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Jammy looks to up its range of customisation options
Ubuntu 22.04 May Offer a Choice of System Accent Colour
A choice of system accent colour could be on offer in Ubuntu 22.04 when it arrives this
spring.
Developers are currently considering patching in support to let users pick an accent colour
used within the Yaru theme.
A palette of pre-set colours would be available to pick from, similar to those macOS and Windows
11 offer their users, as inline with similar approaches taken by downstream distros like
elementary OS and Linux Mint.
Which is pretty exciting.
The exact line-up of colours/shades is still under discussion but is expected to be around
7 or 8 choices.
One idea is to use colours listed in the Ubuntu brand palette.
Personally, I’m hoping for a more diverse set of hues than that, similar to the kinds
of accent colours available on other DEs and OSes.
After all, all of the colours choices presented have to work as accent colours first and foremost,
not just rep the Ubuntu brand.
There’s also the question of what happens to the accent colour used in the Ubuntu GNOME
Shell theme, as GNOME Shell themes and GTK themes are currently changed separately.
The plan is to have the Shell inherit the chosen highlight but some additional work
will be required to make that happen.
Now, I must stress that this feature is in flux; nothing is committed, merged, or accepted.
Also, Ubuntu 22.04 is an LTS release which mean if the effort currently underway isn’t
polished enough by April it’s unlikely to be included.
But hey: glass half full, right?
That this is in development — and real working code — at all is really encouraging.
Fingers crossed it makes it across the finish line!
Notification or nag-ification?
Ubuntu 22.04 Dailies Show an Ubuntu Pro Notification on Login
When I made about the new “Ubuntu Pro” section in Ubuntu 22.04‘s software settings
panel I said the banner wasn’t a nag screen or a desktop notification but something you
had to go out of your way to see.
Not so in the latest daily builds of the Jammy Jellyfish.
Upon login today I was greeted by a desktop notification asking if I ‘want to enable
Ubuntu Pro?’.
Two actions are available when click on the notification: “Don’t remind me again”
and “Enable Ubuntu Pro” (though thanks to a bug the notification will appear on every
login even if you click “don’t remind me” – but that will get fixed soon).
Clicking the “Enable Ubuntu Pro” buttons opens the Ubuntu Pro tab in the Software & Updates
utility:
Here one has the ability to ‘attach’ a machine to an active Ubuntu Pro subscription.
Interestingly the blurb mentions that Ubuntu Pro is free for personal use on up to 3 machines.
Clicking the “attach this machine” button opens a dialog with a link to “sign in to
your Ubuntu Advantage account”, and offers a field to enter an Ubuntu Advantage token.
Which is where I get a bit confused.
Ubuntu Pro was originally a support offering for AWS customers.
More recently, it is being offered as something businesses and other enterprise users can
opt-in in to.
Now it’s being spotlighted to all users.
It could be that Ubuntu Advantage is going to be rebranded as Ubuntu Pro.
Indeed, many of the links about Ubuntu Pro in these dialogs/panels open web pages about
Ubuntu Advantage.
Ubuntu Advantage is essential a commercial support package for Ubuntu giving you phone/email
help.
Anyway, since Ubuntu Advantage/Ubuntu Pro is free for personal use (albeit without official
phone and ticket support) there is perhaps some merit to letting more people know about
it — at least in theory.
I enabled it and added my Advantage token and it accepted it.
That said, from what we know of it so far, Ubuntu Pro isn’t something most users are
going to be interested in (there is a benefit to Livepatch and EMS support but as this LTS
hasn’t even had its 5 years of proper support yet that’s hardly a pressing concern).
But things could change yet.
The current Jammy daily builds may show a Ubuntu Pro notification to all users but there’s
nothing to say Ubuntu will continue to do that by the time the stable release rolls
out (though also nothing to say it won’t, or that it shouldn’t).
I guess we’ll have to wait and see as development continues.
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