Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Review

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/25/ubuntu_13_04_review/

by daoudc • 13 years ago

38 21 13 years ago

theregister.co.uk

bgruber• 13 years ago

half of this review is about photo-lens search and the online accounts settings page, both of which existed in the previous release.

for what it's worth, my feelings about the photo lens are similar to the reviewer's: it's a really cool idea that makes a lot of sense, and validates the "web search" concept of the unity dash. unfortunately, in 12.10 at least it has a number of issues. the biggest for me stems from the fact that when you add an online account you get all of the services or none. in other words, if you want the dash to search your facebook photos, empathy (the im client) will do facebook chat. there's no way (that i've figured out) to have one on without the other.

on the other hand, i'm not super-bothered by the amazon thing because i just uninstalled unity-lens-shopping. would be nice for them to have some UI for disabling individual lenses though.

takluyver• 13 years ago

That concern is addressed in 13.04. Now you can separately enable or disable applications' integration with an online account (e.g. disable facebook integration for Empathy only).

jeremyjh2• 13 years ago

Well this review helped me determine there is really nothing worth an upgrade to me. Some of the features sound great but are at least another release from becoming really useful. All things being equal I prefer to be on the current LTS release as that is all I'm going to run on my servers and its nice knowing all the native libraries are the same version between my desktop and server.

Kurtz79• 13 years ago

"Perhaps the best part of Unity in 13.04 is not new features, but the noticeable speed improvement. Like GNOME Shell, Unity has taken its fair share of (deserved) abuse for its high-end hardware requirements and sluggish performance. You're still not going to make Unity scream on an old machine, but provided you've got newer hardware, 13.04 is definitely snappier than its predecessors."

Not even this ? If it's true, it would be worth upgrading just for a snappier interface in my opinion.

mayneack• 13 years ago

Is this just for Unity or is it an across the board speedup that I'll notice even if I'm using something like Cinnamon/xfce?

jeremyjh2• 13 years ago

I guess I'd have to see it. Unity has never struck me as slow. I run it on a pretty modern desktop; maybe in a laptop it would be more of a benefit.

themstheones• 13 years ago

I realize a lot has changed so that it wouldn't be possible, but Ubuntu 13.04 would be a lot better for me if it was just Ubuntu 5.04 with the version updates for all the packages. I guess that's kind of what Mint is going for.

pyre• 13 years ago

  | I realize a lot has changed

There are a lot of non-UI changes that have happened since Ubuntu 5.04. E.g. pulseaudio, evdev, etc.

account_taken• 13 years ago

Just wondering how many people have actually installed Bing Desktop, Google Desktop or any other desktop search on Windows. Why does Ubuntu think their more discriminating user base need these SMART search features when the common John and Jane shunned it?

It's all about privacy and companies trying to get you to buy more things are the worst offenders of viruses and invasion of privacy on the web.

pbhjpbhj• 13 years ago

>"Why does Ubuntu think their more discriminating user base need these" //

I assume that's because Bing and Google are paying them to think that (or inducing them to think [hope!] that via the promise of money)?

Don't personally care to check this assumption at the moment.

brudgers2• 13 years ago

I suspect Ubuntu's user base isn't more discriminating. Ubuntu targets people who want to switch from Windows, and most of those people want to switch because "it's free."

If Ubuntu's target market was more sophisticated they wouldn't be reviving the old "sponsored computer" model of fifteen years ago.

obviouslygreen• 13 years ago

That's what people say, and probably what Ubuntu says as well, but I'd wonder if their actual user base is really composed of a significant percentage of ex-Windows non-power-users.

I put Ubuntu on just about everything, so do several other devs I know, but we don't use Unity, we have our own preferred environments... so while there is that angle to Ubuntu, I'm not sure how well that actually represents the reality of their installation base.

rockasaur• 13 years ago

Isn't the smart search good? We won't need to leave the desktop now to search for a movie on IMDB etc.

elteto• 13 years ago

I feel the title is inaccurate and misleading. This is not a full review of the new release, but rather of the search options of the dash and the music player.

k-mcgrady• 13 years ago

I agree. The actual title is: "Ubuntu 13.04: No privacy controls as promised, but hey - photo search!" It doesn't seem like the website is even claiming it to be a review of the OS.

daoudc• 13 years ago

You're right, but I can't seem to change it now.

Spittie• 13 years ago

I know it's not really a solution for the masses, but

  sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping

Should remove the results from Amazon, while keeping all the other online lens.

Zigurd• 13 years ago

You can also turn online search reults off in the privacy settings

bobx11• 13 years ago

Download the ubuntu server image instead, and after install just run `sudo apt-get install gnome-shell gnome-terminal` to get a fast and clean desktop experience.

Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Review

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