Ubuntu 15.10 Features

Major 5 features:

1. New Overlay Scrollbars

2. Overlay Scrollbars in Ubuntu 15.10

3. Overlay Scrollbars in Ubuntu 15.10

4. Ubuntu 15.10 features new scrollbars.

Canonical has dropped its own Unity Overlay Scrollbars, which were thin, hidden, and had hard-to-hit pop-out handles, and replaced them with upstream GNOME’s take.

GNOME overlay scrollbars are auto-expand when mouse over so as to save space in applications and have a large ‘grab’ area to make them easier to move.

Unity 7.3.3

‘Unity has received some small fixes and usability improvements’

Unity, the default desktop shell, has been handed a batch of small fixes and usability improvements for Ubuntu 15.10.

For example, you can now drag and drop apps from the Unity Dash to the desktop to create shortcuts, and navigate through Dash results using keyboard navigation keys.

The Unity Dash search box text and BFB tooltip no longer make mention of ‘online sources’ when you have online source searching set to ‘disabled’ under System Settings > Privacy.

Other changes in Unity 7.3.3:

You can now drag and drop apps from the Dash to the desktop to create shortcuts

Page up/down keyboard navigation works as scroll in the Dash

Dash title & BFB tooltip is updated based on your privacy settings

Session exit buttons now have a click effect

Fix to prevent ‘shutdown’ of computer when screen is locked

Active app icons now show unfolded when launcher accordion triggered

Fix for full screen menubar

Fixes issues with ‘show desktop’ that caused window decoration for two windows of same app to vanish

Dash: Non-expandable category headers skipped in keyboard navigation

Dash: Non-expandable category headers are no longer highlighted on mouse over

Dash: screenreader and KeyNav fixes

New setting to control the show-now delay (when pressing Alt key)

Logic tweak to stop adjacent menu opening when moving from an indicator icon to its menu

Linux Kernel 4.2

The Ubuntu 15.10 kernel version is 4.2, released at the end of August.

This brings better hardware support, including initial support for Intel’s 64-bit “Broxton” Atom chips. There’s also new AMD GPU driver supporting recent Radeon GPUs, and F2FS file-system encryption support.

Ubuntu Make

Ubuntu Make, a command-line utility that makes installing popular developer tools easier on Ubuntu, now supports even more platforms, frameworks and services, including a full Android development environment.

Persistent Network Interface Names

Ubuntu 15.10 introduces stateless persistent network interface names — a technical feature that, for most of us, has little bearing on how Ubuntu runs.

In short it allows interface names for networking hardware to be maintained between reboots, kernel updates, driver changes or hardware being unplugged or removed.

Updated Apps

Application updates (naturally) feature.

Firefox 41

Chromium 45

LibreOffice 5.0.2

Nautilus (aka ‘Files’) 3.14.2

Totem (aka ‘Videos’) 3.16

Rhythmbox 3.2.1

GNOME Terminal 3.16

Eye of GNOME 3.16

Empathy 3.12.10

Shotwell 0.22