Monday, January 28, 2013

Which Ubuntu should I install? 12.04.1 or 12.10?

As it happens with every new release of Ubuntu, it is compared to the last release. And if the last release is an LTS, a comparison is definitely required to answer - is the new release good enough to motivate users leave the long term support version and embrace the latest one? My current review is focused on the same question.
From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison
I am comparing here the latest Quantal release with the Ubuntu Precise 12.04.1 LTS release, both 32 bit. Also, point to be considered here is that both releases are just 6 months apart. So, I wasn't expecting anything radically different between the two, but just a few incremental innovations.


High level comparison

 
Ubuntu 12.04.1 ISO (730 MB) is a bit lighter than Ubuntu 12.10 ISO (790 MB). I booted up both of them on my Asus K54C laptop with 2.2 GHz Intel 2nd Gen Ci3 processor and 2 GB DDR3 RAM.
Look and feel wise both the distros seem identical. A high level comparison of Quantal and Precise is given in tabular form below:

Parameters Ubuntu 12.10 Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Size of ISO 790 MB 730 MB
Booting time (post installation) 9 sec 15 sec
Desktop Unity with Gnome 3.6 Unity with Gnome 3.4
Linux kernel 3.5.0-17 3.2.0-29
CPU usage (live boot) 1-10% 1-10%
RAM usage (live boot) 456 MB 310 MB
CPU Usage (post installation) 1-10% 1-10%
RAM usage (post installation) 412 MB 280 MB*
Installation time (with 1 MBPS connection) 30 min. 30 min.
Wifi detection Immediate Immediate
Touchpad detection Works by default Works by default
Ease of use A bit on the slower side Is actually faster than Quantal
Eye candy factor Looks awesome! Looks awesome
Repository Ubuntu Software Center 5.4.1.2 Ubuntu Software Center 5.2.5
File Manager Nautilus 3.4.2 Nautilus 3.4.2

* With 12.04.2 update, the resource utilization is now even better with 230 MB RAM & 1-10% CPU usage with system monitor running. Even the stability has increased and Unity is actually better now.

Further details available in my review of Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS.
 
So, net-net, Quantal has a faster booting time, Unity 6.8 interface actually loads faster than the older (5.2?) Unity interface. Unity seems more refined and a lot more stable in Quantal than Precise. Linux kernel and Gnome shell, too, are upgraded to the latest available release. But, Nautilus is not! It is the same 3.4.2 though 3.6 is available! Possibly Nautilus 3.6, widely disliked, didn't gel well with the Unity interface and hence, developers decided to retain 3.4 version. However, all these upgrades come at a cost - significantly higher resource utilization! Precise is a lot more lighter and less taxing on resources than Quantal. Personally, I felt Precise is a bit faster than Quantal - though you won't feel the difference if you are using a high end machine. Installation process is pretty much the same and takes the same amount of time - no change there!

Application-wise both are pretty similar - only Quantal has all latest versions of the same applications that Precise has, namely: Firefox 16.01, LibreOffice 3.6.2, and Thunderbird 16.01. For movies, Ubuntu is using Totem; for photography, it's Shotwell; and for music, it's Rhythmbox. Anyway, Firefox and Thunderbird upgrades are possibly not that significant as they are upgraded separately to the latest available version irrespective of which Ubuntu release you are using! So, no big change there in. 

Incremental changes

Apart from differences in the Gnome, Linux and application versions, Quantal brings in one major change and a few subtle changes from Precise.

Major changes:

New "Web Apps": These are applets that connect the local operating system to web and cloud content. In addition to providing online results to search content, these can add webmail and social networking notifications to Ubuntu's mail menu. Now this search is integrated to Dash and you can see the results I got when I searched for Justin Timberlake songs in my computer. In addition to what was there in my system, it gave me results from Ubuntu music store and Amazon as well.


