The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 11.04 Beta
2.
Codenamed Natty Narwhal, 11.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of
integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a
high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at
work since Beta 1, fixing bugs and getting things all nice and natty.
For PC users, Ubuntu 11.04 now supports laptops, desktops and netbooks
with a unified look and feel based on Unity.
A special Ubuntu Netbook version is provided for platforms based on ARM
technology, such as the Panda and Beagle boards.
Ubuntu Server 11.04 has made it easier to provision servers, and reduce
power consumption.
Ubuntu Server 11.04 for UEC and EC2 is available as well, with a new
kernel and improved initialization and configuration options.
The Ubuntu 11.04 family of Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Mythbuntu, and
Ubuntu Studio, also reach Beta 2 status today.
Ubuntu Changes
--
Some of the new features now available are:
Unity is now the default Ubuntu desktop session. The Unity launcher has
many new features, including drag and drop re-ordering of launcher
icons, full keyboard navigation support, launcher activation through
keyboard shortcuts, right-click context menu quick-list and switching
between running applications.
The Ubuntu One control panel now allows selective syncing, and the
launcher icon now displays sync progress. File syncing speed has been
improved as well.
The Ubuntu Software Center now allows users to rate review
installed applications, share reviews via integration with social
networking services added into Gwibber, and has other usability
improvements.
Key applications have been updated to newer versions:
Ubuntu 11.04 comes with the latest Firefox 4.0 as standard web browser.
LibreOffice 3.3.2 has been included in 11.04 as the default office
package.
Banshee 2.0 is the standard music player now and has been integrated
into the sound menu.
And we continue to improve the underlying infrastructure:
11.04 Beta 2 has a kernel based on 2.6.38.
X.org 1.10.0 and Mesa 7.10.1 are the new versions included with 11.04.
GNU toolchain has transitioned to be based off of gcc 4.5 for i386,
amd64, and ARM omap3/omap4 architectures.
All main packages have now been built and and are installable with
Python 2.7.
dpkg 1.16.0-pre brings us up-to-date with staged changes for the
upcoming Debian 1.16.0 dpkg release, as well as pulling in the current
version of the in-progress multiarch work
Upstart has been updated to 0.9.4-1. There are a lot of new features:
its now chroot-aware, there is support for basic job/event
visualization, there are two new initctrl commands (show-config,
check-config), a socket bridge is now provided, the latest D-Bus version
now allows D-Bus services to be activated via Upstart, a manual job
configuration stanza, and override file support is now available
Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/natty/beta for details.
Ubuntu Netbook on ARM
The ARM version is the first one to ship with our new Unity 2D interface
by default.
The 2.6.38 kernel for OMAP4 has had many driver improvements, most
notably the display driver was switched to use the HDMI port by default
and auto detect the monitor resolution.
For developers, an Ubuntu Headless image is available for omap3 and
omap4 hardware. Headless is fully set up for the serial port and
contains a minimal command line install.
Ubuntu Server
-
cobbler and mcollective have been included, which will make provisioning
servers easier.
Powernap 2.0 uses a new method to reduce power consumption and can now
monitor user activity (Console, Mouse, Keyboard), system activity (load,
processors, process IO), and network activity (wake-on-lan, udp ports
tcp ports)
Default dhcpd server updated from dhcp3 to isc-dhcp (version 4).
Eucalyptus is now the latest stable point release (2.0.2) with security
and efficiency fixes. (Known bug against the dhcpd server)
OpenStack (nova) in Universe is a technology preview, with a recent
snapshot of 2011.2 (Cactus) release.
libvirt is updated to 0.8.8 with new features and bug fixes (see
upstream change log for full information 0.8.3-0.8.8)
Ubuntu Server for UEC and EC2
-
cloud-init has been updated to 0.60. This feature includes support
resizing of the root file system at first boot, adds minimal OVF
transport (iso) support and allow setting of hostname when first
booting. Rightscale support has been added to cloud-config and
cloud-init.
Some of the supporting technologies that have been packaged and included
are, Cassandra 0.7.0, ZeroMQ, Membase, and XtraBackup.
Kubuntu
---
Kubuntu 11.04 Beta 2 sports the latest KDE software including KDE
Platform 4.6.1.
Kubuntu now provides a working Samba file sharing module that lets you
add and manage shares from the folder's Properties dialogs.
The new
