Taking Ubuntu 14.10 for a ride



Ubuntu is one of the more widely used GNU/Linux distributions in the world with the project's parent company, Canonical, reporting around 30 million computers shipping with Ubuntu pre-installed in the past two years. Ubuntu, along with its many community editions, continues to be used by millions around the world and the decisions made by Ubuntu developers have an direct impact on many computer users.



The latest release of Ubuntu, version 14.10, arrived on October 23rd and the release notes painted a picture of a tame release with minor changes from Ubuntu's previous version. Most components, including the Linux kernel and Firefox, received minor updates. Ubuntu 14.10 features a short, nine month life cycle, and the release notes warn us changes have been made which make it less likely we can use the USB Creator utility to write certain USB images to thumb drives. "Due to changes in syslinux, it is not currently possible to use usb-creator from 14.04 and earlier releases to write USB images for 14.10." Ubuntu is available in several flavours, including Desktop, Server and net-install editions. There are also countless community variations of Ubuntu. The distribution is available in 32-bit and 64-bit builds for the x86 hardware architecture. The ISO image for the Desktop edition is 1.1GB in size and this is the image I downloaded.



I feel it is worth pointing out that Ubuntu recommends most users stick with long term support (LTS) releases, which are released every two years and are supported for five years. Non-LTS releases, such as this one, are provided more for the benefit of developers and people who like to have access to the latest features and hardware support.







Ubuntu 14.10 - Unity desktop with default theme

(full image size: 1,001kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)



Booting from the Ubuntu live media brings up a graphical page where we are asked to select our preferred language from a list. We are also given the choice to either try working with the live Unity desktop or launching straight into the project's system installer. I decided to play with the live desktop environment first. When Unity loads we are shown a screen with a list of keyboard short-cuts. These short-cuts give us access to various Unity features and assist us in manipulating application windows. When this page of short-cuts is dismissed we see a quick-launch bar (that doubles as a task switcher) on the left side of the screen. The system tray and a button for accessing the settings panel sit in the upper-right corner and the Unity Dash, a location for finding files and launching applications, is located in the upper-left corner.



Launching Ubuntu's graphical system installer brings up a screen where we are asked to select our preferred language and, optionally, we can click a link to view the project's release notes in our web browser. The next screen of the installer asks if we would like to download software updates during the install process. We can also choose to install third-party multimedia support during the install process. The next page covers partitioning. The Ubuntu installer offers to partition our hard drive for us, optionally using LVM volumes and encryption. Alternatively, we can manually partition the drive and this is the option I chose.



Ubuntu has a very straight forward approach to partitioning and I find the installer's method of getting us to select file systems and mount points easy to navigate. I decided to set up my copy of the operating system on the Btr file system with a small swap partition. Once we have partitioned the hard drive the Ubuntu system installer begins to copy its files to our disk while we are asked some more questions. We are asked to confirm our time zone or select a new time zone from a map of the world. We are asked to confirm our computer's keyboard layout and we are asked to create a user account for ourselves. We can choose at this time to encrypt our home directory. Then we wait a few minutes for the installer to finish its work. When the installer is done we are asked to reboot the computer.







Ubuntu 14.10 - the System Settings panel

(full image size: 947kB, screen resolution 1280x1024 pixels)



Booting into our locally installed copy of Ubuntu brings us to a graphical login screen where we can sign in as the user we created minutes before or we can login as a guest. The operating system's guest account is not protected by a password and is wiped clean after every use. A few things I noticed upon logging in were that, first, Unity feels a big more responsive now than it has in the past. Second, the Dash still includes on-line search results when we type search terms. On-line search can be disabled through the distribution's System Settings panel.



Shortly after logging in I was notified there were software updates available. The Ubuntu update manager is a compact utility which displays a brief summary of available updates. We can check boxes to indicate which items we wish to download. We can also click on an update's entry to get more detailed information about the new software. On the day I installed Ubuntu there was just one update available and it was less than 1MB in size.



I tried running Ubuntu 14.10 in two environments, a physical desktop machine and a VirtualBox virtual machine. When running on physical hardware, Ubuntu performed well. The desktop was responsive, sound worked out of the box and my screen was set to its maximum resolution. Unity operated smoothly and I encountered no problems. In the VirtualBox environment Ubuntu worked properly, but there were two small problems. The first was Ubuntu's screen resolution was very low (about 800x600, I think) in VirtualBox until VirtualBox guest add-ons were installed. The second issue I found was that the Unity desktop, especially the Dash, was sluggish in the virtual machine until 3-D acceleration was enabled. Once 3-D video acceleration was enabled Unity performed well. In both environments Ubuntu required approximately 480MB of RAM when logged into the Unity desktop.



Ubuntu ships with several useful and popular open source applications. We are given the Firefox web browser and, assuming we enabled third-party multimedia support during the installation of the distribution, Flash is also included. The LibreOffice productivity suite is provided for us along with the Thunderbird e-mail client and a document viewer. The Totem video player, the Rhythmbox audio player and the Brasero disc burner are installed by default. With third-party multimedia codecs enabled these players can handle popular media formats. I found an archive manager, a text editor, a calculator and a backup utility installed. There are also a few small games, the Orca screen reader application and the Transmission bittorrent software. Network Manager is available to help us get on-line. I didn't find Java installed, but I did find the GNU Compiler Collection installed along with the usual command line utilities, manual pages and the Linux kernel, version 3.16.



Earlier in the year, the Ubuntu team announced they would be following Debian's example and adopting systemd in the future. I was curious, going into this trial, whether Ubuntu would ship with the Upstart init software or if the distribution had switched over to systemd. A quick check showed systemd processes to be running on the system and running "man init" on the command line brought up the manual page for systemd. However, looking at the init process itself revealed Upstart is still responsible for bringing the operating system on-line. It appears as though Ubuntu is adopting pieces of systemd, using it to maintain compatibility with some software while relying on the older Upstart software to act as init.







Ubuntu 14.10 - finding packages through Software Centre

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Managing software on Ubuntu is handled through the Software Centre. This application allows us to search through categories of software and locate packages by name or by function. We can click on a package's entry to bring up detailed information about our selection, complete with user reviews and screen shots. We can add or remove software from the system with the click of a button. Actions performed on packages happen in the background while we continue to browse through the Software Centre. One aspect of the Software Centre I like is that it will make recommendations to us based on popular downloads. This makes the Software Centre more attractive to newcomers who might not be sure what works best. The Software Centre, in its current form, worked well for me and I found it to be both responsive and easy to use. I feel it noteworthy that we can also install new software through the Unity Dash. When searching for programs in the Dash we are shown both installed applications and applications available in the repositories that match our search. Clicking on an application that has not yet been installed brings up the option to add the application to our system.



On the subject of Dash, I feel it has evolved well in these past few releases of Ubuntu. The Dash makes it fairly easy to find documents and software by name. We can also filter items, showing only specific categories of software, for example. I think the Dash performs a little faster now than it did in previous releases (though I have not performed strict tests) and I find it useful when I want to access a program, but I'm not sure if that program is installed locally yet. I also feel the HUD is worth mentioning. When operating in the Unity environment tapping the ALT key brings up a search box, called the HUD. Typing in the name of a command or feature causes the HUD to display a list of matching features the currently active application supports. For example, if we are running LibreOffice and type "export" the option to export the current document to PDF format appears. Tapping ALT and typing "spell" brings up the option to run LibreOffice's spell checker. The HUD is useful when we know what we want to do, but not where to find the desired feature in an application's menu tree.







Ubuntu 14.10 - browsing applications with Unity Dash

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I also want to mention the backup utility, available through the Dash or System Settings panel. The backup application is designed to be very easy to use and it guides us through setting up scheduled backups with a few mouse clicks. We can choose which directories to save and how often to perform backups (daily or weekly). Archives we create can be saved to a local directory on our computer, to a network share or to another computer running the OpenSSH secure shell service. I found the backup utility worked well and was easy to use. My only complaint was that when we attempt to restore a file, we need to unpack the entire archive (either to its original location or to a directory we have set aside). There does not appear to be any way to extract a single, specific file out of an archive using the backup utility. That being said, the archives created appear to be regular tar archives and we can extract single files from the archives using an alternative utility.



Conclusions



After using Ubuntu 14.10 for a few days it occurred to me that this release is unusual in that it seems as though very little has changed since the previous release. The Ubuntu distribution is infamous for its little changes and tweaks. Fans and critics typically have something to talk about, whether it is a different scroll bar style or window control buttons moving from right to left or a change in the way the Dash functions. This release of Ubuntu is uncharacteristically tame with just subtle differences in the version numbers of some key applications and the Linux kernel. Big changes, like the shift to Mir and the Unity 8 desktop, are being held off until October of 2015 and it seems, for now, the developers have decided to focus on minor bug fixes.



I think this tame release of Ubuntu is a good sign. Instead of talking about a new desktop layout or getting distracted by cosmetic changes, two of the few things which attracted my attention while using Ubuntu 14.10 were that it appears to be slightly faster than Ubuntu 14.04 and Unity is more stable on my test machine. When Ubuntu 14.04 came out, I felt it was a solid release and I had a very positive experience with it. One of my few complaints with Ubuntu 14.04 was the appearance of the occasional error message telling me some part of Unity had crashed and would I like to send a bug report? So far, while using Ubuntu 14.10, I have not seen a single crash notification. Nothing has glitched, nothing has crashed. The operating system has performed smoothly and quickly.



Ubuntu is, in my opinion, one of the easier Linux distributions to install and use. The Unity desktop, while some people don't care for its approach to doing things, has proven to be easy for people to learn when I've introduced non-Linux users to it. The system comes with a good collection of default software, the settings panel is easy to navigate and the Unity desktop has become more configurable in recent releases. There are some aspects of Ubuntu I don't like. I'm not a fan of on-line search being enabled by default. While it's possible to opt-out of on-line searches I would prefer not having data transmitted to Canonical (and third-parties) by default. I am not a fan of the unified menu bar at the top of the screen, but this too can be configured, restoring menu bars back to their traditional location inside application windows. I guess what I'm coming to is Ubuntu may do some things I don't like, but I have to admit those features I don't like are easily configurable.



On the whole, I think Ubuntu 14.10 is a good release, it adds a touch of polish on top of the already solid 14.04 version. This is one of the more newcomer friendly distributions I have used this year and I am happy with what the Ubuntu team has done, specifically focusing on minor improvements and bug fixes.



* * * * * Hardware used in this review



My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications: Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU

Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive

Memory: 6GB of RAM

Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card

Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card * * * * * Ubuntu and ownCloud security



At this time I would like to take a moment to discuss something which involves Ubuntu, but is not strictly about the distribution. Rather this is more about ownCloud. The ownCloud project creates server and client software for synchronizing files between multiple computers. The ownCloud software works a lot like Dropbox or iCloud or the now discontinued Ubuntu One service. People can install ownCloud on a computer (a desktop or a server) and then use client-side software to synchronize directories of files between computers. For people who like to create their own solutions rather than rely on third-party vendors (like Dropbox or Google) ownCloud provides an easy way to set up self-managed file synchronization. I use ownCloud and I'm a fan of the software.



A few weeks ago ownCloud developer Lukas Reschke contacted the Ubuntu team and requested the ownCloud server software be removed from the Ubuntu repositories: " On behalf of the ownCloud project (www.owncloud.org) I'm requesting that 'ownCloud server' is removed from the Ubuntu packages (including all versions). Let's hope that this is finally the right mailing list for this kind of request. These packaged versions are all vulnerable to multiple critical security bugs and no security fixes have been backported.



