Which Ubuntu should I install? 12.04.1 or 12.10?

As it happens with every new release of Ubuntu, it is compared to the last release. And if the last release is an LTS, a comparison is definitely required to answer - is the new release good enough to motivate users leave the long term support version and embrace the latest one? My current review is focused on the same question.

From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison

I am comparing here the latest Quantal release with the Ubuntu Precise 12.04.1 LTS release, both 32 bit. Also, point to be considered here is that both releases are just 6 months apart. So, I wasn't expecting anything radically different between the two, but just a few incremental innovations.


High level comparison
 
Ubuntu 12.04.1 ISO (730 MB) is a bit lighter than Ubuntu 12.10 ISO (790 MB). I booted up both of them on my Asus K54C laptop with 2.2 GHz Intel 2nd Gen Ci3 processor and 2 GB DDR3 RAM.
Look and feel wise both the distros seem identical. A high level comparison of Quantal and Precise is given in tabular form below:

Parameters	Ubuntu 12.10	Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Size of ISO	790 MB	730 MB
Booting time (post installation)	9 sec	15 sec
Desktop	Unity with Gnome 3.6	Unity with Gnome 3.4
Linux kernel	3.5.0-17	3.2.0-29
CPU usage (live boot)	1-10%	1-10%
RAM usage (live boot)	456 MB	310 MB
CPU Usage (post installation)	1-10%	1-10%
RAM usage (post installation)	412 MB	280 MB*
Installation time (with 1 MBPS connection)	30 min.	30 min.
Wifi detection	Immediate	Immediate
Touchpad detection	Works by default	Works by default
Ease of use	A bit on the slower side	Is actually faster than Quantal
Eye candy factor	Looks awesome!	Looks awesome
Repository	Ubuntu Software Center 5.4.1.2	Ubuntu Software Center 5.2.5
File Manager	Nautilus 3.4.2	Nautilus 3.4.2

* With 12.04.2 update, the resource utilization is now even better with 230 MB RAM & 1-10% CPU usage with system monitor running. Even the stability has increased and Unity is actually better now.

Further details available in my review of Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS.
 
So, net-net, Quantal has a faster booting time, Unity 6.8 interface actually loads faster than the older (5.2?) Unity interface. Unity seems more refined and a lot more stable in Quantal than Precise. Linux kernel and Gnome shell, too, are upgraded to the latest available release. But, Nautilus is not! It is the same 3.4.2 though 3.6 is available! Possibly Nautilus 3.6, widely disliked, didn't gel well with the Unity interface and hence, developers decided to retain 3.4 version. However, all these upgrades come at a cost - significantly higher resource utilization! Precise is a lot more lighter and less taxing on resources than Quantal. Personally, I felt Precise is a bit faster than Quantal - though you won't feel the difference if you are using a high end machine. Installation process is pretty much the same and takes the same amount of time - no change there!

Application-wise both are pretty similar - only Quantal has all latest versions of the same applications that Precise has, namely: Firefox 16.01, LibreOffice 3.6.2, and Thunderbird 16.01. For movies, Ubuntu is using Totem; for photography, it's Shotwell; and for music, it's Rhythmbox. Anyway, Firefox and Thunderbird upgrades are possibly not that significant as they are upgraded separately to the latest available version irrespective of which Ubuntu release you are using! So, no big change there in. 

Incremental changes

Apart from differences in the Gnome, Linux and application versions, Quantal brings in one major change and a few subtle changes from Precise.

Major changes:

New "Web Apps": These are applets that connect the local operating system to web and cloud content. In addition to providing online results to search content, these can add webmail and social networking notifications to Ubuntu's mail menu. Now this search is integrated to Dash and you can see the results I got when I searched for Justin Timberlake songs in my computer. In addition to what was there in my system, it gave me results from Ubuntu music store and Amazon as well.

From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison

Web apps are currently offered for 40 sites like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and can be installed by accessing the websites in Firefox and accepting the automatic installation request. By default, Ubuntu 12.10 has the following web apps:

• Amazon app: I won't call it an app, it is merely a bookmark on the Unity sidebar. Once you click it, it will open Amazon.com site in Firefox browser.

From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison

• Ubuntu Music Store: Again similar to Unity one and Amazon bookmarks, Ubuntu music store is integrated to the Unity sidebar to be accessed through Firefox. Its content is rich and I could search a lot of Indian artists as well including the legends like Kishore Kumar. Similarly, popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter can also be saved on Unity sidebar as bookmarks.

From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison

Minor changes

• Online integration of social network and email: In Quantal, Ubuntu achieves a lot more integration of social and email networks with a single point of sign in. 

From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison

 

• Preview mode: Once you right click an application icon on dash, it takes you to preview mode. Currently it looks like at work in progress phase and doesn't offer much!

• New Grub2 boot loader: This is specifically designed for Windows 8 OS, which has UEFI secure boot feature that doesn't allow dual boot with any other OS. Hence, if you are already tired of Windows 8 Metro interface and want to install a Linux OS alongside, you'll need to install Quantal; Precise won't work on your system!

• Remote Desktop Protocol: It's a new feature and allows users to set up a RDP account to access any remote machine added to the account. Very good, but hardly any use for me at this point in time.

• No Unity 2D: Till Precise, there was an option of Unity 2D for machines with limited resources. Now, it has been dropped.

• Python 3: Still, Python 2 is supported.

• New Dash photo lens along with the already existing music and video lens and Gwibber lens, with a changed Gwibber icon.

From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison

From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison

• LVM support: Now you can install in a logical volume and increase its size, if required, without needing to reinstall the entire system again.

Does this new features and upgraded applications justify an upgrade?

Well, honestly I don't care about the upgraded applications, I can add quantal ppa's and install them in Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS. Already I added GIMP 2.8 and planning to add LibreOffice 3.6. So, the question boils down to the incremental features like web apps, LVM support, RBP, Python 3, etc. I used them quite for last two days and in my opinion, Ubuntu 12.10 integrates social media much more than its predecessors. Of course, preview and dash lens are promising and can potentially integrate my system to web in a much better way in future. Unity is much better and smoother to use in Quantal. Unity is getting good with every release but it remains inflexible as ever - you simply can't change the looks! 

So, based on all these facts and numbers that I gave above, it depends on users taste whether s(he) would like to upgrade or not. Definitely Quantal has some significant improvements, especially in social network integration and web apps, over Precise and is graphically more appealing. However, there are some drawbacks as well like too much of Amazon, more resource consumption, a bit slower than Precise, among others.

Personally, I feel all of these incremental innovations as work in progress for bigger things to come in future. I'll wait for the future and give Ubuntu 12.10 a miss for now, sticking to Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS. We'll see where it goes possibly in 13.04 or 13.10.