What to Expect in Ubuntu 12.10 'Quantal Quetzal'

The first alpha release of Ubuntu 12.10 saw daylight last week, and although Quantal won't be released until the end of October it's hard not to get excited - let's take a look at what we have to look forward to.

New Spread Design

A new spread design was prototyped and tested during the build-up to 11.04 'Natty Narwhal', but never made into the final release in as other parts of the OS took priority. Now though, according to the Canonical Design Blog, the new design is finally being given another go, and should feature in the final release of Quantal.

The new 'Spread' design.

Although this new design doesn't appear to be present in Alpha1, this looks like an interesting change. In the above screenshot, the user has pressed the Firefox launcher icon to spread all Firefox tabs (as usual) and they have been positioned so that they fill most of the screen, except for a 'new tab' button. This immediately strikes me as a very tablet-friendly interface, but should still be very usable on a desktop and seems to fit in well with Unity.

Similar behaviour will also apply to the Super+W command to spread all windows.

This screenshot was found in an article giving the specifications for Unity Task Switching - could it also hint at at different wallpapers for each workspace? Or was this achieved with a third party app? Time will tell!

Update Manager becomes 'Software Updater'

The Update Manager has been renamed 'Software Updater' in order to make it more clear that its purpose is to update installed software, rather than just to carry out system updates (like Windows Update).

Software Updater

A New Look

In his blog, Mark Shuttleworth has promised a refreshed look over the next two years, in particular a look at typography and iconography, although the Ambiance and Radiance themes were not mentioned.

Other Updated Components

Firefox and Thunderbird have been upgraded to version 13, and Rhythmbox has been upgraded to version 2.97, with a new control panel design. Also, the kernel moves to v3.4, GCC to v4.7 and only Python 3 will be shipped with the final release.