Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot Alpha 1 Has Been Released [Video]

Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot alpha 1 has been released today and it comes with GNOME 3 (the GNOME application stack such as Gedit 3, Nautilus 3, etc. - but it doesn't come with GNOME Shell by default; however, GNOME Shell is available in the official Ubuntu 11.10 repositories) like we saw in our previous Oneiric post and of course, Unity by default. Also, the classic GNOME session has been replaced with Unity 2D so starting with Ubuntu 11.10 alpha 1, those with hardware that doesn't support the regular Unity will be logged in to Unity 2D.

Default applications

As expected, PiTiVi and Computer Janitor have been removed from the CD like we wrote a while back. However, none of the packages proposed for inclusion in Ubuntu 11.10 has been added by default yet: there's no Deja Dup, LightDM or Thunderbird for now.

Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot alpha 1 comes with Firefox 5.0 beta 2, Network Manager 0.9 (0.8.9997 to be more specific) Nautilus 3.0.2, Evolution 3.0.2, Gedit 3.0.4, Totem 3.0.1, GNOME Control Center 3.0.2, LibreOffice 3.3.2, Shotwell 0.9.2, Compiz 0.9.4 (version identical to the one in Natty), Empathy 2.34.0, Banshee 2.1.0, Gwibber 3.0.0.1, Xorg Server 1.10.1 and Linux Kernel 2.6.39-3.

Also, starting with Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, there are Qt libraries available on the CD (required by Unity 2D) so we might see Qt applications installed by default in future Ubuntu versions if they are good enough.

Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot alpha 1 video

Since we've already published Ubuntu 11.10 screenshots just a couple of days ago and because Unity is pretty much the same as it was in Ubuntu 11.04, I didn't take new screenshots but instead I've recorded a video running Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot alpha 1:

The Ubuntu 11.10 default theme hasn't been ported to GTK3 yet so it currently looks broken, that's why at some point in the video I've installed a different theme just to make the video prettier :). Also, GNOME Shell is not installed by default but I'm installing it in the video so you can see that you can easily switch between Unity, Unity 2D and GNOME Shell in Ubuntu 11.10.


You can also notice some other bugs in the video (besides the theme) like the window buttons missing in the Unity session and well, there were lots more but I've tried to avoid them in the video. Unity 2D for instance is very buggy right now and Dash doesn't work at all so I had to tweak it to get it to work for the video. So don't use Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot alpha 1 on a production machine!

Up next:

• July 7th - Alpha 2
• August 4th - Alpha 3
• September 1st - Beta 1
• September 22nd - Beta 2
• October 6th - RC
• October 13th - final Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

Download Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot alpha 1 (it includes the release notes)

Remember: do not install Ubuntu 11.10 alpha 1 on a production machine. Use it for testing purposes only. It is highly unstable!