Along with Ubuntu 11.04, Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Lubuntu were also release. In this post I'll try to cover the changes in Xubuntu 11.04 - a very interesting Ubuntu flavor based on Xfce.

Xubuntu 11.04 is truly lightweight, using only 184 MB of RAM on startup (I've only tested it in VirtualBox though). It's not as lightweight as Lubuntu, but it has a lot more features and if you don't like Unity or GNOME Shell, you should really consider it.

A note before reading this post: before giving up on Unity without giving it a try... don't. Try Unity for a few days - yes, it's not a finished product but it's actually quite interesting - and if you don't like it then switch.

If you've just upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, there are probably a few things you'll miss, so here is how to get them back as well as some other things you may find useful.

After the usual 6 months of development, Ubuntu 11.04 has finally been released. I usually start these posts with "there haven't been any major or ground-breaking changes" but this time pretty much everything is new with the introduction of Unity as the default interface. Since we've been writing about the new features in Ubuntu 11.04 constantly, in this post we'll only talk about the major new features. Read on!

Unity got its notification area (called Systray by the Ubuntu developers) back a while ago, but only for a few applications: Java apps, Mumble, Wine applications, Skype, and hp-systray. But there's an easy way to either re-enable the Systray for all applications or to whitelist a few applications you can't live without. Read on to learn how to get your systray back!

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal beta 2 has just been released, this being the last beta. Up next: Ubuntu 11.04 final which will be released on April 28th.

Last week, a message on the Ubuntu Devel mailing list pointed out that Unity may not be default in Ubuntu 11.04 after all. After a long discussion, it was decided that Unity will be default, despite the split reactions towards Unity.

The reasons why it was considered to ship the Classic GNOME Desktop instead of Unity were various regressions but most importantly instability and frequently crashes. But it seems most of the crashes have stopped in the recent Unity versions and the remaining bugs will be fixed soon; and the regressions can be avoided: applications can still use the Systray if they are whitelisted and the Classic desktop is still available for everything else (remember: you can login to the classic GNOME desktop by selecting it in the login window!).

I've skipped the last Unity update but with today's update I decided to make a post with the most interesting (though minor) changes in the latest Unity.

A message on the Ubuntu devel mailing list mentions that the current state of Unity will be brought up for discussion and if needed, the Classic GNOME Desktop may be default after all in Ubuntu 11.04:

Since a lot of people want to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal already, I though you'd like to see a video (well actually 2) on how to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04. Remember that starting with Ubuntu 11.04, you can upgrade using the Live CD too.

Firstly, a short introduction of "Lenses" via the Ubuntu wiki: "Lenses used to be known as Places. When referring to code and APIs we still use the term Places, but the user-visible name is Lenses. The Places name will be retired in 11.10".

I've recently came upon a very interesting Unity Lens for Gwibber developed by Ken VanDine and couldn't wait to try it but it didn't really work until the latest Unity update released a few hours ago. You can use the Unity Gwibber Lens to quickly access your Gwibber posts, replies, private messages and so on. And it also comes with a search.

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal beta 1 has just been released! As usual, we'll do a recap of all the new features and changes since the previous milestone (Alpha 3) which of course you already know if you read WebUpd8 daily. But even so, maybe there are some things you've missed so read on to see what's new in Ubuntu 11.04 beta 1 since alpha 3!

If you're subscribed to the Ayatana mailing list (or you can look here - look for "Menus hidden by default"), you probably know the huge discussion behind the AppMenu (Global Menu) which is set to autohide by default in Ubuntu 11.04 (in both Unity and the classic desktop). Apparently even quite a few Ubuntu developers find it confusing.

I didn't find a way to disable the autohide only, but I was reading on Ubuntusecrets.it about disabling the AppMenu altogether and though I'd let you know about 2 ways of disabling the AppMenu: either for a specific application or globally, for all applications but using a different method which should keep you error-free.

sudo apt-get install qtnx

Then when you open Ubuntu Software Center you should see a new "Test drive" button next to the application screenshot. The applications run on a remote server so you must have a decent Internet connection and also, this is not available for all the applications in the Ubuntu Software Center, but nevertheless, this feature sounds awesome. Here's a video I've just recorded so you can see exactly how it works:

The Ubuntu Font Family package has just been updated in Ubuntu 11.04 and it now includes 2 new variants - light and medium:

The Board is a place for quick access to notes, photos, videos, audio and more. It's really hard to describe what The Board really is so take a look at the video below:

Because The Board is still experimental, it was quite hard to try it out but installing it in Ubuntu just got a whole lot easier thanks to the packaging done by Robert Ancell and a PPA set up Lucas Rocha (The Board developer).

Frederico Araújo Mendes has created a very interesting Unity mockup (video) in which he proposes better menus and a social networking widget layer.

In Frederico's Unity, you have a regular dock with some fixed icons and an area for items you open / pin. Clicking the Ubuntu logo in the top left corner will flip the "dock" (just like it was in the "2 sided dock" mockups) and here you'll have basically all the regular menu categories, but displayed on the dock.

Remember Ozone, the theme proposed to become default in Lubuntu 11.04? Well, the theme got some improvements and it's now a lot faster so it was made default starting today. Here's how Ozone looks now:

Remember the "2 sided Unity dock" mockups we've posted last week? Well, Andrea Azzarone (who's patch is also responsible for bringing configurable icon size for the Unity dock), has turned one of the 2 sided Unity docks mockups to reality and you can see it in action in the video below: