Jan 15
For users that’ve tried the Ubuntu Touch experience in smartphones and tablets over the past several weeks or months, you know good and well that it’s nearly ready for mainstream … Continue reading
Jan 15
Canonical’s ambitious plan to bring its Ubuntu Edge smartphone to the market crashed and burned last year, failing to raise the $32 million the company required to put the wheels in motion. The crowdfunding campaign did manage to break previous crowdfunding records, but not enough donations were pledged to actually get the project started. Late last year the company revealed that it had signed up a new hardware partner, which is supposedly a big name manufacturer, it was said that the first Ubuntu phone will be released in 2014. If Canonical community manager Jono Bacon is right, then the smartphone might not debut until next year.
In a Q&A session on reddit, Bacon revealed that the first Ubuntu phone is unlikely to be released before 2015. He says that he would be “surprised if we see anything like this before 2015.” While he didn’t say much about what we can expect from the device, he did reveal that there won’t be any “fancy integration” between the Ubuntu phones and other devices that run Ubuntu. The only integrated supported by these devices will serve the purpose of syncing content to and from the phone. Bacon also revealed that the company has no plans of bringing the Edge back to life, and that it will instead focus on making Ubuntu work well for other OEMs who have decided to jump on the bandwagon.
Ubuntu Touch Phone Not Expected Until 2015 original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 13
This article was written on September 28, 2007 by CyberNet.
I started off my morning with some Ubuntu 7.10 action since the first Beta had just been released. I downloaded the 688MB ISO image, burned it to CD, and got started immediately with the Live CD. It took a few minutes for it to boot up, but that’s expected since I’m running the operating system off of the CD I burned. I contemplated upgrading my current Ubuntu 7.04 installation with this version, but I didn’t want to risk the instability.
As soon as Ubuntu started up I was able to select my wireless network. Occasionally in the past it has had issues recognizing my wireless card, but this time it did a great job. It managed to pull in all of the networks in the vicinity:
UPDATE:We have put together guides on enabling restricted drivers in Ubuntu and how to enable Compiz Fusion in Ubuntu 7.10! We also wrote a complete Kubuntu 7.10 review.
There are several new features in Ubuntu 7.10, and here’s an overview of them:
- Compiz Fusion – I tried this on my laptop but couldn’t get it to work for the life of me. Every time I tried to enable the “Extra” option the configuration screen would freeze up. This could be because I was running the Live CD, but I’m not ready to give up my stable Ubuntu installation yet to see if that was the root of the cause. To try and enable it yourself just go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance -> Visual Effects -> Extra.
- Desktop Search – The desktop search is a nice addition to Ubuntu, and makes it much easier to find what you’re looking for.
- Fast user switching – I didn’t have multiple users on the computer to test this out with, but I’m guessing that it will be nice in those instances.
- GUI for Screen Configuration – I was really excited about this because Ubuntu has always had a hard time recognizing my native widescreen monitor resolution. My native resolution is 1680×1050, and the closest I could get is 1600×1200. I tried switching the drivers for my ATI graphics card, changing screen models, and just about everything, but it had its heart set on not giving in to the widescreen resolution. 🙁
- Automatic printer installation and non-free device drivers – Printers are now automatically setup when they are plugged in, and restricted drivers can now be installed in just a few clicks. This is great news for anyone with a wireless card from Broadcom!
- NTFS writing – Users can now read and write to NTFS partitions. I tried to do this, but again, I was running the Live CD which wouldn’t let me mount the Windows drive. So for right now I will assume that it works. 🙂
- And more…
It’s still a bit early for me to give an official thumbs up, but I would say things are looking pretty good. The final release is due out in October, and at that time I’ll go ahead and upgrade my current installation. Hopefully that will solve any of the issues that I was having with the Live CD version.
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 10
Meizu MX3 Spotted Running On Ubuntu
Posted in: Today's Chili
For those of you who have been looking forward to the regular Meizu MX3 roll out to the masses living in the US, you might be pleased to hear that this particular smartphone will arrive in the US later in the third quarter of the year. This particular model will run on the Flyme 3.0 custom Android user interface, but here we are with a snapshot of what looks to be the Meizu MX3 that will run on the Ubuntu operating system instead.
The photo that you see above hails from Meizu’s official account on Weibo.com, which is a Chinese social networking site that many have attributed it to be the “Twitter of China.” It was not too long ago when Canonical, the people behind Ubuntu, made an announcement concerning Ubuntu mobile OS making a move from being an aftermarket solution to a full-fledged mobile operating system. In fact, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth did also talk about a potential hardware partner that will deliver a smartphone with Ubuntu right from the get go without specifying the name of that handset. I guess the mystery’s solved now, with it being the Meizu MX3. The Meizu MX3 should have enough processing firepower underneath the hood to be able to handle any kind of Ubuntu heavy lifting.
Meizu MX3 Spotted Running On Ubuntu original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 08
The folks at Canonical are working hard to bring Ubuntu to smartphones. They have already released a beta build of the firmware for supported Android devices, while the company is actively working to bring OEMs on board who will partner up to release Ubuntu OS powered smartphones. Canonical tried getting in on the manufacturing game itself with the crowdfunded Ubuntu Edge smartphone, however it wasn’t able to reach its $32 million goal. The company’s founder recently confirmed that a high-end Ubuntu phone will be released in 2014 from a popular manufacturer and Canonical community manager Jono Bacon has dropped a hint that goes further than just one high-end device.
