Note: Ubuntu versions follow a Year.Month scheme and are released every six months. Something like 4.10 would have been released in October of 2004. Six months later in April 2005 comes version 5.04.

4.10 Warty Warthog

Warty was the the release that started it all, and turned this strangely named newcomer distro into something people were talking about. There was little from a technical standpoint that was particularly impressive, but even this first release was uncommonly user-friendly compared to many other Linux distributions at the time.

5.04 Hoary Hedgehog

This was the first release to use X.org instead of XFree86, which is now all but forgotten among modern distributions. A lot of new features came with Hoary, notably power options such as suspend, hibernate and standby support. This was also the first time Ubuntu had a built-in update manager and notifier.

Hoary also included some additional Live CD tools like Kickstart, which allows for multiple identical installs, and unified the hardware detection on the Live CD and installed system. This meant that the Live CD could be a much more accurate gauge of how well the installed system would work with your hardware.

5.10 Breezy Badger

With language support greatly increased, Breezy was the most accessible release to date. This release also included improved Bluetooth support, laptop functionality, logical volume management and printer/scanner detection. Usplash was introduced in Breezy, allowing for more graphical startups.

Additionally, Breezy came with an improved installer that included a special OEM install so that equipment manufacturers would have a better way to deploy Ubuntu. The ability to dual boot with other operating systems was improved as well, along with better partitioning.

6.06 Dapper Drake

This was the first LTS (Long Term Support) release. Originally planned as 6.04, release was delayed for 2 months so that the final release could be solid enough to warrant the LTS name. Beginning with Dapper, it starts to look more like the Ubuntu we know today. Dapper included an all new graphical installer, network manager, and support for USB installations.

6.10 Edgy Eft

Coming so close behind Dapper, Edgy was a somewhat minor release. The most notable change was probably the switch to Upstart instead of the traditional init system. Upstart was designed to handle not just the order of scripts in system startup, but also events that took place after startup was complete (like plugging in a USB drive). Details on exactly why they wanted to replace init and how they came up with Upstart can be found here.

7.04 Feisty Fawn

Arguably the biggest usability improvement found in Feisty was the assistance Ubuntu provided in acquiring proprietary content (Flash, Java, binary video drivers, etc) once the system was installed. Prior to that, getting Flash or Nvidia drivers working properly could prove to be a major headache, and turned off a lot of prospective users. This also marked the first time Compiz, the 3D desktop effects layer, was included with Ubuntu.

7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

Gutsy, while not a particularly innovative release, still included a fair batch of useful changes. For many, a valuable new feature was the inclusion of NTFS-3G which allowed for full read and write capability to NTFS formatted partitions. Also notable was the support for AppArmor, a application security framework for Linux.

8.04 Hardy Heron

This was Ubuntu’s second Long Term Support release, and came with a large number of improvements. Hardy was the first version to include Wubi, the Windows-based Ubuntu installer, as well as the now standard packages PulseAudio, Brasero, and Totem. Finally, this was the first Ubuntu release to support KVM virtualization.

8.10 Intrepid Ibex

Intrepid was the first to include the popular Live USB Creator, which is one of the many tools that can make remixing Ubuntu surprisingly easy. Another of the more interesting things about Intrepid was the option to easily set up encrypted directories within your home using ecryptfs-utils. This was also the first release to enable a Guest account, stated as being “sufficiently safe to lend your laptop to someone else for a quick email check.”

9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Ext4, the long awaited filesystem, had its Ubuntu debut in Jaunty, though not yet as default. Bootup speed an other performance tweaks were introduced, and Wacom tablets and multiple monitor setups became much simpler to use. Jaunty also included a newly designed notification system coming out of the desktop panel.

9.10 Karmic Koala

The current stable release, as of this writing, and soon to be replaced by Lucid Lynx. Karmic brought us ext4 as the default filesystem, the first look at the Ubuntu Software Center, and the somewhat controversial GRUB2. Not to be left out of the cloud computing craze, Karmic shipped with Ubuntu One personal cloud service, and the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Images.

10.04 Lucid Lynx

We’ll be checking out Lucid in more detail as the release date (April 29, 2010). The development versions can be found here. So far, Lucid plans to completely remove the hardware handler hal, set Nouveau as the default Nvidia driver, add social network integration, and in a that move many will find surprising, change Firefox’s default search to Yahoo!

That post was written six months ago and many things have changed during this period of time: release of Ubuntu Intrepid, newer Mac4Lin theme, better globalmenu applet etc. As such, I have decided to rewrite this tutorial for the Intrepid platform.

Disclaimer: This tutorial was based on Ubuntu Intrepid and Mac4Lin RC1 themes. I don’t guarantee that it will work on other distro or other version of Ubuntu.

Download the Mac4Lin themes and extract it to your Home folder. You should see a Mac4Lin_v1.0_RC1 folder that contains all the configuration files in your Home directory.

Preparing the installation path

Next, in your Home directory, press Ctrl + H to reveal all the hidden files. Check if any of the three folders .themes, .fonts, .emerald exist. If not, create three folders and name them .themes, .fonts, .emerald. Create another folder within .emerald folder and name it themes.

