What's new in Ubuntu Desktop 12.10

Ubuntu 12.10 has arrived; the first major version of Ubuntu since the release of the well-received Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. At the start of the release cycle, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth defined quality as the watchword for Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal". Fabian Scherschel looks at the new desktop release to see how well his definition stood up to six months of development.

"We’ll keep the platform usable throughout the cycle, because that helped hugely to encourage daily use of the release, which in turn gives us much better feedback on questions of quality. Our focus on quality permeates from the platform up to the code we write upstream, and our choices of upstream components too." - Mark Shuttleworth

Ubuntu Desktop 12.10 arrives with a Linux 3.5 kernel, an all new X.org stack, Mesa 9.0 and GNOME 3.6, all topped with Unity 6.8. The new stack should deliver better smooth scrolling and improved ATI and NVIDIA drivers. Add to that a renamed and reworked software updater, webapps on the desktop, a switch to Python 3.2, OpenJDK 7 as default Java, GCC 4.72 and an up-to-date GNU toolchain, along with all the latest versions of the application packages and Ubuntu 12.10 should be one of the hottest desktop Linux releases around. But...

Divisions around Unity

It's not the first time that features dropped into an Ubuntu release in the closing stages of development have set the tone for that release and Ubuntu 12.10 is no exception. One of the most discussed additions to Ubuntu this time around surprised pundits and Ubuntu community members alike: Canonical rolled out a feature in a beta version of Quantal Quetzal that put recommendations for products (mostly from Amazon, although this depends on the user's location) right in the home page of Unity's Dash.

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