The Beta release of Canonical's new baby, Ubuntu 9.10 'Karmic Koala', is now
available for download.
As well as the usual host of version updates to each of the components (including Firefox finally getting an official update to 3.5), changes in 9.10 include a visual refresh, a boot sequence improved in both appearance and performance, inclusion of the new 'Ubuntu Software Center' (which replaces 'Add/Remove' in the applications menu), Gnome 2.28 (which sees the Pidgin IM client replaced with
Empathy), rapid application development with
Quickly,
Ubuntu One file sharing, Linux kernel 2.6.31, Intel's new UXA video driver architecture for improved performance on Intel hardware, ext4 as the default filesystem (replacing ext3), GRUB2 as the default bootloader, improved iSCSI support, updated and improved
AppArmor and
Uncomplicated Firewall - you can read the full list on the
Beta page.
Ubuntu 9.10 is available for download in both ISO format (directly and via Bittorrent) and for the first time in Cloud image format for use with
Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) and Amazon's EC2.
Only one Beta version of Karmic Koala will be available - the release candidate arrives October 22nd (the release date for Windows 7!) before the final release lands on October 29th.