We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of ubermix 2.02 and 2.02 "lite". The 2.02 update brings with it improved compatibility with Apple hardware. While ubermix 2.0 could always install directly on Intel-based Macintosh systems, in some cases it could be challenging to get the wireless interface configured because the latest systems not only have a custom Broadcom wireless card, but they also lack a wired network port, making it difficult to download and install the appropriate driver. Now ubermix 2.0 includes in the install package for the latest Broadcom wireless driver in the image itself, significantly easing the install process.

For those not yet ready to give up on bulky, clunky, and slow Mac OS, ubermix 2.02 makes it easy to setup a side-by-side, dual-boot installation of ubermix and Mac OS, without losing any existing data on the Mac OS side of the installation. Be sure to check out http://wiki.ubermix.org/page/Apple_Mac for details and instructions.

The version 2.02 release also introduces ubermix lite, a trimmed down version of ubermix for older hardware. First off, ubermix lite is a refactored, 32-bit version that will run on older Intel and AMD hardware that don't support 64-bit, like older Asus EeePCs, Acer Aspire netbooks, and desktop systems from the mid-2000s. It's launcher shares much of the design language of full ubermix 2.0, however does not require any sort of graphics acceleration, making it fast and light on older systems. And its memory footprint is smaller, making it a better fit for systems with 1Gb or less of internal memory.

When you are ready to get going with either ubermix on your Mac or ubermix lite on your older hardware, head over to the Download and Install page to grab the latest version.

Ubuntu has always shipped with a great collection of desktop wallpaper images, selected via a wallpaper contest prior to each release. In the past, installing wallpapers from a prior version required a bit of work, but with ubermix 2.0 you can now install every wallpaper (all 177 of them) from every version with one simple command. If you would like to check them all out on your ubermix machine, simply do the following:

1. Open a terminal by selecting "Terminal" from "Activities:Accessories" or pressing ctrl-alt-t on your keyboard
2. Type "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-wallpapers*" (no quotes) and press the enter key.

(Note: you must be connected to the Internet for this to work.)

Once complete, close the terminal window, right click anywhere on the desktop, and choose "Change Desktop Background" to see all of your new choices.

Just a few samples are below. Enjoy!

We are pleased to announce that ubermix 2.0 stable is now available! ubermix 2.0 brings with it two years of expertise and ideas from all over the world, and is a significant update to the ubermix platform, bringing with it a number of key features, including:

• Built on the latest underpinnings from Ubuntu, version 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr)
• Broad hardware support, including the latest tablet and hybrid devices
• 64-bit kernel and applications, bringing support for larger memory configurations and applications
• Modern, easy-to-use interface with plenty to love for novices and power-users alike
• A larger base of more than 80 powerful applications, including greater opportunity to code and learn to code
• Significant improvements to the installation and customization options, providing greater speed, flexibility and performance for large deployments
• Across the board refinement of all ubermix-specific customizations, making this the most powerful, reliable ubermix ever!

For further details, have a look at our prior post about the release candidate.

It is important to note that ubermix 2 might not run well (or at all) on some of your oldest hardware. For example systems with just 512Mb of RAM and/or a video card lacking acceleration will struggle. And if a system is so old that it is only 32-bit capable, ubermix 2 will not install. While an ubermix 2.0 "lite" is currently under consideration, for such applications, ubermix 1.x is still available, will continue to receive updates through version 1.6, and will be fully supported through the end of 2015.

Also, please bear with us while we update our site and documentation - there is much to go through! We should have everything up to snuff in short order.

If you are ready to give ubermix 2 a go, head on over to the Download and Install page for instructions. And if you need help, be sure to check the wiki and forums.

Thank you to the entire ubermix community for all your support and encouragement! A big thank you to Andrew Schwab, Mike Vollmert, Larry Rego, Thomas Hartley,  Bob Henderson, Urko Masse, David Hicks, Jason Ricker, Gary Hampton, and the entire Inyo County tech team for your help and support with development and testing. You're all awesome!

One of the best things about ubermix is its flexibility, both on and off the web. Yet there are times when a Linux plugin simply isn't available for a particular site. But have no fear, Pipelight is here!

Pipelight is a combination of WINE and a browser plugin that enables using web plugins designed for Windows directly in Firefox on ubermix. Thought you couldn't run Netflix because you can't run Silverlight? Think again! As of this writing, Pipelight supports the following plugins:

Supported standard plugins:

•   silverlight5.1
•   silverlight5.0
•   silverlight4
•   flash
•   unity3d
•   widevine

Additional plugins (experimental):

•   shockwave
•   foxitpdf
•   grandstream
•   adobereader
•   hikvision
•   npactivex
•   roblox
•   vizzedrgr
•   viewright-caiway
•   triangleplayer
•   x64-unity3d
•   x64-flash

Installing Pipelight on ubermix is easy. Simply open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t) and type the following commands to install:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends pipelight-multi
sudo pipelight-plugin --update

Once complete, Pipelight will be ready to install the plugins of your choosing. To find out which plugins it supports, type:

pipelight-plugin --help

Once you know the name of the plugin you want, simply type a command similar to the following to install it:

pipelight-plugin --enable silverlight

...replacing "silverlight" with the name of the plugin you wish to install, of course, if you want to install one of the others.

A few websites, like Netflix, still need one more step to work, because they check to see what operating system you are running before sending the appropriate video. To fake them out into thinking you are running Windows, install install the UAControl or User Agent Overrider extensions and use one of the following user agents:

• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20120427 Firefox/15.0a1
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:23.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/23.0

Viola! Instant access to even more content on your favorite OS!

You may have noticed I said Firefox and not Chrome. It would be nice if plugin support was still available in Chrome, but Google in their infinite wisdom decided to disable external plugins as of version 35. Hopefully, they will come to their senses very soon.

Photo Credit: Bill Selak via Compfight cc