Marc Deslauriers, a Canonical developer, responded, saying software could not be removed from versions of Ubuntu already released, but suggested the ownCloud team could work with Ubuntu on a solution. Potential solutions included helping to back-port fixes from newer versions of ownCloud into Ubuntu's packages or possibly helping the Ubuntu team to package a new version of ownCloud. Either solution would allow Ubuntu users to continue using ownCloud and protect them from vulnerabilities.



Reschke declined to work with the Ubuntu developers, replying: " From my side, my work is done here, I have informed the responsible persons via multiple channels and if they have no intentions to fix the problems on their own we can very well life [sic] with that and will just add a big security warning to our installation guide. That will take much less time to do and has the same result for us. " He also stated the Debian developers had cooperated with the take-down notice, posting: " I want to use this opportunity and state that with different distributions (such as Debian) it was absolutely not a problem to get the freezed packages removed. " As it turns out, Debian still packages ownCloud and the server software is still available in all branches of Debian.



In the end, a bug report was filed, requesting the ownCloud server software be removed from Ubuntu 14.10 (prior to release) and it appears ownCloud is no longer offered in the latest version of Ubuntu. People who run Ubuntu can still download ownCloud via packages the ownCloud project maintains.



There are a few key points to this story I find disturbing, both as a developer and as an end user. Perhaps the primary issue here is the idea an upstream developer feels it is appropriate to request (legally packaged and distributed) software be removed from distribution archives, even from archives of distributions that have already been released. With a relatively niche software package like ownCloud people might not notice, but imagine the turmoil that would erupt if GNU requested Debian and Ubuntu drop the bash shell interpreter in the wake of the Shell Shock bug. Or imagine if Mozilla insisted distributions remove old versions of Firefox from their frozen repositories. Most users would be very upset with the upstream developers and any distribution that complied with the request. Yet a single ownCloud developer can request (and succeed) in having software pulled from Ubuntu.



I also think it is a shame the ownCloud project doesn't mind putting the work into maintaining packages for seven different distributions, but they apparently refuse to work with downstream projects to keep packages up to date. I think (speaking from experience) working with those seven distributions to help keep packages maintained would not only be less work in the long run, but it would also likely result in more bug fixes and faster deployments downstream. As it stands, ownCloud's approach of doing all the work themselves, while refusing to cooperate with downstream projects, seems like more effort for the ownCloud developers and more work for people deploying ownCloud.



Above I mentioned I run an installation of ownCloud and it happens to reside on a server running Ubuntu. Following the removal of ownCloud from Ubuntu I decided to upgrade to a newer version, using a package provided by the ownCloud team. I installed the package provided by upstream and discovered a few things. One is that the upstream ownCloud package over-wrote my configuration. This meant that the new ownCloud installation did not recognize my existing files, declared my account "empty" and caused the ownCloud clients on each of my computers to erase my synchronized directories. A second thing I noticed, when I tried to rollback my ownCloud installation, is that major versions are not backward compatible. For example, trying to run ownCloud 7 with a copy of my ownCloud 6 database/configuration did not work.



In the end, I was able to get the new version of ownCloud working on my server and, thanks to my paranoid approach to backups (using rsync to copy all my documents, daily, to another server that doesn't run ownCloud), I didn't lose any of my work. Still, I'm left with a few questions. Such as why does ownCloud insist on rolling their own packages and why do they refuse to work with downstream projects to secure their software? Why does Canonical allow upstream projects to demand legally packaged software be removed from their repositories, isn't that a slippery slope? Why didn't the Ubuntu team pull in the latest packages from Debian since Debian's packages act as an upstream source for the Ubuntu distribution? I feel this situation could have been handled better by both sides and, judging by my own experience, it seems the only people who will get hurt are the people ownCloud is trying to protect.



