Ubuntu: the change is coming - April 29th.

The new version of Ubuntu, 10.04, is almost near the corner. On April 22nd the last step before the final release in coming, the Release Candidate. This represents usually about 90-95% of the final release, and soon after, on 29th, the final release is going to be available.

This is a LTS update, or Long Term Support. This means that this version will be supported for 3 years on Desktop version, and it is launched every two years (while normal releases are supported for 18 months and are launched every 6 months). Thousands of updates are coming daily for those who are using Beta 2 at this moment, so this is an evidence that the community is seriously working for 10.04 LTS.

This is a list of the most important updates that Ubuntu 10.04 has so far and what is supposed to come in the final release:

• Much better hardware support
• Improved speed
• 2 new default themes
• By default, Ubuntu has windows buttons on the left
• Splash and login screens are now modified
• Gwibber is installed by default (social client - Twitter is included)
• Boot time under 10 seconds (for the final release)

Regarding the themes, an article can be found by clicking here. However, articles about Ubuntu can be found on the entire blog. You must only find them by typing "Ubuntu" in the search box.

Ubuntu is still under full development, so the many applications and even the system can get serious errors, so if you need a stable system it is not recommended to update yet.

The stable version (9.10) and 10.04 beta 2 are both available from the official site: http://www.ubuntu.com/ .

Testing Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Alpha 2.

Ubuntu launched their 10.04 Alpha 2 release on 7th January, and I've decided to test it now. So far, it has nothing new comparing to 9.10 Karmic Koala. Except probably that it boots a little faster.

The installation took a normal time, similar to 9.10. The boot-up takes about 18 seconds, which is better than 9.10, but I'm curious if the final release will attend what Ubuntu promised, less than 10 seconds to boot. That would be a real performance and a big challenge for any OS developer.

On my Dell D610 laptop everything works out-of-the-box, including wi-fi. After the first boot the touchpad stopped responding, but, using the trackpoint I gave it a reboot and now it is working. There are some problems with the notifications, which appear in a strange way. View the following image to see how
What else I can tell you is that at a first look, the OS moves pretty fast, but the applications are crashing frequently and easily. I observed several flickers of the screen, so I guess it might be a problem with the driver of something like that.

Ubuntu 10.04 (so far, Alpha 2) comes with Empathy as a default internet messenger, Firefox 3.5.7 for brwsing, and OpenOffice 3.1 suite. There's also a new application included, named Pitivi Video Editor.

The 10.04 will be a LTS (long term support) distribution, so it should be an high stable release, which will be supported for 3 years for desktop edition, and 5 years for the server one. The LTS releases are launched every two years, while normal releases are launched every 6 months.

Here's the calendar of the Ubuntu 10.04 release schedule:

• December 10th 2009 - Alpha 1
• January 14th 2010 - Alpha 2
• February 25th 2010 - Alpha 3
• March 18th 2010 - Beta 1
• April 8th 2010 - Beta 2
• April 22nd 2010 - RC (Release Candidate)
• April 29th 2010 - Final Release.

Download Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 from here: http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/releases/lucid/alpha-2/

For detailed schedule, go here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LucidReleaseSchedule?action=show&redirect=LucidLynxSchedule

Please consider that this is an unstable release ! Do NOT install it as your default OS, as it has frequent crashes that might cause you to lose data ! It is recommended for testing purposes only.