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: