A modest update, bringing no major
enhancements but adding polish to the Ubuntu desktop
Ubuntu’s tight, six-monthly release
schedule tends to bring only small updates between versions - and so it is with
Ubuntu 13.04, known familiarly as the Raring Ringtail. Beyond the expected
upgrades to the latest versions of bundled apps and resources, there’s no
really major advance over last October’s release.
You do, however, get a good set of
interface upgrades. Launcher icons have been updated, with the Workspaces icon
now giving a helpful, at-a-glance indication of which virtual desktop you’re
using. Under the bonnet upgrades to Unity make searching via the dash more
responsive, and a new degree of “typo-tolerance” means missed or switched
letters won’t necessarily mess up your search.
Ubuntu
13.04
Window handling has been spruced up, too.
You can now roll the mouse wheel over a Launcher icon to scroll quickly between
an application’s open windows. Drag a window to the edge of the screen and a
translucent animation now shows where it will snap to. Such minor tweaks make
the desktop feel slicker and more user-friendly.
Ubunfu's
latest free update makes the desktop more user-friendly
At the top of the screen, Ubuntu’s menu
system hasn’t evolved, but a new Ubuntu One dropdown at the right now gives you
direct Dropbox-style access to your sync folder and settings. An updated
Bluetooth menu lets you make your device discoverable without having to dive
into the Settings dialog. And if you select Shut Down from the main system
menu, a graphical overlay prompts you to restart or power off.
At
the top of the screen, Ubuntu’s menu system hasn’t evolved, but a new Ubuntu
One dropdown at the right now gives you direct Dropbox-style access to your
sync folder and settings
If you’ve standardized on a Long-Term
Support (LTS) edition of Ubuntu, Raring Ringtail isn’t worth abandoning your
stable platform for, especially since Canonical has slashed the support window
for non-LTS releases from 18 months to only nine. For everyone else, Ubuntu
13.04 feels slicker and more mature than its forebear, and as usual it’s offered
as a free upgrade to existing Ubuntu users via the Software Updater - so we see
no reason for users of Ubuntu 12.10 not to upgrade as a matter of course.
If
you’ve standardized on a Long-Term Support (LTS) edition of Ubuntu, Raring
Ringtail isn’t worth abandoning your stable platform for, especially since
Canonical has slashed the support window for non-LTS releases from 18 months to
only nine
