Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) Released

Just upgraded 13.10 to 14.04 – (13.10 guest in Virtualbox ) – not impressed by Canonicals decision to force min\max\close buttons on left side of windows. (gonna take me ages to get used to that!)

14.04 (on my system) seems generally slower than 13.10 – maybe it'll improve over time.

At least the upgrade went OK – so many users report issues in the Ubuntu forums.

 

Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr + Ultrabook

Let's go distro a-huntin' - This is a very long and enthusiastic review of Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr 64-bit Long Term Release (LTS) edition with Unity desktop, tested and installed in a dual-boot configuration on a real, production touch-enabled Asus VivoBook (Ultrabook) with preinstalled Windows 8, including UEFI, Secure Boot and GPT, covering live session use, installation setup - partitioning & bootloader configuration, and post-install use, with full hardware compatibility, Wireless, Samba, desktop look & feel, touch features, multimedia playback - Flash and MP3, applications, games, Steam, webcam, resource usage, stability, suspend & resume, many improvements in the GUI and on the command line, problems with Samba printing, AppArmor and a small LibreOffice bug, customization, additional software, and more. Enjoy.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ubuntu-trusty-tahr-laptop-ultrabook.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Hi Krysis,

I don't know if Ubuntu 14.04 has the executable gconf-editor, but that is what you need to change the min\max\close buttons to the right-hand-side. Just open up apps, then metacity, click on general, and then right click on button_layout and select (with left-click) Edit-key. Edit the key to be :minimize,maximize,close

That is the way I change it in Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS.

-- Tom

 

Nice to see how Ubuntu install handles SecureBoot, EFI, GPT, touchscreen et al without effort.

A Canonical Jehovah! Edition with only a few splinters to sort out.

 

Using gconf-editor is apparently only for 12.10 and below - It appears that all the previous methods of changing buttons location no longer work for 14.04.

Check this info I got from Ubuntu forum:
''It seems that Canonical went the totalitarian way and ordered that users should not be allowed to change the buttons position (you can find more technical details of this change on the bottom of this post) As for now the only way to have windows buttons on the right side in 14.04 is to switch from Unity to the Gnome Flashback session''
- AND -
''They deliberately hardcoded buttons position on the left side and do not expose any position switch to the user, in order to maintain "consistent user experience", as they call it''

Taken from this link:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/174292/how-can-i-move-all-the-window-controls-to-the-right-or-left

 

Ubuntu 14.04 appears to be less stable and more problematic on my machine, as compared to 13.10.
When I searched for peazip on the software center, the system froze and a crash report popped up after a while. I restarted and the boot loader appeared to be corrupted, with text line: grub> but could not boot into the OS.
There were also other small glitches during the past few days when I was trying it out.
I finally formatted the drive and re-installed Windows.

 

Quite often the case in the first few months of an LTS release, I recollect a few glitches using 10.04.0. Usually calms down when the .1 delta is released around June. That appears as just a slightly larger update than normal if Ubuntu is installed, the 14.04.1 version number is mainly for the ISOs.

 

You can use the Unity Tweak tool to move the buttons to the right--Appearance/ Window Controls/Layout. I have gotten used to it being on the left so I didn't change it.

[EDIT: I just tried it but it doesn't work here for some reason. It reverts back to left side alignment. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.]

What I was amazed about the 14.04 installation was that wifi worked under Live CD. My laptop uses a Broadcom BCM4313 in which I always had to install drivers on after installing the OS. Usually I had to use either wired or use one of the Realtek USB on my other computers during install.

 

Hi Krysis,

Checkout the following Terminal command: gsettings in Ubuntu 14.0 Trust Tahr. Note: there is no man command for it in Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS.

Make window buttons on right:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close

at: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 'Trusty Tahr', Beta 1 preview: Convergence deferred.

I have only downloaded Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to date, but have yet to burn it to USB to test it.