Bacon says that he is confident that a number of Ubuntu phones are going to be released in the market this year, while he says that he can’t exactly reveal the details, Bacon boasts that “awesome things are happening.” He said that different OEMs and different carriers are showing interest, and that some Ubuntu phones will be exclusive to certain markets and carriers. Some of these devices will also be available for sale online so customers who don’t want to get tied down to a service contract will be taken care of. Canonical is pretty tightlipped about the OEMs it is going to work with and the specifications the smartphones will tout. It is yet to provide a concrete release timeframe in which the first Ubuntu powered phone will hit the market.
Ubuntu Phones To Be Released By Multiple OEMs This Year original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Jan 08
This article was written on February 06, 2007 by CyberNet.
Windows might be the most common operating system but there is no doubt that Linux is gaining ground rather quickly. The biggest complaint that I always hear about Linux is that the hardware on a computer never quite functions right with Linux. Ubuntu is trying to conquer that problem, but wouldn’t life be a little easier if the computer you bought was built for Linux? Then you know that everything would work how it is supposed to.
No problem! System76 has several different laptops that vary in price to accommodate nearly everyone’s needs. You can even go as far as to customize them so that they are exactly what you want…you can even get a built-in camera. Honestly though, for the operating system being free I am quite surprised that their cheapest laptop is $700…and by the time you add some of those finishing touches I’m sure you can take it over $1000. Right now, without any coupons, I can go over to dell and pick-up a Windows Vista laptop for $689. I guess if you are looking into the future then the Ubuntu laptops might be appetizing since the operating system upgrades will always be free, but it would have been nice to see these in the $500 range.
Source: Engadget (Thanks for the tip Mohan!)
Since we are on the topic of Ubuntu I thought I should mention Ubuntu’s newest pre-release of version 7.04, which is still two-months away. This pre-release is dubbed Feisty Fawn Herd 3 and sports a few new features over the previous versions. The most prominent feature is the new Control Center (pictured above) which pulls in the feature I love the most from Windows Vista…instant search! Now you can just start to type the setting or option that you are looking for and it will instantly show you the results. Figuring out how to change that one hidden setting is now going to be a thing of the past.
A lot of the other things that are new in this pre-release are updates to existing programs, so they are primarily building on what already exists. I definitely like that idea because people aren’t necessarily looking for a lot of new features, but instead they want to see the existing features and applications made even better. With the popularity of Ubuntu it surprises me that they have not integrated XGL/Beryl to spice it up with the 3D effects, but I would guess that they might be holding back until the stability of those features gets a little better.
Thanks for the tip Chris!
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 06
Ubuntu will be including a default new scope with the aim of encouraging its philosophy of Free Culture directly into the user experience via the search engine of the OS. … Continue reading
Jan 06
Ubuntu is going to add BitTorrent search capabilities directly into its Unity desktop.
Posted in: Today's ChiliUbuntu is going to add BitTorrent search capabilities directly into its Unity desktop. Which is neat.
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Dec 15
This article was written on February 29, 2008 by CyberNet.
Ubuntu looks as though they have taken a page from Dell’s book. The Ubuntu team just launched a new feedback site called Brainstorm which closely resembles the Dell IdeaStorm site that was launched over a year ago. It provides a Digg-like voting interface to figure out what the community would really like to see come out of Ubuntu in the future.
Honestly I think it is an ingenious idea to turn to the community to see what they want out of their operating system. I have to say that the community really appears to be liking the new feedback system as well because there are well over a thousand individual votes for some of the submissions (you must be a registered user to vote, too). Aside from just voting you can also leave comments to give ideas or add to what the original submitter had said.
What’s the top 10 most requested Ubuntu features look like right now? Here they are:
- Fix suspend and hibernate
- Provide a simple graphical interface to manage any type of network connection
- Power management
- Start taking advantage of Upstart
- Clean up preferences and administration
- Unmount resolution
- Professional-looking bootloader
- Speed up Ubuntu-Gnome boot time
- Improve dual-screen function
- Brainstorm: Don’t start with most popular, and hide grades until requested
The last one on that list is actually not a recommendation for the operating system, but instead for the new website. When you first hit the Brainstorm site you’re shown the suggestions that currently have the most votes, and the users would like to see that change. Otherwise it’s likely the only the top 10 or 20 most voted on submissions will always be the ones to get the attention.
Hopefully this site can help the Ubuntu team pinpoint the areas of the operating system that still need to be worked on. I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on the site and voting on some of the submissions.
Ubuntu Brainstorm [via Wired]
Thanks for the tip Mohan!
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
Dec 11
The days of Canonical‘s mobile operating system, dubbed Ubuntu Touch, are rapidly upon us. In October, an image of Ubuntu Touch was released along with the 13.10 version of the desktop OS. Fast-forward a couple more months, and Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth has revealed the company has penned an agreement with its first — and yet […]
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