If you're up for checking out the upcoming version of Ubuntu -- Utopic Unicorn 14.10 -- the first alpha has been released. There are images available for GNOME, Kubuntu, and other popular varieties, and with the images come some software updates and system improvements.
At the OpenStack Summit, Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth took the wraps of the Ubuntu Orange Box, an aptly named orange cloud-in-a-box that is hailed as portable (to a degree). The Orange Box is a full mobile cluster with a couple of convenient handles on top and a weight that lets you check it with your baggage.
For users that've tried the Ubuntu Touch experience in smartphones and tablets over the past several weeks or months, you know good and well that it's nearly ready for mainstream users - but not quite. As it were, Canonical community manager Jono Bacon spoke up on the situation this week, suggesting that they'll not be ready to deliver any devices before 2015. As for the Ubuntu Edge we saw last year - that's no longer a device that'll be produced at all.
Ubuntu will be including a default new scope with the aim of encouraging its philosophy of Free Culture directly into the user experience via the search engine of the OS. It will allow The Pirate Bay users to perform BitTorrent searches directly from the desktop.
The days of Canonical's mobile operating system, dubbed Ubuntu Touch, are rapidly upon us. In October, an image of Ubuntu Touch was released along with the 13.10 version of the desktop OS. Fast-forward a couple more months, and Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth has revealed the company has penned an agreement with its first -- and yet unspecified -- smartphone partner.
Dell this weekend announced the release of its third XPS 13 Laptop, Developer Edition, codenamed Sputnik 3. This 3.02-lb client-to-cloud touchscreen ultrabook comes prepackaged with Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS and a 4th-generation Intel (Haswell) processor. Developed by developers for developers, the Sputnik 3 is available in two configurations.
Supposing you’re in a situation where you’d love to work with Apple’s OS X desktop operating system, but for whatever reason you’d rather not - or cannot - work with an Apple-made piece of hardware. If you’re the alternate-solutions type, there may be hope for you with the Linux Ubuntu-based system called Pear OS. The newest version of Pear OS - that’s Pear OS 8 - works with a look and feel that’s very much the most solidly cross-breed inspired iOS/OS X system out in the wild today - again, working with Unbuntu, but certainly appearing to bust out an alternate-universe Apple system by all looks and touches.
This week the folks at NVIDIA have suggested that their developer program GameWorks will not be limited to the likes of Linux and Android - not by any stretch of the imagination. NVIDIA made clear that not only would they be extending GameWorks support - developer tools for games, that is - for Ubuntu environments, but for SteamOS as well. In other words - those gaming developers hoping to optimize their games for Steam Machines with NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics cards will be able to do so.
This week at an event in Montreal, NVIDIA showed off the high-powered demo software called Faceworks (previously working on NVIDIA Titan processors for PC) working on the next-generation mobile-aimed processor Project Logan. This processor will almost certainly be re-named Tegra 5 as each "Project" codename has been re-named "Tegra #", and what we've seen here is an ultra high-powered graphics-intensive beast of a demo on it running just as smoothly as we've seen it run on some of the most powerful graphics processors available from NVIDIA for desktop machines.
With Windows 8.1 officially launching today, refreshed operating systems are on the minds of a lot of computer users. If your tastes lie in an operating system other than Windows, you may be interested in the latest version of Ubuntu Linux that launched yesterday. Ubuntu 13.10 launched on October 17 bringing a number of improvements for fans of the operating system.
In a month from the time of the release of this article - that's October 17th - the folks at Ubuntu will be releasing the newest desktop OS version 13.10, and along with it an image of Ubuntu Touch. This mobile software will be available "ready to install" on devices we've seen running early versions since January of 2013. This means the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets (2012 editions, at least), and the LG Nexus 4 will be ready to roll by Halloween with full smartphone-optimized Ubuntu.
The Ubuntu Edge didn't get funded, therefore we may not see the powerful Ubuntu-powered phone get created, but that doesn't mean we can't use the Ubuntu Touch interface on a mobile device. The Linux-based mobile operating system has been successfully ported to the Sony Xperia Tablet Z, in which owners can now play around with Ubuntu on their tablet.
