Tech Drive-in

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" was finally released few weeks ago and it truly is one of the best Ubuntu releases ever. We have been following the release pretty closely and now it's time for a brief round-up. Here is a quick screenshot tour through every single new feature that was added to latest Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

EA is one of the most established names in the world of gaming. They have just published two of their browser based games - Lord of Ultima and Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances - in Ubuntu Software Center. May not be their greatest of games but still, EA took some effort to actually publish some of its games in Ubuntu Software Center. I consider this as a welcome move and hopefully a sign of things to come. 

You might have noticed a tremendous decrease in posting frequency over the past few months (especially during April 2012). I got married on April 30th 2012 to my college sweetheart, Suji John. Since Tech Drive-in is a one-man-effort for the most part, I was just not able to keep up. Now that my marriage wedding is over, I can now slowly start blogging again. Thank you all for being with us and supporting my tiny little blog all this time :-)

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS has just been released. It is one of the most anticipated Ubuntu release ever. We will be doing a comprehensive review of Ubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin" very soon. Anyway, here is how you can easily upgrade to latest Ubuntu 12.04 from Ubuntu 11.10 and earlier version of Ubuntu including Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Ubuntu 11.04.

Next version of Elementary OS codenamed "Luna" will be based on just released Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" and it is going to bring about a number of really interesting changes, new notification system being one of them.

With ICS becoming available for more and more smartphones and tablets, apps specifically designed for Android 4.0+ ICS is slowly gaining foothold. Story is no different as far as Android Launchers are concerned. Though a good number of highly regarded Android launchers have not been updated for Android ICS, a number of brand new Launchers are available in Google Play Store which are made for Android 4.0+ ICS from ground-up. 

Ubuntu has touched the lives of many among us in different ways. I can't speak for everyone here and hence I will share a few of my experiences with Ubuntu. For me, Ubuntu was the gateway to Linux and the whole open source way of thinking. Ubuntu taught me that computers are not all about Windows OS and that there are far better alternatives than the "default" Windows desktop which you have been made to see and learn from a younger age. Lets go back in time and see how Ubuntu evolved over the years to become what it is now - a totally awesome, user friendly and fast changing Linux based distro for human beings.

Kupfer and Synapse are two incredibly elegant launcher applications for Ubuntu. Synapse has been my favorite for a long time now (though I have to add, I don't use it as often as I used to ever since the the arrival of Unity and GNOME Shell). Now it seems like, Synapse is not maintained anymore and might need your help.

With Boxee abandoning its support for dedicated desktop client, XBMC (upon which Boxee is actually based on) has become the unquestioned king among media center apps for Ubuntu. There is more good news for all XBMC fans. XBMC has just been accepted to official Debian repositories. This means, in all probability, you will be able to install XBMC directly from Ubuntu repos (aka Ubuntu Software Center) starting from Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin.