Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 4 Brings You Transmission and Brasero

The fourth alpha release of the upcoming Ubuntu 8.04 (codename Hardy Heron) was released last night. It comes with extremely HOT new applications, such as the popular Transmission (as the default BitTorrent client), the awesome Brasero (as the default CD/DVD burning tool), a brand new firewall, the latest and greatest 2.6.24 Linux kernel and many many more:"The Ubuntu developers are moving very quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source Community has to offer. Hardy Heron Alpha 4 is the fourth alpha release of Ubuntu 8.04, and with this new alpha release comes a whole host of excellent new features." The following new components are part of this fourth alpha release of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS:

? Xorg 7.3 ? Linux kernel 2.6.24-5.8 (based on the 2.6.24 RC8 kernel) ? PulseAudio ? PolicyKit ? Firefox 3 Beta 2 ? GNOME 2.21.4

And introducing, for the first time in Ubuntu (by popular demand), the following applications:

? Transmission - is now the default BitTorrent client in Ubuntu, mostly used by Mac OS X users, and it replaced the old Gnome BitTorrent downloader.

? Vinagre - a brand new default VNC client, set to replace the old xvnc4viewer.

? Brasero - just replaced Serpentine and it will be the default CD/DVD burning tool in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS!

? World Clock and Weather - are the new functions provided by the GNOME panel clock applet in Alpha 4.

? GVFS - a new virtual filesystem abstraction layer, which just replaced the old GnomeVFS, is now used by Nautilus as its backend. This is yet another dream that becomes reality, as it will display the amount of data transferred, remaining time and actual data transfer rate, functions that were missing from Ubuntu's file transfer window.

? GNOME System Monitor - has a re-designed "Resources" tab, with Cairo graphs that scale and scroll smoothly, and brand new widgets.

? KVM - is now officially maintained within in the Ubuntu kernel.

? ufw - a new firewall tool designed to make administering a firewall easier for end-users, while not getting in the way of network administrators. However, ufw is a command-line firewall and we think that it will not be embraced by all users!

Known issues in Alpha 4:

? The new kernel in Alpha 4 is unable to access CD-ROM devices in some configurations, which means some users who were previously able to install Ubuntu will not be able to install this alpha from CD media. Investigation is ongoing; no workaround is known at this time. ? Video problems have been reported with the 64-bit (amd64) version of Edubuntu desktop. As a workaround, users can manually specify a video resolution at the boot menu. ? Users with an older ATI Radeon graphics card might have video problems. As a workaround, you can boot the livecd with a failsafe mode, and after installation add 'Option "AGPMode" "4"' to the "Device" section of your /etc/X11/xorg.conf. ? Due to the switch to GVFS, which is not feature complete, the "Network" item in the Places menu doesn't work, and Nautilus can behave erratically, especially in trash operations. ? Wubi does not prompt the user to eject the CD before rebooting. This can lead to confusion if the CD-ROM is the first boot device as some users may start the install from the Live CD instead of continuing the Wubi install by booting from their hard drive. ? Only Ubuntu is supported at the moment in Wubi's stand-alone mode (running Wubi without an Ubuntu CD present).

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

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Release Schedule:

30 November 2007 - Alpha 1 release 21 December 2007 - Alpha 2 release 10 January 2008 - Alpha 3 release 31 January 2008 - Alpha 4 release 21 February 2008 - Alpha 5 release 6 March 2008 - Alpha 6 release 27 March 2008 - Beta release 17 April 2008 - Release Candidate 24 April 2008 - Final release of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

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.

Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 4 Brings You Transmission and Brasero

...and other goodies!