-- Tom

 

Sad to say that I have had to revert to the main Ubuntu 14.04 distro, as I am suffering from issues with my external monitor when my laptop goes into suspend with Xubuntu.

 

Hi Tom,
The gsettings command worked on earlier versions – it certainly doesn't on (my) 14.04.

Maybe this is Canonical's intention. Will wait and see if they come up with a fix for this – or maybe someone will come up with an alternate workaround.

 

Hi Krysis,

Does the gsettings command not work because the executable doesn't exist on your 14.04?

If so, then you may need to install the package gnome-session-flashback, reference: How To Install And Tweak GNOME Flashback Session In Ubuntu 14.04.

You can download the gnome-session-flashback package for Trusty, gnome-session-flashback_3.8.0-1ubuntu11_all.deb here and install it with the 'dpkg -i <deb file name> command.

-- Tom

 

Tom,
The gsettings command is there OK – just doesn't do anything!

As for Gnome-Session-Flashback – details regarding this were contained in the link I posted at #30 – so thanks, but I'm sticking with Unity.
The oddity with the windows controls\title bar is no biggie for me – just one of the main differences I've noticed with 14.04. (I'm running 12.04 and 14.04 in parallel, just to see which distro to stick with as 12.04 still has 3 years of life in it!)

 

Hi Krysis,

Thanks for pointing out your link in msg #30 above. Even though I use unity in 12.04.4 LTS, looks like I may give Gnome Flashback Session a try when I get around to flashing 14.04 LTS to USB. Its sad that they have taken such a draconian approach to user choice with regard to the left vs right issue of the button layout controls - when will they ever learn that they owe it to the users to give them the control over their user environment they want and need to use the software.

-- Tom

 

Hi Tom,
I hope you have better results with Gnome Session Flashback than I did!

Gnome Session Flashback > Metacity picked up my original themes from Unity – and with windows buttons on the right side. However, I lost most centering of program windows, despite this being selected in CCSM. When I used Gnome Session Flashback > Compiz - there were no title bar buttons at all! (had to use the menu to exit)

I don't know whether the behaviour was specific to my system – but I encountered weird side effects when going back to Unity. Some of the themes I had installed previously, now caused odd gaps to appear in program windows – some caused the time\date to disappear from the top Panel, etc.
(May be OK if you stick with Gnome Session Flashback)

I ended up restoring a snapshot that I took prior to installing Gnome Session Flashback – and 14.04 is back to it's normal, stable self!

Edit:
Just an update – I was wrong about Gnome Session Flashback being the cause of strange side effects in Unity – after further stuffing around, I found it was actually certain Themes (GTK3) which were responsible!

 

Hi Krysis,

Well, I tried running the gsettings command in my preliminary setup scripts as root after booting up my 12.04.4 LTS USB, and it did not work. I wonder why? I'm going to try another test to see what happens.

-- Tom

 

Hi Tom,
Good luck! - Just a thought – and don't know if it's related (if it's not - ignore!)
When I ran:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close

- the command did not work because it did not complete! (just hung in Terminal)

I had to add an apostrophe after close – eg:
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close'

The command then ran OK (but still didn't do anything!)

 

Here's a third long and enthusiastic review of Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr 64-bit Long Term Release (LTS) edition with Unity desktop, tested and installed in a quad-boot configuration on a real, production laptop with Intel graphics and two SSD devices, covering live session, installation setup and post-install use, with focus on hardware compatibility and performance, Wireless (2.4GHz and 5GHz), excellent Samba speed, desktop look & feel, updates, SD cards, web camera, additional multimedia support, resource usage, stability, suspend & resume, boot time, battery life, printing, old bugs & fixes, customization, and more. Have fun.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ubuntu-trusty-tahr-laptop-ssd.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Forgot to comment, but it was rather bland upgrading a barely configured VirtualBox machine.

 

A solid release, I can't fault it. Well done to the Ubuntu team