From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison

Web apps are currently offered for 40 sites like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and can be installed by accessing the websites in Firefox and accepting the automatic installation request. By default, Ubuntu 12.10 has the following web apps:
  • Amazon app: I won't call it an app, it is merely a bookmark on the Unity sidebar. Once you click it, it will open Amazon.com site in Firefox browser.
From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison
  • Ubuntu Music Store: Again similar to Unity one and Amazon bookmarks, Ubuntu music store is integrated to the Unity sidebar to be accessed through Firefox. Its content is rich and I could search a lot of Indian artists as well including the legends like Kishore Kumar. Similarly, popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter can also be saved on Unity sidebar as bookmarks.


From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison
Minor changes
  • Online integration of social network and email: In Quantal, Ubuntu achieves a lot more integration of social and email networks with a single point of sign in. 
From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison
 
  • Preview mode: Once you right click an application icon on dash, it takes you to preview mode. Currently it looks like at work in progress phase and doesn't offer much!
  • New Grub2 boot loader: This is specifically designed for Windows 8 OS, which has UEFI secure boot feature that doesn't allow dual boot with any other OS. Hence, if you are already tired of Windows 8 Metro interface and want to install a Linux OS alongside, you'll need to install Quantal; Precise won't work on your system!
  • Remote Desktop Protocol: It's a new feature and allows users to set up a RDP account to access any remote machine added to the account. Very good, but hardly any use for me at this point in time.
  • No Unity 2D: Till Precise, there was an option of Unity 2D for machines with limited resources. Now, it has been dropped.
  • Python 3: Still, Python 2 is supported.
  • New Dash photo lens along with the already existing music and video lens and Gwibber lens, with a changed Gwibber icon.
From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison
From Ubuntu 12.10 Comparison
  • LVM support: Now you can install in a logical volume and increase its size, if required, without needing to reinstall the entire system again.
Does this new features and upgraded applications justify an upgrade?

Well, honestly I don't care about the upgraded applications, I can add quantal ppa's and install them in Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS. Already I added GIMP 2.8 and planning to add LibreOffice 3.6. So, the question boils down to the incremental features like web apps, LVM support, RBP, Python 3, etc. I used them quite for last two days and in my opinion, Ubuntu 12.10 integrates social media much more than its predecessors. Of course, preview and dash lens are promising and can potentially integrate my system to web in a much better way in future. Unity is much better and smoother to use in Quantal. Unity is getting good with every release but it remains inflexible as ever - you simply can't change the looks! 

So, based on all these facts and numbers that I gave above, it depends on users taste whether s(he) would like to upgrade or not. Definitely Quantal has some significant improvements, especially in social network integration and web apps, over Precise and is graphically more appealing. However, there are some drawbacks as well like too much of Amazon, more resource consumption, a bit slower than Precise, among others.

Personally, I feel all of these incremental innovations as work in progress for bigger things to come in future. I'll wait for the future and give Ubuntu 12.10 a miss for now, sticking to Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS. We'll see where it goes possibly in 13.04 or 13.10.

18 comments:

  1. Hi, Arindam!

    "Which Ubuntu should I install?"

    For me: NONE! No *buntus! ;D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ciao a tutti (Hi to everybody!).

    My opinion about "Which Ubuntu should I install?". I think that, at the moment, Ubuntu is one of the linux distro easier to install and, after, richest of software. Then, the choice between 12.04 or 12.10; till now, I'm always curious about the latest news and if I want to know something more technical... I wait for your "A non-techie's view...".

    If I may ask... about the upgrade of kernel; is always required to install the newest version (eg: from 3.5 to 3.7) or upgrade the version that I have?
    That's my big question... I see that something change between 12.04 and 12.10 but what about the kernel? Why upgrade the same version when is available the new one?

    Ciao
    Lorenzo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Lorenzo,

      I guess, with every new kernel release, new features are getting added like improved security features, more efficiency and better driver support along with most importantly, stability. Given Ubuntu 12.04 has kernel 3.2 and Ubuntu 12.10 has kernel 3.5 (possibly Ubuntu 13.04 will have kernel 3.7!), each new release brings in better hardware support, more stability and better performance (at least that is the expectation :)). For example, Ubuntu 12.04 will get new upgrades for Linux kernel 3.2 but it won't be upgraded to kernel 3.5.

      However, kernel is just a part of the overall user experience. At an user level, I won't bother much about which kernel I am using. The overall user experience will be of more importance to me. Here still Ubuntu 12.04 is better than 12.10.

      Regards,
      Arindam

      Delete
  3. you talk about adding ubuntu 12.10 ppa's to 12.04 to upgrade the applications. Can you explain how you do that please?

    sorry for my bad english I am Belgium.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Type in the terminal
      sudo leafpad /etc/apt/sources.list

      then you'll see several precise ppa's added there. Below these, paste the following:
      deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal main restricted universe multiverse
      deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
      deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-security main restricted universe multiverse
      deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ quantal partner
      deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ quantal free non-free

      Save it and then do a system update and upgrade by:
      sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

      Now, if you open Ubuntu software center, you'll see the 12.10 version of applications visible in the software center.

      Thanks.

      Delete
  4. Would you recommend Linux Mint or Ubuntu with Cinnamon? I have been using Ubuntu with Cinnamon, mainly because the Ubuntu repositories have privative applications like Nitro... But on Ubuntu there's no way to install the Linux Mint Mint-X GTK theme, because it's GTK 3.4 and Ubuntu 12.10 uses GTK 3.6...
    So, which one should run Cinnamon better?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I checked both Ubuntu 12.10 with Cinnamon & Linux Mint 14 with Cinnamon - integration and performance of Linux Mint is better. So, my preference is Linux Mint Cinnamon over Ubuntu with Cinnamon. On Repos, Linux Mint repo has Ubuntu integrated to it. For private applications, you have to just un-comment the third party repo ppa from Linux Mint sources.list.

      Thanks,
      Arindam

      Delete
    2. Thanks!
      Which line should I uncomment? I have the Canonical lines uncommented but nitro still isn't available...

      Delete
  5. Hello, Arindam!

    Have you tried elementary OS? - http://elementaryos.org/journal/when-its-ready
    If so, what do you think of it?
    Thanks,
    Dan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Dan:

      I did a detailed review of Elementary OS and found it to be both aesthetically pleasing and functional. Please find my review in the link given below:
      http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in/2012/12/elementary-os-02-beta-1-review-who.html

      Thanks.
      Arindam

      Delete
  6. I am new to Linux, which one should I install?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Install Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS if you have a modern Corei3 or better. If you are running a dual core, possibly Xubuntu 12.04.2 or Lubuntu 12.04 will be better for you.

      Delete
  7. Hi Arindam,

    Which one is suitable be on core2duo 4 GB RAM ?

    I am looking to install MS Office and MS Outlook 2010 too via playonlinux or wine (whichever works find for me)

    Regards,
    Vikas

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Vikas,

      Please give a shot to Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. It should work well on your system. I have seen Outlook icon getting created in playonlinux, but never tried it as such :). Ideally if the installation is correct, outlook should work.

      Thanks,
      Arindam

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the very quick response Arindam. I am also trying Crossover too for along with PlayOnLinux and Wine.

      I have been supporting/playing with RHEL only for last 7 years, never ventured into any other Linux flavor. But now I have decided to ditch Windows on my office Laptop and try my hands Ubuntu/Mint.

      The first thing which came into my mind was Outlook. Lets see how things goes for me :)

      Thanks again for your suggestion.

      Regards,
      Vikas

      Delete
    3. You are welcome. On MS Office installation via PlayonLinux, one piece of advice from my personal experience is not to get frustrated if things don't work in a couple of efforts. It takes at times 5-7 efforts to successfully install MS Office :).

      Thanks,
      Arindam

      Delete