Installing the Mac4Lin themes

Open a terminal, type in:

cd Mac4Lin_v1.0_RC1
sh Mac4Lin_Install_v1.0_RC.sh

This will install the Gnome themes (window border and icons), change the wallpaper and the panel background.

During the installation process, the installer will ask you for root access in order to install certain components (refer to the image below). Type y to continue.

After the installation, your desktop should look something like this:

Installing the AWN dock

(The AWN dock may/may not work in all machine. If you find that it does not work after following the instructions below, you may want to try out Cairo dock that is less demanding on the machine.)

The AWN dock requires a compositing manager to work. If your system supports Compiz, it will be able to run AWN as well. if not, we have to install the X compositing manager.

Go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance, click on the Visual Effects tab.  Click on the Extra radio button. If you see the following image, then your computer does not support Compiz. (If you don’t see the image below, proceed directly to install AWN.)

You have to install the alternative X composition manager

sudo apt-get install xcompmgr

Add it to your auto-start list. Go to System -> Preferences -> Session. Add the following:

Install AWN

The AWN dock is already included in the Intrepid repository, so you can easily install it by clicking this link. Alternatively, you can also type the following command in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator

Once the installation is done, go to Preferences -> AWN Manager. On the left pane, click on the Themes. On the right, click Add. Navigate to the Mac4Lin_v1.0_RC1 folder. Open up the AWN folder and select Mac4Lin_AWN_v1.0_RC.tar.gz. Click Open. The AWN theme should be installed now. Check the radio button beside the theme and click Apply. Click Close.

Before we launch the AWN, we need to remove the bottom panel so that there won’t be an overlap. At the bottom panel, right-click the mouse and select Delete This Panel. Activate AWN by going to Applications -> Accessories -> Avant Window Navigator. You should see the AWN loading up in the bottom of the screen. To add applications to the dock, click on the Applications at the top panel and navigate to the particular application you want to add. Drag the application icon to the dock. That’s it. You should see something like the image below:

To start AWN everytime you log in, go to System -> Preferences -> Sessions. Click Add. Fill up the following:

Click Add, follow by Close. AWN will now automatically load when you login to your computer.

Installing OSX font

Go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance. Click on the Fonts tab Change the following field to the same as the image below:

Make sure the Subpixel smoothing (LCDs) button is checked. Click Close.

Installing Global menu

There is a repository for Ubuntu Intrepid that you can add to the sources.list, but it is not the updated version (0.6) and it is buggy. Instead, we will download the latest version (0.7.1) from the code homepage. In the future when the repository is updated to the newer and more stable version, I will update this post again.

For 32-bit machine

Download gnome-globalmenu-0.7.1-1.fc10.i386.rpm to your Home folder from the Globalmenu Google code site.

Note that the file is of rpm format. We need to use alien to convert it to deb format.

In the terminal, type:

sudo apt-get install alien
sudo alien --scripts gnome-globalmenu-0.7.1-1.fc10.i386.rpm

This will create a gnome-globalmenu-0.7.1-1.fc10.i386.deb file in your Home folder. Double-click on the deb file to activate the installer. Click Install Package to install Globalmenu.

For 64-bit machine

Open your text-editor (Applications -> Accessories -> Text Editor).

Copy and paste the following:

# Uncomment to load the GTK module
export GTK_MODULES=globalmenu-gnome
# Uncomment to tell the GTK module to open a Gtk
# TreeView for all menus in the application you start.
# export GNOMENU_FUN=1
# Uncomment to disable global menu.
# export GNOMENU_DISABLED=1
# Uncomment to print a lot of debugging messages
# export GNOMENU_VERBOSE=1
# Uncomment to save the debugging messages to the given file.
# export GNOMENU_LOG_FILE=/tmp/gnomenu.log
# uncomment to disable the plugin for specific programs.
# export GTK_MENUBAR_NO_MAC="fast-user-switch-applet"

Save the file as .gnomerc in the Home folder.

In your terminal,

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to the end of the file. Save and close.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/globalmenu-team/ubuntu intrepid main

Back in your terminal,

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome2-globalmenu

On the right of the top panel, remove the logout icon. Still on the right hand side of the top panel, right click and select ‘Add to panel‘. Scroll down the list and add ‘Search for files‘. This will add the spotlight icon to the panel.

On the left of the top panel, right click and select ‘Add to panel‘. Scroll down the list and add Main Menu and Global Menu Panel Applet.

The Globalmenu might not appear or work well after you have added it. Logout and login again and you should see the globalmenu working perfectly on the top panel.

Right click on the globalmenu and select Preferences. Check “Enable Global Menu” and unchecked “Icon”.

The globalmenu is compatible with most of the GTK application. However, some programs, such as Firefox will not work with it.

Creating Dashboard effect

We will use a combination of screenlets and Compiz widget plugin to achieve the dashboard effect.

If you have not installed Screenlets, click here to install.

If you have not installed Compiz Configuration Settings Manager, click here to install.

