Secrets and Roadmap of Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail."

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Caninical has announced the name of upcoming Ubuntu release in this blog.

This name follows the earlier nomenclature of Ubuntu, i.e. follows the alphabetical order and is named after a creature with an adjective as the first word.

Ubuntu 12.04 starts with P (Precise), 12.10 with Q (Quantal) and 13.04 will start with R (Raring).

The second name will start with the same letter and will be named after a creature.

This release is scheduled to be out on 25th April, 2013 and will feature better integration of Ubuntu with mobile platform.

Developers will concentrate on battery life, power and flexibility of Ubuntu on mobile devices like laptops, tablets and netbooks.

Roadmap.

Ubuntu 13.04 Alpha 1 – 1 December
Ubuntu 13.04 Alpha 2 – 7 February
Ubuntu 13.04 Beta – 7 March
Ubuntu 13.04 – 25 April

The ringtail (Bassariscus astutus) is a mammal of the raccoon family (thus not actually a cat), native to arid regions of North America. It is also known as the ringtail cat, ring-tailed cat miner's cat or "marv cat", and is also sometimes mistakenly called a "civet cat" (after similar, though unrelated, cat-like omnivores of Asia and Africa). The ringtail is sometimes called a cacomistle, though this term seems to be more often used to refer to Bassariscus sumichrasti.

The ankle joint is flexible and able to rotate over 180 degrees, a trait helping make it an agile climber. Their considerable tail provides balance for negotiating narrow ledges and limbs, even allowing them to reverse directions by performing a cartwheel. Ringtails also can ascend narrow passages by stemming (pressing all feet on one wall and their back against the other or pressing both right feet on one wall and both left feet on the other), and wider cracks or openings by ricocheting between the walls

The ringtail is said to be easily tamed, and can make an affectionate pet and effective mouser. Miners and settlers once kept pet ringtails to keep their cabins free of vermin; hence, the common name of "miner's cat" (though in fact the ringtail is no more cat than it is civet). The ringtails would move into the miners' and settlers' encampments and become accepted by humans in much the same way that some early domestic cats were theorized to have done. At least one biologist in Oregon has joked that the ringtail is one of two species— the domestic cat and the ringtail— that thus "domesticated humans" due to that pattern of behavior.

Often a hole was cut in a small box and placed near a heat source (perhaps a stove) as a dark, warm place for the animal to sleep during the day, coming out after dark to rid the cabin of mice.

source: Wikipedia