Elementary OS Luna Beta 2

Today I want to introduce one of my favourite Linux distribution, elementary OS Luna to you. Based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Luna beta 2 comes with improved multi-monitor support, updated default applications and artwork and more.

Pantheon

Pantheon is the new desktop environment and shell. It consists of the greeter, panel, app launcher, dock , window manager, setting app, and theme. 

Login Screen

The login screen, Pantheon Greeter, is built on LightDM. It features smooth graphics and animation with Clutter, displays the time and date with beautiful typography, and has built-in accessibility.

WingPanel

The top panel is called Wingpanel. It's lighter-weight than the panel in Jupiter (previous version) and boasts a simpler, more refined look. It also features reworked indicators; clicking an indicator reveals a pleasing popover with the relevant items, and the Applications item now opens Slingshot instead of a menu. In addition, the legacy GNOME applets of old have been fully deprecated.

Slingshot

Slingshot is the new app launcher. It displays an optimal 3x5 paged grid of app icons, the result of iterative design and user testing. We’ve targeted three classes of users: those used to the point-and-click/tap mechanism present in modern interfaces, those accustomed to the category-based list view, and those who want full keyboard control including opening, searching, and launching in just a couple of keystrokes. Slingshot is built for speed and utilizes Granite which ensures consistency with the rest of the system.

Plank

The dock is now based on Plank, meaning it’s been completely rewritten in Vala and features LibUnity integration. This allows the dock to show app badges (a count of unread items), progress bars, and contextual quicklist items. Its settings are now integrated with Switchboard instead of being a stand-alone interface.

Switchboard and Expose

Gala replaces Compiz for window management. Built on LibMutter, it offers a light and smoothly-animated experience in addition to support for more complex decoration theming. Power users will love the new workspace management features (workspace switcher and expose) as well.

Default Applications

File Manager

For the default file manager, elementary OS Luna beta 2 uses Pantheon Files, a Marlin fork which not only looks great, but it already has most features you'll need in a file manager. There are even plugins for Ubuntu One or Dropbox available, though they aren't installed by default.

Terminal

Terminal is a lightweight and simple terminal emulator. It makes use of Granite, meaning it has excellent and consistent tab management.

Scratch

Scratch is an always-saved text-editor. Scratch is super lightweight, has great code language support, and is built on a powerful plugin system so you can transform it into your own IDE. It’s deceivingly simple and surprisingly powerful.

Maya

Maya, a new app in Luna, is a simple desktop calendar. With it you can create, view, and manage events to organize your agenda.

Noise

Noise is the default music player. It combines a beautifully simple interface with a powerfully fast backend to let you get right at your music. It makes excellent use of Granite’s ThinPane and DecoratedWindow widgets, ensuring consistency with the rest of the desktop.

Midori

One of the biggest transformations in Luna occurs in default web browser, Midori. It features a newer and much faster version of WebKit, providing an all-around better experience and supporting the latest in CSS3 and HTML5.  Midori also makes use of Popovers in its bookmarking interface. Lastly, Midori has received many important compatibility and security updates.

Geary

Another important update in Luna is the inclusion of Geary, a new mail client. It supplants Jupiter’s Postler and does a mighty fine job. Geary brings some of the best features of webmail to the desktop—like threaded conversations and excellent HTML rendering—while excelling in desktop integration with attachment handling, mail notifications, and more.

Stress Test

Although Luna is still in beta stage, but it can be used as a daily operating system. As you can see from the videos above, Luna is very stable and fluid even though tons of  applications are running at the same time!

Download elementary OS Luna | elementary project via Web Upd 8