Alternatively, you can also type the following command in terminal to install:

sudo apt-get install screenlets compizconfig-settings-manager

Go to System->Preferences->CompizConfig Settings Manager. On the Left, click on Desktop. On the right, put a check beside ‘Widget layer’

Go to Applications –>Accessories->Screenlets. Activate the widgets that you want to display. Right click on the widget and select ‘Properties’. Go to Options tab and select ‘Treat as widget’. Do this for all the widgets that you have activated.

You can now see your dashboard in action by pressing F9.

Fixing up some small detail

Until now, your desktop should be very close to a Mac desktop, but there are still some small details such as the Gnome icon at the top panel, mouse cursor etc. Let’s fix them up now.

Replace the apple logo

1. Download the apple icon (Right-click and select “save link as”).

2. Go to Places –> Home Folder. Press Ctrl + H to reveal the hidden files.

3. Navigate to /.icons/Mac4Lin_Icons_v1.0_RC/scalable/places. Scroll down to find the images distributor-logo.png, gnome-main-menu.png, main-menu.png and start-here.png. Note that all of them are the same image. Rename them to distributor-logo.png.old, gnome-main-menu.png.old, main-menu.png.old and start-here.png.old respectively.

4. Now, with the apple icon that you have downloaded, make four copies and rename them to distributor-logo.png, gnome-main-menu.png, main-menu.png and start-here.png. Copy and paste all of them to the folder.

5. Logout and login again. The logo at the top panel should change to the apple icon now.

Changing mouse cursor

Go to System –> Preferences –> Appearance. Select Customize. Click on the Pointer tab. Select Mac4Lin_Cursors_v1.0_RC. Click Close.

Configuring usplash screen

Until now, you have done up the interior, it’s time to fix the exterior: usplash screen and grub screen.

Install startupmanager by clicking here or type the following command in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install startupmanager

Go to System -> Administration -> Startup-Manager. Click on the Appearance tab.

Press the Manage bootloader themes button. This will pop up a window allowing you to select the background image for the GRUB.

Click on the Add button and navigate to File System –> Home –> Username –> Mac4Lin_v1.0_RC1 –> GRUB. You should see three files. Refer to the below screenshots on how each file looks like. Pick the one that you like best.

Back to the main window, select the image from the drop down bar. Remember to check the box “Use background image for bootloader menu”.

There is a bug in Ubuntu Intrepid that prevent the user from changing the usplash screen. We have to do a workaround using splashy. Here’s the hack for it:

Remove the default usplash

sudo apt-get autoremove usplash

Download these two files to your desktop:

libsplashy1_0.3.10-1_i386.deb
splashy_0.3.10-1_i386.deb

Double-click the downloaded files to install.

Download the osx-splash splashy theme file to your Home folder.

In your terminal,

sudo splashy_config –i ~/osx-splash.tar.gz
sudo mv /etc/splashy/config.xml /etc/splashy/config.xml.old
sudo cp /etc/splashy/themes/osx-splash/config.xml /etc/splashy/config.xml

Now, we need to edit the GRUB file

gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Scroll down till you find the kernel entry. Append the term vga=792 to the end of the kernel line (see screenshot below). Save and close.

That’s it.

Complete Screenshots

Grub screen

Login screen

Intrepid Mac OSX desktop

Intrepid Mac OSX desktop with dashboard effect

Uninstallation

If you want to change the theme back to the original setting, here is what you need to do:

1. Remove the globalmenu from the top panel

2. Remove all the installed files:

sudo apt-get autoremove splashy libsplashy1 gnome-globalmenu

3. Restore the usplash theme and remove the vga=792 from the GRUB file.

sudo apt-get install usplash

4. Uninstall the Mac4Lin themes

cd Mac4Lin_v1.0_RC
sh Mac4Lin_Uninstall_v1.0_RC.sh

Enjoy!

References: Ubuntu Forum, Splashy, Bauer-Power

Netatalk is a kernel level implementation of the AppleTalk Protocol Suite that allows any Unix/BSD system to run as a file, print and time server for any Mac machine.

While the Netatalk package is included in the Ubuntu Intrepid’s repository, the package is broken and does not work in the way it is intended to. The following instructions can help you to build, install and configure Netatalk to work in your Ubuntu Intrepid (It works in Ubuntu Hardy too).

In your terminal,

mkdir -p ~/src/netatalk
cd ~/src/netatalk
sudo apt-get install devscripts cracklib2-dev dpkg-dev libssl-dev build-essential
sudo apt-get build-dep netatalk
apt-get source netatalk
cd netatalk-2.0.3
DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=ssl dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
sudo debi

That’s it. Netatalk should now be installed and started.

You will have to start everytime you log in.

To start Netatalk,

sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk start

To restart Netatalk

sudo /etc/init.d/netatalk restart

To Connect to Ubuntu From Mac OS X

In your Mac OS X, open the Finder. On the menu, click Go -> Connect to server.

Enter the IP address of your Ubuntu machine and click Connect.

It should ask you for verification. Enter your login name and password.

You should now see your Ubuntu Home folder on the left pane of Finder.

Enjoy!

[Reference: Ubuntu Forum]