The Maverick Meerkat Chronicles

Jul 1, 2010 16:22 GMT  ·  By

A few minutes ago, the Ubuntu development team unleashed the second Alpha release of the upcoming Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system, due for release in October 10th, 2010. As usual, we've downloaded a copy of it in order to keep you up-to-date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 10.10 development.

What's new in Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2? Well, it appears that starting with Maverick, Ubuntu will finally have an up-to-date Linux kernel, as the packages were updated to version 2.6.35-6.7, based on Linux kernel 2.6.35 RC3. Here is what the developers have to say about this:

"This kernel includes new security enhancements. Of major note is the change the default behavior of PTRACE which is used by gdb, strace, ltrace, etc. The behavior for 10.10 is that only child processes can be PTRACEd, due to the default value of '1' in /proc/sys/kernel/ptrace_scope. This value may be inappropriate for some development systems and servers with only admin accounts. If using "'udo' for PTRACE is not desired, please change this value to '0'."

Moreover, the amazing Btrfs filesystem has been added in Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 and can be used for new installations, as long as the /boot partition uses one of the EXT filesystems. The Btrfs filesystem is available from the Ubiquity installer, as you can see from the screenshots below, but it does NOT work properly! It works ONLY from the alternate or server editions of Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2. It will probably be fixed until the next alpha release.

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Btrfs filesystem in Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2
Ubuntu Software Center has been updated to version 2.1.4 and it looks like this...
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Ubuntu Software Center in Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2
Mozilla Firefox was updated to the brand-new 3.6.6 release, which fixes a major bug for FarmVille users...
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Mozilla Firefox 3.6.6 in Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2
A notification about the current status of Canonical's Ubuntu One service has been implemented in Nautilus (GNOME's explorer)...
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Ubuntu One status notification in Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2
The cloud-init package from the Ubuntu Server cloud images received features such as pluggable hooks, support for the EXT4 filesystem, ebsmount, and more.

And last but not least, the Unity interface has been enabled by default in Ubuntu Netbook Edition. The global menu bar is also included, but is does not function properly as it is still heavily tested by the developers.

What's new in Kubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2? Well, the second Alpha version of Kubuntu 10.10 is built on top of the newly released KDE Software Compilation 4.5 RC1, which has a lot of fresh and attractive features. The rekonq Webkit-based web browser has also been included!

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Kubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2
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Xubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2
On October 10th, 2010, Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) will become the thirteenth release of the Ubuntu operating system. See you again in approximately one month (August 5th), for the third and last Alpha version of the upcoming Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system.

The Maverick Meerkat Release Schedule:

June 3rd, 2010 - Alpha 1 release; July 1st, 2010 - Alpha 2 release; August 5th, 2010 - Alpha 3 release; September 2nd, 2010 - Beta release; September 30th, 2010 - Release Candidate; October 10th, 2010 - Final release of Ubuntu 10.10.

Download Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Download Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Download Ubuntu Server 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Download Ubuntu Studio 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Download Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Download Kubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Download Kubuntu Netbook Remix 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Download Xubuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Download Mythbuntu 10.10 Alpha 2 (Maverick Meerkat) right now from Softpedia.

Remember that this is an alpha release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only. Please report bugs to the Ubuntu Bug Tracker.

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