14 DAY TRIAL // The first Alpha images of the upcoming Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) Linux distribution have been released, but only for a few flavors.
Unlike the previous development branch for Ubuntu 14.04, fewer developers chose to participate in the first Alpha release of 14.10. This is not something to worry about and it's likely that the second Alpha will have more exposure.
Canonical stopped releasing Alpha versions for its operating system for some time now, and only a few of the flavors have decided to keep doing this kind of releases. Ubuntu 14.10 will only get a Beta version right before launch so, until then, users can only expect the flavors to have intermediary builds.
That doesn't mean that you can't download and test Ubuntu 14.10 right now, in its current state. In fact, Ubuntu developers provide daily images for their system, eliminating the need for an Alpha version.
“This alpha features images for Kubuntu, Lubuntu Ubuntu GNOME, UbuntuKylin and the Ubuntu Cloud images. Pre-releases of the Utopic Unicorn are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu flavor developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting and fixing bugs as we work towards getting this release ready.”
“While these Alpha 1 images have been tested and work, except as noted in the release notes, Ubuntu developers are continuing to improve the Utopic Unicorn. In particular, once newer daily images are available, system installation bugs identified in the Alpha 1 installer should be verified against the current daily image before being reported in Launchpad,” reads the official announcement from Canonical.
You have to keep in mind that Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) will be supported for a period of only nine months, which might not seem like much. In fact, this kind of intermediary releases, between the LTS versions, usually serve a much more interesting purpose, to help developers find and implement new features and changes.
A long-term support version might not be the best place to introduce a new feature, so the devs need a testing ground for all kinds of technologies and new packages. For example, this is just the kind of version for the introduction of a new display manager like Mir or for a new version of Unity.
In fact, you can download the 14.10 Alpha images for Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, and Cloud from Softpedia and Canonical, respectively.