Ubuntu 11.04 Nearing It's "End of Life"

Well, it's that time again.  Another Operating System is nearing it's end of life.  And nope, I'm not talking about the April 2013 Doomsday for Windows XP users.  This time it is Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal".  For those are are unfamiliar with the "Natty" it was the first time user's saw the Unity Desktop.  From that day forward Canonical would either have people who loved Unity or those who didn't care at all for it.  Some of us use it and have become somewhat fond of it, but still care for the traditional look of the Gnome/Ubuntu desktop environment.

Either way, if you are still using the 11.04 release of Ubuntu it is time to upgrade.  No need to panic, as "Natty Narwhal" will continue to get it's updates and security patches until October 28th, 2012.  You can still use 11.04 past the 28th if you like.  However, you will not be able to get any updates and this leaves an open security issue that you definitely don't want.  You can use the system updater from within Ubuntu to upgrade your installation.

It is suggested for the best upgrade experience, that if you are still running Ubuntu 11.04, unless you are going to do a clean install of Ubuntu 12.04.1 it will not matter.  Just backup your files and install away.  However, if you are upgrading from 11.04 here is the path you need to take.
-First, upgrade to Ubuntu 11.10.
-Then upgrade the installation to 12.04.1.

Personally, I like to take the time to do a fresh install of my Operating Systems rather than upgrading.  It not only gives you a fresh start.  It also gives you back a lot of used storage space that you probably weren't utilizing anyways.  I mean, we all install packages and after a few uses, we move on to something else.  Then these packages are left behind taking up space.

The choice is yours, but either way.  To stay secure, you need to upgrade.

For more visit: Ubuntu.com

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Installing LXDE in Ubuntu 11.10

As we continue our search for alternate desktop environments for Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot' we now arrive at LXDE.  LXDE is short for the "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment".  It's mission is a simple one: to be "extremely fast performing".  LXDE is great for older computers or computers with lower resources than most have by today's standards.  Running LXDE will give you the best of both worlds: a great experience as your desktop environment, and the latest advantages with Ubuntu.

The great thing about LXDE is that even if you don't use Ubuntu, you can install LXDE in other distributions as well.  Another perk for LXDE is it makes a nice desktop environment for people who are trying to migrate from the Windows world.  You can even customize LXDE to a certain extent as well.

So without further delay, feel free to give our video below a watch:

Ubuntu 11.10: Installing LXDE

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Help!: Ubuntu Video 2: Intro to the Unity Desktop

Checkout the latest video in our Help!: Ubuntu video series.  This video covers a quick introduction to the Unity Desktop within Ubuntu 11.04.  Unity has gotten a lot of mixed reactions from other Ubuntu users.  Personally, I feel like Unity seems to be more aimed for the crowd using touch based devices.  However, I'm sure there is quite a crowd of Unity fans out there.  So if you are on the fence about it, or not quite sure what it is, watch below.

*Quick note: for those familiar with Unity, yes.  I am using Unity 2D due to screen recording limitations with stock Unity and OpenGL causing the Unity UI to disappear in finished recordings.

The next video in the series will show how to switch from stock Unity to Unity 2D and even switch the default from Unity to Ubuntu Classic.


As always, you can checkout the rest of my videos on my YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TechieSmarts

Happy surfing!

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