Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" amd64
Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" amd64.
New features in 15.04
Updated Packages
As with every new release, packages--applications and software of all kinds--are being updated at a rapid pace. Many of these packages came from an automatic sync from Debian's unstable branch; others have been explicitly pulled in for Ubuntu 15.04.
For a list of all packages being accepted for Ubuntu 15.04, please subscribe to vivid-changes.
Linux kernel 3.19
For servers we see a number of performance related improvements including network send batching and the introduction of the data centre congestion algorithm, as well as the introduction of discard support in Device Mapper raid configurations. There are also improvements to inode locking which should show benefits under heavy load. Netfilter (nftables) continues to evolve gaining facilities for package logging and dumping. A number of filesystems gained minor new features, including btrfs which improved its disk replacement in raid 5 and 6 configurations, and support for scrubbing in those. NFS gained hole punching and preallocation support. Overlayfs finally moved upstream so simplifying its provision in Ubuntu. On the networking side we see the start of routing and switch offload support, and the addition of checksum offload for Generic UDP Encapsulation. Finally we see the introduction of the cutely named foo-over-UDP support, allowing a number of other protocols to nest inside.
Boot and service management
systemd has replaced Upstart as the standard boot and service manager on all Ubuntu flavors except Touch. At the time of the 15.04 release there are no known major problems which prevent booting. The only service which does not currently start is Juju, which will be fixed in a post-release update soon; all other packaged Ubuntu services are expected to work.
Upstart continues to control user sessions.
If your system does not boot after installing or upgrading, please file a bug report and tag it with `systemd-boot`. Please see /usr/share/doc/systemd/README.Debian about how to debug early boot or shutdown problems.
You can boot with Upstart once by selecting "Advanced options for Ubuntu" in the GRUB boot menu and starting the "Ubuntu, with Linux ... (upstart)" entry. To switch back permanently, install the upstart-sysv package (this will remove systemd-sysv and ubuntu-standard).
If you use custom or third-party Upstart jobs, you need to write a corresponding systemd service file or SysV init.d script for it. Please see systemd for Upstart users for a comprehensive guide.
Ubuntu Desktop
The general theme for 15.04 on the desktop is one of bug fixes and incremental quality improvements as well as a more significant change in the move to systemd as an init system.
Unity
Unity has had many bugs fixed and new features added. Locally integrated menus are now available for unfocussed windows. There have been a number of usability improvements to the dash.
UNITY 7.3
A configuration option to have menus displayed at all times instead of only on mouseover.
Enable the Dash, HUD, or logout dialogs over fullscreen windows.
Tweaks to animations for faster startup and shutdown experiences.
COMPIZ 0.9.12
Fixes for various problems that occur only with the nVidia proprietary driver (mostly blank or black windows) (thanks nVidia).
Full integrated support for the MATE desktop on a par with Gnome2 and Unity
Refresh of the gtk-window-decorator for Gnome2 support
General
Firefox is updated to version 37 and Chromium is updated to version 41.
Most of the Gnome platform is now based on version 3.14. Qt updated to version 5.4.
Pulseaudio is updated to version 6 paving the way for a move to Bluez5 next release.
LibreOffice
LibreOffice 4.4 brings a lot of improvements including improved change tracking in Writer, improve mail merge performance, improved shapes which can now have fully formatted content with tables etc, more statistics functions in Calc, improved OpenGL support for slide transitions in Impress and Draw, password protected documents in Impress. Support for digital signed PDF exports has been added, as has support for connecting to Sharepoint and One Drive. Many new multimedia formats are supported including .ra, .rm, .dv, .ac3, .opus, .asf, and .m4a.
Full details here: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/R...