It’s been a few weeks since the last drop of unity, and now the unity team has readied the new version of unity 5.2. Let’s walk through how to preview the new features unity 5.2 is bringing, and help test those features using checkbox! Checkbox allows you to get your feedback straight into the hands of the unity developers and report any problems your system may have with the new version of unity. First let’s talk a little bit about what’s new. Note that these features only exist for right now in Unity 3D.
- Multi-monitor support
- You will now see launchers on each of your monitor, and when you scroll across a monitor, you should feel some resistance in order to allow for you to use the launcher on that screen.
- New screen edge detection
- To invoke the launcher, you now need to push (or “scroll into”) against the left of the screen, rather than hover for X seconds. No more hitting the back button in firefox and having the launcher pop up in your way!
Feedback is appreciated on these features especially. Utilize #ubuntu-unity on freenode and checkbox feedback form to let the developers know how they work for you.
Installing
Prerequisites: Make sure you are running the latest version of
precise, and all your packages are up to date. Unfortunately this cannot
be installed on oneiric or any previous ubuntu release.
Also, unity 5.2 did not ship with “the HUD” sadly. So if you have been testing the HUD you will need to use ppa-purge to remove and downgrade your packages. See this post for information on using ppa-purge if you need help doing so.
1) Add the unity ppa (https://launchpad.net/~unity-team/+archive/ppa). You can do this by issuing the following command:
2) Update apt and run a dist upgrade — this should prompt you to upgrade unity and some indicators as well as install checkbox-unity.
3) Restart your unity session by logging out and logging back in again.
Ok, hopefully the upgrade went smooth for you, but if not, head over to freenode #ubuntu-unity channel and let folks know what went wrong.
Testing
So, now that your up and running you can run the through the manual tests the unity team has prepared. Open the dash and type ‘unity testing’. The Checkbox Unity Tests should launch. Checkbox will gather some information on your system and then ask you which tests you wish to run. Once complete you will see a link containing your system report and an option to publish it to launchpad. Use the text box below the link to enter your launchpad email address and then hit submit. This will ensure your results and feedback go to the unity developers.
Please ensure you have finished and submitted your testing results ASAP. The testing window will be closed this Thursday at
8am UTC, in order to give the unity developers time to finish fixing the bugs found. Then unity 5.2 will be pushed to precise and coding on Unity 5.4 will begin.
Filing Bugs
Please file bugs against unity package in launchpad (https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+filebug). When filing, please make sure to tag your bug ‘5.2-rc1’ and mention your running Unity 5.2-rc1 in your description.
Final Thoughts
Don’t hesitate to reach out to the unity team on IRC #ubuntu-unity on freenode at any time or to follow the latest in unity development. Thanks for helping test ubuntu and unity!
Originally posted here by Nicholas Skaggs on Tuesday, January 31, 2012.