Ubuntu Wily gaggle builds 15.10 beta beachhead

Xubuntu gets heavy: Xubuntu 15.10

Xubuntu 15.10 Beta 1 is a relatively minor release compared with 15.04, which brought the massive overhaul of Xfce 4.12 to Xubuntu fans. Now that this big transition is out of the way, 15.10 primarily consists of bug fixes and minor improvements and updates.

The biggest news so far might well be that Xubuntu has swapped out the lightweight Abiword app (the default word processor on most Xfce-based desktops) with the much larger, but more full-featured LibreOffice Writer.

That shouldn't be too surprising given that Xubuntu has always taken a heavyweight approach to Xfce, opting for more features rather than the lighter-weight aspect that other distros prize.

The change may also have something to do with the new Xubuntu-core that is there for those who'd like keep things lean and simple.

Xubuntu, now with more LibreOffice

Other changes for Xubuntu in this beta include app updates for most of the defaults and some changes for the Thunar file manager. The latter includes a few features (or bug fixes, depending on how you look at it) that ensure new tabs and windows inherit the last used view, while Thunar will also now remember the last used application when opening files.

Lubuntu 15.10

The big news in Lubuntu is there is no big news. The project is still in the process of making the move to the new Qt-based LxQt desktop. For now that means this release consists only of bug fixes and minor tweaks. The LxQT-based version of Lubuntu is slated to arrive in next year's 16.10 release cycle.

Ubuntu GNOME 15.10

Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 ships with GNOME 3.16, which features a new notification system and a slightly lighter theme.

The new look covers everything from the Activities Overview screen to login screen, as well as menus that now feature monochrome icons for the most part. GNOME 3.16 also offers some new scrollbars, which are now only displayed when needed.

These scrollbars will also be making their way into Ubuntu Unity 15.10 when it arrives – Canonical is apparently tired of trying to maintain its own custom scrollbars.

This release also sees Ubuntu GNOME changing up the default application stack a little bit. The old photo editing/organising standby Shotwell has been replaced with GNOME Photos and GNOME Music is now installed by default.

The move away from Shotwell makes sense for Ubuntu GNOME, since GNOME is doing the same and Shotwell has been all but abandoned for some time. The good news for Shotwell fans is development does look like it will continue as part of the ElementaryOS project.

Learn to love these scrollbars – they're coming soon to Unity

There are a host of under-the-hood changes that will be a part of almost all of these flavours when the final release of Ubuntu 15.10 arrives. Updates to the base system and a new kernel will also be part of the main, Unity-based version of Ubuntu 15.10, which is still an alpha release.

The Unity desktop will update for beta 2 later this month and it – along with all of the flavours – will see a final version arrive come October 23. ®