PCWizKid takes a first look at what's new in Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail).
Unity changes in Ubuntu 13.04
Unity has been improved a lot in Ubuntu 13.04 and it's now a LOT faster than in Ubuntu 12.10. A lot of the work on Unity has happened under the hood but there are some user interesting interface changes and new features, such as:
- new window switching feature that allows you to switch between open windows of the same application by using the Unity Launcher quicklists;
- switch between an application's open windows by scrolling on the application icon in the Unity Launcher;
- new Unity-style shutdown dialogs;
- the Launcher minimum icon size limit has been decreased to 8px from 32px;
- Dash is a lot faster (both to open and search), comes with improved preview animations, overlay scrollbars and the search has been improved with the addition of a new library which provides error tolerant matching so for instance, typing "gdit" will find Gedit, which wouldn't happen in Ubuntu 12.10;
- Unity Online Accounts has received per application toggles so you can choose which application / feature is allowed to use your online accounts;
- the Unity systray whitelist has been removed, so you can no longer whitelist applications to use the notification area, however, Java and Wine apps will continue to work since they have been whitelisted by default (hard-coded);
- Sync Menu indicator is now available by default - this is an appindicator that allows you to control Ubuntu One;
- a new, proper Bluetooth indicator has replaced the old Bluetooth indicator which was basically a patch over the Bluetooth notification area icon available in GNOME Fallback;
- the old Gwibber lens has been replaced with a new "Friends" lens which basically does the same thing: allows you to view, preview (it supports Unity Dash Previews - from which you can perform various actions like: retweet, like a post on Facebook, etc.) and search your social networks streams (Twitter, Facebook, etc.);
- the Workspace Switcher and removable media Launcher icons can now be moved anywhere on the Unity Launcher or they can be completely removed. The workspace switcher is actually not available by default (to turn the Workspace Swicher on: System Settings > Appearence > Behavior);
- new icons for Nautilus, Ubuntu Software Center, Software Updater, Workspace Switcher (which now displays the active workspace) and BFB (the button used to open Dash);
- new window snap animation that shows a window preview
- MTP support by default so you shouldn't have any issues accessing Android 4.0 devices that don't support USB Mass Storage via Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail (thanks to Gvfs which now comes with a MTP backend);
- Intel SNA (2D acceleration for the Intel Linux graphics driver that improves the X.Org performance) has been turned on by default in Ubuntu 13.04. This should provide improved X.Org driver performance and thus, a faster, more responsive desktop;
- Gwibber, the social / microblogging client that used to be available by default in Ubuntu has been removed by default and from the repositories (but, like I was saying above, the Gwibber Lens functionality is still available by default thanks to the new Friends lens). The application has been rewritten in QML and it can be installedvia Ubuntu Software Center (and it's now called "Friends").Ubuntu 13.04 continues to use GNOME 3.6 for the most part like Ubuntu 12.10, however, some GNOME applications that weren't upgraded to version 3.6 in Ubuntu 12.10 are now available by default: Nautilus 3.6 and Totem 3.6.