Jessie Freeze, Reviews, and Linux Outlaws Quitting

Today in Linux news, Debian 8 is frozen and Canonical confirms an Ubuntu tablet is in the works. Two reviews landed yesterday on the Kano Linux computer, one today on Ubuntu, and another on openSUSE 13.2. Linux Australia is now censoring its mailing list and Jack Wallen says Ubuntu 14.10 was a boring release because they are in a holding pattern.

Ubuntu 14.10 didn't perform so well for Dedoimedo.com. In his post titled "No Rainbows," Dedoimedo.com suffered what he called "a horrible and inexplicable regression." Artifacting was a major problem with Ubuntu 14.10 graphics on his hardware and he not only dubbed Ubuntu "the Urethric Unifail" but concluded by giving it a 0/10.

In related news, Jack Wallen wrote of Ubuntu GNOME 14.10 today saying it, unlike Ubuntu 14.10 that was about as exciting as "growing grass," shipped with "some really impressive features." He says Ubuntu is "in a state of holding because of Unity 8/Mir. Until that happens, Ubuntu version upgrades will be about bug fixes and not much more." He goes on to say that GNOME developers are succeeding where Ubuntu is struggling: unification.

In the last week or two a couple headlines mentioned a collaboration between Canonical and Intel on an Ubuntu tablet. Well, today, The Var Guy said that Andrew Bernstein wrote them and said that yep, Canonical is involved in developing an Intel x86-based Ubuntu tablet. The Var Guy writer Christopher Tozzi quotes Bernstein saying pre-orders will start late November/early December.

The Register today reviewed recently released openSUSE 13.2. Scott Gilbertson begins by saying openSUSE's tradition of a beautiful default desktop hasn't been lost. While KDE is still "a great, green-tinged experience," he says there's a lot more for GNOME users in this release. After a rundown of features and improvements of GNOME, Gilbertson says the openSUSE Btrfs is stable and reliable. In fact, his whole experience was such that he concluded, "If you're looking for a solid, stable system that won't let you down openSUSE 13.2 fits the bill."

In other news:

* Debian 8.0 "Jessie" Enters Feature Freeze, Final in about six months

* Linux Australia puts curbs on mailing lists

* Hands-on with the Kano: The Linux kit that wants to help kids love coding

* Kano: The Can-Do Coding Kit for Kids of All Ages

* The Linux Outlaws Last Stand