Common Infrastructure

Secure Boot

Ubuntu 12.10 is the first Ubuntu release to support UEFI Secure Boot, a standard for controlling what software can be run on a computer in an effort to curtail malware that takes over the system at boot time. Supporting Secure Boot, a part of the Windows 8 certification requirements for client systems, ensures that Ubuntu will continue to provide an “it just works” experience on new hardware.

Due to time pressures, only some flavors released with 12.10 will install and boot on Secure Boot hardware:

• Ubuntu desktop
• Ubuntu server
• Edubuntu

We expect to enable all other flavors in 13.04.

Migration-support deprecated

The tool responsible for migrating user accounts from other operating systems to Ubuntu (migration-assistant) has been removed from the installer.

Linux kernel 3.5.5

The Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal release includes the 3.5.0-17.28 Ubuntu Linux kernel which was based on the v3.5.5 upstream Linux kernel. This is an update from the 3.2.0-23.36 Ubuntu Linux kernel which shipped in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin and was based on the v3.2 upstream Linux kernel. Other notable changes with the Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal kernel include:

• Transitioning of the i386 generic-pae flavor to become the generic flavor offering
• Collapsing of the virtual flavor back into the generic flavor
• Homogenizing the entire linux-meta package
• Arrival of a new highbank arm server kernel flavor
• Changing of the default scheduler from cfq to deadline
• Packaging updates for signed kernels

Python 3.2

The Ubuntu desktop has begun migrating from Python 2 to Python 3. Most Python applications included in the desktop and their dependent libraries have been ported to Python 3. In most cases, Python 3 versions of libraries are available alongside their Python 2 counterparts. Ported applications will only run with Python 3. Work will continue in Ubuntu 13.04.

If you have your own programs based on Python 2, fear not! Python 2 will continue to be available (as the python package) for the foreseeable future. However, to best support future versions of Ubuntu you should consider porting your code to Python 3. Python/3 has some advice and resources on this.

GNU Toolchain

Ubuntu 12.10 is distributed with an updated default toolchain that includes: GCC 4.7.2 (was GCC 4.6 in 12.04 LTS), a binutils snapshot from the 2.23 branch (was 2.22 in 12.04 LTS), eglibc 2.15, and gdb 7.5.

Further information can be found upstream (GCC-4.7, gdb).

Java Toolchain

Ubuntu 12.10 ships OpenJDK7 as the default Java implementation. This brings improved performance, new features and better compatibility with other Java 7 implementations.

Use of the OpenJDK6 is now deprecated and the openjdk-6-* packages in universe for Ubuntu 12.10 will not be provided in future releases of Ubuntu.

Installation

• We have received reports that booting the Ubuntu installer in UEFI mode from a USB disk on certain Samsung laptops (530U3C, NP700Z5C) may trigger a firmware bug that renders the machine unbootable. While this bug has not been confirmed to affect Ubuntu 12.10, users are advised to use caution when installing on Samsung laptops and ensure that they are configured for legacy BIOS mode, not UEFI mode. (1040557)
• The consolidation of desktop installation media into a single image means that some installation options that were previously available on the alternate CD have no direct replacement on the desktop image.
  • Users who were installing using the alternate CD to install with LVM or full-disk encryption can now use the desktop image for this.
  • To install LTSP, please install using the Ubuntu Server 12.10 image, then add ltsp after installation. You can also continue to install with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS media and upgrade to 12.10 from there.
  • There are several options for installing using software RAID. You can:
    • install using the mini.iso, distributed from the ‘debian-installer’ directory on the mirrors;
    • install using the desktop CD and migrate the disks to RAID post-install;
    • install with the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS alternate CD and upgrade.
• The desktop image installer cannot unlock existing encrypted (LUKS) volumes. If you need to make use of existing encrypted volumes during partitioning, then use the “Try Ubuntu without installing” boot option to start a live session, open the encrypted volumes (for example, by clicking on their icons in the Unity launcher), enter your password when prompted to unlock them, close them again, and run ubiquity to start the installer. (1066480)
• ARM OMAP4 machines will sometimes boot to a black screen during installation. It’s likely that the system has booted fine, but you will need to switch to another tty then back to tty7 (Ctrl+Alt+F1 and then Alt+F7) to get graphics. (1065902)
• On ARM Panda boards with no external storage attached, the installer interface will be confusing and installation is likely to fail. We strongly recommend attaching an external hard disk when installing on Panda boards. (1053030)
• On a mac with an external display can not run in framebuffer mode error occurs on the 2nd reboot onwards. (1066883)

Kernel

• Haswell processor graphics is not fully supported. (1066975)
• On some systems, when opening lid, there is a kerneloops with a suspend/resume failure message seen. (1054732)
• On certain ASUS machines with AMD graphic chips, a WMI event and ACPI interrupt are sent at the same time when hitting the hotkey to change display mode, resulting in the display mode being changed twice in succession. Users can work around this using the Displays panel in System Settings for changing display modes. (1052278)
• On ASUS N53SN laptops, the kernel does not boot without noefi on commandline. (1053897)

Networking

• In order to improve compatibility with other local nameserver packages, NetworkManager now assigns IP address 127.0.1.1 to the local nameserver process that it controls instead of 127.0.0.1. If the system’s /etc/resolv.conf is absent or is a static file instead of the symbolic link to ../run/resolvconf/resolv.conf installed by default then this static file will have to be updated by the administrator in order to continue using the NetworkManager-controlled nameserver.

Libvirt

• Windows vms which previously worked with ‘vga’ video now need ‘cirrus’ video.

Toolchain

• Python 2.7.3 includes a fix for a security vulnerability affecting Python’s dict and set implementations. Carefully crafted, untrusted input could lead to extremely long computation times and denials of service. Although disabled by default, vulnerable applications such as CGI scripts can explicitly enable “hash randomization” to prevent this exploit. Due to implementation details of this fix, virtualenvs created with older 2.7.x releases may not work with 2.7.3. Specifically, the os module may not appear to have a urandom function. This problem can be solved by recreating the broken virtualenvs with the newer Python 2.7.3 version. See http://bugs.python.org/issue13703 for full details. (954595)

VMware Player

• Installing either version 4 or 5 of VMware Player on Ubuntu 12.10 will trigger a crash report regarding lsb_release, because the lsb_release command uses Python 3 but the VMware installation environment overrides the Python settings to point to a bundled version of Python 2. (938869) It is unknown what impact this has on VMware Player at runtime.

Video Drivers

• Several video drivers are not functioning with some legacy chip-sets.
  • xserver-xorg-video-trident with some Trident Cyberblade chip-sets. Black screen and lock-up. Bugs
  • xserver-xorg-video-intel with i810 chip-sets. Segfault. 1060492
  • xserver-xorg-video-sis with 315 series (SiS 315/E/PRO, 550, [M]650, 651, 740, [M]661[FMG]X,[M]741[GX]) chip-sets. Black screen or loops around login screen. 1034812
• Workarounds
  • Test with a Live CD to see if your hardware is effected.
  • Trident Cyberblade – As the vesa driver doesn’t work with this chip-set the only solution is to remain with 12.04.
  • Intel i810 – A new install can only be accomplished from the Alternate ISO. On reboot go to Recovery Mode and delete/blacklist video driver. On reboot create suitable xorg.conf or use RandR to get correct resolution if necessary.
  • SiS 315 Series – As Intel i810