eject via the drive button, even after enabling kernel polling. Cursed udisks2.

I personally like the cleaner look with whiskermenu and no dock bar or workspaces.

Will have to see otherwise. It looks promising but I'd suggest not to jump ship early and wait for 14.04.1.

[altair4]

Hm... Installed Xubuntu 14.04 on two different boxes now and I didn't experience any of your symptoms. I guess it's a case by case type of thing.

And in a "different strokes" department the whisker menu is the very thing I replace with the standard xfce menu. Actually, I have them next to each other. The whisker menu is easier to use if I want to send a launcher to one of my panels. The standard menu allows that as well but success always seems to be dependant on temperature or humidity levels or maybe planet alignment

[exploder]

I installed xubuntu 14.04 32 bit on an old Sony Vaio yesterday. The computer had a P4 2.66 GHz processor, 1 GB of DDR RAM, 30 GB Maxtor IDE hard drive, on-board Intel graphics, on-board sound and network adapter. Xubuntu ran great on this hardware!

I was impressed with how well the default theme looked, everything looked like it belonged together. The default applications were light for the most part and I liked the defaults. Full screen flash was choppy but I expected that with the hardware I had to work with, flash worked just fine in a smaller window.

Xubuntu was very resource friendly, there was plenty of memory for running applications and it was not using swap. All of the default artwork looked really nice, theme. Plymouth, wallpaper, everything! The developers did an amazing job on this release!

My friend should get a few more years use out of the computer and I was real happy with how it turned out!