Doing is a quantum leap from imagining. Thinking about swimming isn’t much like actually getting in the water. Actually getting in the water can take your breath away. The defense force inside of us wants us to be cautious, to stay away from anything as intense as a new kind of action. Its job is to protect us, and it categorically avoids anything resembling danger. But it’s often wrong. Anything worth doing is worth doing too soon.
– Barbara Sher
With this release, the development teams decided to dive in and focus on introducing some of the new innovations we’ve been imagining for the upcoming LTS cycle, and so are very pleased to be able to announce the release of Ubuntu 12.10 for Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.
Codenamed “Quantal Quetzal”, 12.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.
Ubuntu 12.10 introduces innovations that bring together desktop and cloud-based experiences, representing the next stage in the transition to a multi-device, cloud-based world. New Previews give large, clear previews of content as it appears in the Dash search results, giving users a quick way to get more information to help find what they are looking for. The new Web Apps feature makes frequently used web applications available through the desktop. A new remote log-in option now lets Ubuntu 12.10 be used as a thin client by businesses that want to virtualise their desktop applications and deliver them
to users over the network.
Ubuntu Server 12.10 includes the Folsom release of OpenStack, alongside deployment and management tools that save devops teams time when deploying distributed applications – whether on private
clouds, public clouds, x86 or ARM servers, or on developer laptops. Cloud builders now have access to two major new components: Cinder, for block storage and Quantum, a virtual networking API. Ubuntu’s
Metal-as-a-Service (MAAS) bare-metal provisioning tool has been updated and now supports Calxeda hyperscale hardware based on ARM, so users can now quickly deploy services directly to bare-metal clusters, whether they’re built on legacy hardware, new Ivy Bridge-based machines or the new ARM-based hardware.
The Ubuntu desktop images have been consolidated to a single improved image with a size of 800MB. This desktop image folds in the advanced partitioning options from the alternate installer (removing the need for alternate and DVD images) and introduces support for UEFI Secure Boot technology. The Ubuntu Server image remains as a CD sized image, but installs the base system from a squashfs image for improved performance.
Read more about the new features of Ubuntu 12.10 in the following press releases:
- http://www.canonical.com/content/ubuntu-server-1210-all-you-need-cloud
- http://www.canonical.com/content/ubuntu-1210-breaks-down-barrier-between-pc-and-web
Maintenance updates will be provided for Ubuntu 12.10 for 18 months, through April 2014.
Thanks to the efforts of the global translation community, Ubuntu is now available in 42 languages. For a list of available languages and detailed translation statistics for these and other languages, see:
The newest Kubuntu 12.10, Edubuntu 12.10, Xubuntu 12.10, Lubuntu 12.10 and Ubuntu Studio 12.10 are also being released today. More details can be found in their announcements:
- Kubuntu: http://kubuntu.org/news/12.10-release
- Xubuntu: http://xubuntu.org/news/12-10-release
- Edubuntu http://edubuntu.org/news/12.10-release
- Lubuntu: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Announcement/12.10
- Ubuntu Studio:https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QuantalQuetzal/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuStudio
To get Ubuntu 12.10
In order to download Ubuntu 12.10, visit:
Users of Ubuntu 12.04 will be offered an automatic upgrade to 12.10 via Update Manager. For further information about upgrading, see:
As always, upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge.
We recommend that all users read the release notes, which document caveats, workarounds for known issues, as well as more in-depth notes on the releaseitself. They are available at:
Find out what’s new in this release with a graphical overview:
If you have a question, or if you think you may have found a bug but aren’t sure, you can try asking in any of the following places:
- #ubuntu on irc.freenode.net
- http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
- http://www.ubuntuforums.org
- http://askubuntu.com
Help Shape Ubuntu
If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at:
About Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a full-featured Linux distribution for desktops, laptops, netbooks and servers, with a fast and easy installation and regular releases. A tightly-integrated selection of excellent applications is included, and an incredible variety of add-on software is just a few clicks away.
Professional services including support are available from Canonical and hundreds of other companies around the world. For more information about support, visit:
More Information
You can learn more about Ubuntu and about this release on our website listed below:
To sign up for future Ubuntu announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu’s very low volume announcement list at:
Originally posted on the ubuntu-announce mailing list on Thu Oct 18 17:15:29 UTC 2012 by Kate Stewart