26th July, 2012, exactly one month after Alpha 2 release, Kate Stewart has announced the release of Alpha 3 of Ubuntu 12.10. Being an avid follower of Ubuntu, I downloaded the 765 MB ISO from the Ubuntu cdimage site. Booting up was quick in VirtualBox and I was greeted with the familiar Unity interface.
Applications
Application-wise, there is not much change from Ubuntu Precise, only I see the very latest versions of apps like Firefox and Thunderbird. Possibly, by the final release, we'll see Firefox 15. As usual, the ensemble of apps is comprehensive and rich. However, some of my favorite apps like VLC, Adobe flash support, multimedia codecs, etc. are still not in-built. During installation flash and codecs are downloaded whereas you can install Firefox from Ubuntu repository. Linux kernel is also updated to 3.5.0.6 and Gnome to 3.5.4. Final release possibly will have Gnome 3.6.
CPU and RAM usage
In Alpha 2, I found RAM usage to be ~ 446 MB. It has significantly come down to 318 MB in Alpha 3, under identical conditions with only System monitor running. Definitely developers worked on that area. CPU usage is around 8-10% which is decent for a comprehensive OS like Ubuntu. Precise uses ~300 MB under identical conditions.
Overall
I see a lot of progress from Alpha 2 to Alpha 3. Definitely, by October we'll see a further polished and refined distro with better performance from Unity. Would I replace Precise with Quantal? I am not sure. At this point, I'll go for 5 year support as upgrading doesn't happen with Ubuntu and reinstalling the whole system means a lot of task for me. For now I'll stick with Pear Linux 5 (forked from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS).
Slide show of Ubuntu Quantal from my Picasa album.
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| From Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 Screenshots |
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| From Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 Screenshots |
Applications
Application-wise, there is not much change from Ubuntu Precise, only I see the very latest versions of apps like Firefox and Thunderbird. Possibly, by the final release, we'll see Firefox 15. As usual, the ensemble of apps is comprehensive and rich. However, some of my favorite apps like VLC, Adobe flash support, multimedia codecs, etc. are still not in-built. During installation flash and codecs are downloaded whereas you can install Firefox from Ubuntu repository. Linux kernel is also updated to 3.5.0.6 and Gnome to 3.5.4. Final release possibly will have Gnome 3.6.
 |
| From Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 Screenshots |
 |
| From Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 Screenshots |
 |
| From Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 Screenshots |
 |
| From Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 Screenshots |
CPU and RAM usage
In Alpha 2, I found RAM usage to be ~ 446 MB. It has significantly come down to 318 MB in Alpha 3, under identical conditions with only System monitor running. Definitely developers worked on that area. CPU usage is around 8-10% which is decent for a comprehensive OS like Ubuntu. Precise uses ~300 MB under identical conditions.
 |
| From Ubuntu 12.10 Alpha 3 Screenshots |
Overall
I see a lot of progress from Alpha 2 to Alpha 3. Definitely, by October we'll see a further polished and refined distro with better performance from Unity. Would I replace Precise with Quantal? I am not sure. At this point, I'll go for 5 year support as upgrading doesn't happen with Ubuntu and reinstalling the whole system means a lot of task for me. For now I'll stick with Pear Linux 5 (forked from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS).
Slide show of Ubuntu Quantal from my Picasa album.
I can remember about 10 years agao Linux distros were nowhere near the Microsoft's OS's but today Linux (esp. Ubuntu) is everything a OS should be and more. I switched to Ubuntu almost two years ago and have never looked back and i don't think i ever will.
ReplyDeleteI was never really big on gaming so switching from Microsoft to Linux was like running away from a terrible marriage to finding a love of your life kind of thing.
I agree completely! Same experience from my side as well. Linux gave a new life to my old desktop. If you speak of eye candy, it's not only Ubuntu, even OpenSUSE and Fedora are not behind. Desktops today look really gorgeous and attractive even in Linux. Specially in the last couple of years, the development has been amazing!
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