Precise pangolin, or Ubuntu 12.04, to be exact. The newest version of Ubuntu was released yesterday (actually a day early) and, of course, I installed it. Here are some things I’ve noticed about the changes made along with some screen-shots.  The first thing I noticed was that when you open the dash (Unity‘s start menu), the home page no longer consists of shortcuts, but is now just your recent files, recently used programs, and your downloads folder. Not too big of a deal, but still an inconvenience. Secondly, when you maximize a window the launcher no longer auto-hides. I can see the reason, but it does get in the way now and is a little distracting. (Edit: you can turn on auto-hide in Appearance. However, this will hide it even with no windows maximized.) Only one more negative; the scroll function on my trackpad no longer works in file manager windows although it works in other programs. OK, now for the positives: the launcher now changes colors to reflect the predominant color of your background image, just like Windows 8. Rythmbox is now the default music player. The default from 11.10, Banshee, always crashed on my computer. Other than those two things, it’s pretty much the same as the last version (as far as I have seen, at least), which I really liked. I suppose with time I will get used to these changes that bother me and enjoy it just as much as 11.10.

Related articles:

• Ubuntu 12.04 ‘Precise Pangolin’ Released, Changes and Screenshot Tour (ubuntuvibes.com)