[elementary OS] A quick glimpse of elementary OS Freya

[Stinger]

Ok it seems that freya is very close to beta now, as I write the bug list on launchpad has been reduced to only 3 bugs 'in progress' .
Well actually it has been down to only 2 earlier but then a display plug blueprint was thrown in plus some other bugs.
Links:
elementary freya-beta1 on launchpad
http://isfreyareleasedyet.com/
elementary - Live!( A liveticker for the Bugfixes in the elementary project! )
Got some of the info from here: f*ckyeah elementary OS, can't link it because of the forums filter for bad language

As for the luna-update, I would guess that ubuntu-12.04.5 ( should have been released now ) is targeted but thats pure speculation on my behalf.
elementary luna-update is down to only 1 bug 'in progress' but it has been that way for some time now, thats why I think the elementary team is waiting for 12.04.5 , to get as many new hardware configurations supported as possible.

Another quite interesting thing is the ARM support blueprint, it has only one related bug and if you notice, the bug is targeted for freya-beta2.
I'd really like to run elementary on one of these ODROID-XU3, notice that the youtube video on the page is with ubuntu 14.04, so in theory it should be possible with an ARM version of freya

[grier-devon]

I wish I could get excited about Eos anymore but have been so dissapointed in how slowly they are working to support modern hardware. I have a notebook with 4th gen Intel products and when I update the kernel via this page....

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack

rebooted and then the computer screen would go black after a split second of showing the Eos symbol. I am not a developer but a funder. I make donation with each release of any Linux OS and would love to donate to Eos but they first have to show they are going to take better care of their users with more frequent updates.

[Stinger]

Hi grier-devon
You are right about elementary Luna not supporting the newest of hardware, but I think it boils down to the limited resources that the elementary team has and thats why they can't give you a release date either.
It might change for the future releases of elementary OS as it gains in popularity and funding.
In short, the elementary team has big ambitions when it comes to speed, design and consistency but limited resources to work with.

If your still want to try elementary OS Luna, I'm willing to help you troubleshoot, just start a thread at the Other Operating Systems and Projects forum.

[Stinger]

In case anybody has missed it, elementary OS Freya is now beta
You can read more at OMG Ubuntu

[grier-devon]

Hi grier-devon
You are right about elementary Luna not supporting the newest of hardware, but I think it boils down to the limited resources that the elementary team has and thats why they can't give you a release date either.
It might change for the future releases of elementary OS as it gains in popularity and funding.
In short, the elementary team has big ambitions when it comes to speed, design and consistency but limited resources to work with.

If your still want to try elementary OS Luna, I'm willing to help you troubleshoot, just start a thread at the Other Operating Systems and Projects forum.

I appreciate you offering to help, but I am quiet happy with Ubuntu right now, things just work as they should. Not saying I won't ever give eOS another chance but I think I will wait till they can grow a little more for what they are trying to do and I think they will some day get there.

[Chanath]

Stinger, do you know how to install elementary-tweaks in Freya?

[Stinger]

Hi Chanath
I'm in the process of backing all my data up before attempting to install Freya, live version works fine but I like to be safe rather than sorry when it comes to development versions, in case of any installer bugs
I have researched a bit though. There seems to be a version of elementary-tweaks available for Freya but it seems to have a bug. The overlay scrollbars seems to be the problem. There is a patch available, so I guess in theory it would be possible if you apply the patch.

[Chanath]

Ubuntu is my main distro,with Unity and without it, so there is no problem in installing Freya in another partition. I shall be checking Freya from time to time see what had been done, well, by other people, rather than the developers. Installed the ppa, changed Plank theme. Tweaking Wingpanel is not available yet.

[christopher9]

Got Freya beta running on USB stick and if is working well on a Toshiba P50 laptop w/Nvidia GT740M graphic card and 12 GB memory. Found the network and connected and has stayed connected without incident or any crash behavior for about 5 1?2 hours now. The only snag has been trying to install the network printer which may or may not be possible booting from USB - I'm just a noob.

So far I'm really impressed. Have imported music and photos, surfed with Midori, set up email, blah blah housekeeping with no problems except the aforementioned. it's very fast and elegant....YMMV

[Stinger]

Hi christopher9
welcome to the Ubuntu forums.
I've installed Freya on my box an have been running it for 5 days, it's the only OS on this box, no serious bugs to report yet only three small ones.
Freya is really speedy and the screen seems very crisp compared to Luna. Audience, the default video player, has some flaws but it's getting better and better for each update, the same goes for switchboard.
All in all I'm very impressed with the quality of this beta, especially the speed. From I hit the on-switch on this box to I have a useful desktop, it takes less than 20 seconds, bios booting included, and this is on an old 320GB ATA disc.
Ps. I really like the new desktop switcher
PPs. If you need a menu editor for slingshot, menulibre is now available in the software-center ( I used it for htop )

Freya has a UEFI bug which, when installed, prevents it from booting on such systems. So if your pc has UEFI, you should do testing with the live media only. The bug is targeted for Freya beta2.
If you consider beta testing Freya on a non UEFI pc, like me, please do yourself a favor and backup your data before installing, better safe than sorry, especially when it comes to development versions.