14 DAY TRIAL // Lubuntu 14.04 LTS Beta 2 (Trusty Tahr) has been officially released and it has joined its brethren from the Ubuntu family, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu GNOME.
The Lubuntu developers have been rather conservative and they haven't pushed huge changes from one version to another. In fact, Lubuntu is the distribution that usually changes the least during the development cycle.
That doesn't mean that Lubuntu doesn't evolve with the rest of them. It is, in fact, based on the current Ubuntu release, which is packed with new apps and features. The differences are smaller because Lubuntu aims to be consistent and that's hard to do if you change the way you look all the time.
The actual changes from the first Beta to the second Beta have been detailed by the developer. The improvements are important and involve a few very important packages.
For example, the new Pcmanfm 1.2.0 has been implemented and this particular update comes with a lot of new features, such as folder settings, dual-pane view, menu editing, and more.
Lubuntu 14.04 LTS Beta 2 (Trusty Tahr) also comes with a new lxsession-default-apps package, which brings a new user interface and an update of the artwork, which includes new icons, a theme update, more compatibilities, and so on.
The Lubuntu developers have also reiterated some of the strong suites of their distribution, along with some of the features. The OS is based on lightweight LXDE desktop environment (with the latest updates), comes with Pcmanfm, a fast and lightweight files manager, features Openbox as the default windows-manager of LXDE, uses Lightdm as the GTK greeter, and implements Mozilla Firefox 28, which has replaced Chromium.
The system requirements for Lubuntu have remained largely the same. According to the developers, a Pentium II or Celeron system with 128 MB of RAM will most likely be able to run the OS.
Also, Lubuntu should be able to run on PowerPC computers (at least 867MHz with 640MB RAM) and on any modern Intel-powerd Mac.
More details about this release can be found in the official announcement. Download the Lubuntu 14.04 LTS Beta 2 (Trusty Tahr) Linux distribution right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a development version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.
Lubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) is expected to arrive on April 17, along with Ubuntu, and will feature three years of support.