Ubuntu team announced last night in a press release two very important technical decisions that concern the upcoming Ubuntu 7.04 (codename Feisty Fawn).

Proprietary Drivers

First of all, they will not include proprietary video drivers in next releases of Ubuntu Linux distribution, and as in previous releases, these drivers will be provided for the convenience of users who choose to use them and they will not be activated by default.

"There has been a great deal of discussion within the Ubuntu community regarding a technical proposal (the enabling of Composite support by default) which would necessitate the use of certain closed-source video drivers in a default installation of Ubuntu. In response to this controversy, a meeting was convened among representatives of the Technical Board and Community Council to evaluate the issues."

The PowerPC Architecture

Sad news for PPC users of Ubuntu. Starting with version 7.04 of Ubuntu, the PowerPC (PPC) edition of Ubuntu will be reclassified as unofficial. Anyway, the PPC software and supporting infrastructure will still be available and supported by a community team.

"The Ubuntu Technical Board has decided to reclassify PowerPC as an unofficial architecture, rather than a fully supported architecture, for Ubuntu 7.04 and subsequent releases. This means that packages and ISO images will continue to be produced, but releases will not be delayed due to problems which are specific to PowerPC, and the quality of the PowerPC release itself will depend very much on the extent to which members of the Ubuntu community drive PowerPC testing and bug fixes."

For more information regarding these two major issues for the next releases of Ubuntu Linux distribution please visit this page.

About Ubuntu:

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution for your desktop or server, with a fast and easy install, regular releases, a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default, every other package you can imagine available from the network and professional technical support from Canonical Ltd and hundreds of other companies around the world.

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