Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal is here already. A lot of new features has been added, but overall performance remains a major cause of concern. Feedback from our readers also point to such a direction. You can find a number of interesting reactions from users in our previous post discussing Ubuntu and Project Butter. Meanwhile, lets find out what all can be done to make the latest Ubuntu 12.10 fast and usable as it should have been in the first place. 20 things to do after installing Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal.

"Avoid the pain of Windows 8. All new Ubuntu 12.10 is out now," reads Canonical's official banner announcing the arrival of Ubuntu's latest iteration, Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal. Pretty strong language, I must say. It is a normal practice in the corporate world to NOT name their biggest competitors in an official announcement like this. I think Canonical have made up their mind to break all conventions and go all out against the Redmond Giant.

I'm a fairly satisfied Ubuntu 12.04 LTS user and I'm quite optimistic about the forthcoming changes to Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal. But that doesn't mean they both are somehow "perfect" or something. Unity, which was a huge departure from the traditional GNOME 2.0 desktop, has been around just for an year or two. Though I generally like the idea, one gets easily frustrated because of bugs like these, Compiz crashes, slow loading launcher etc. To put it bluntly, when compared to rock-solid GNOME 2.0, Unity and the underlying GNOME 3.0 is not yet there in terms of performance or reliability. Ubuntu desperately needs the kind of attention-to-detail Android received with 4.1 Jelly Bean release.

On the WiFi front, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" was a big disappointment for me. Nothing seemed to work until I started using an alternative network manager called Wicd. Things are slowly starting to get better with each new update in Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal, but not there yet. So I went on to check for availability of any new drivers. I was in for a surprise. There was no Additional Drivers app in Ubuntu 12.10 anymore. 

The Ubuntu juggernaut is moving ahead and huge improvements and brand new features keeps pouring in. Every new Ubuntu release cycle gives you the impression that, things have really been improved and enough features have been added, until you start seeing the changes being done in the next release cycle. Case in point is the latest Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal Beta 1 and Beta 2 releases. Lets see what makes Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal one of our favorite releases till date. 23 things new in Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal.