We should start this article by letting everyone know that Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), due for release in late October this year, will not have that professional theme everyone was expecting, as stated by Mark Shuttleworth himself in the Ubuntu Open Week Q & A:

"It has taken a long, long time to pull together a design team. I had hoped to have that team in place six months ago, but it's still forming. I think we will make good progress in the next cycle, you can already see a few things that have borne fruit from that team: notifications, time zone selector in installer, etc, but it's fragmentary. I'm pretty darn confident we'll have a new look for 10.04 but I think only pieces of that will emerge for 9.10."

Getting back to our article, we proudly announce that the second alpha release of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) was uploaded a few minutes ago on the official mirrors. As usual, we've downloaded a copy of it, and we intend to keep you up to date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 9.10 development.

What's new in Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2? The development team prepared a Live CD for this second alpha version of Ubuntu 9.10, which means everyone will be able to download (see the links at the end of the article) and test it. As you can see from the screenshots below, there's nothing new on the surface... the same wallpaper and theme as in Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope).

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Alpha 2

However, the hot news is that GRUB 2 is now the default boot loader and it finally replaced that ancient GRUB Legacy (for more details see this article) and EXT4 is now the default filesystem for new installations. Last but not least, the kernel packages are at version 2.6.30-8, based on Linux kernel 2.6.30 RC8, and GCC 4.4 is the default compiler.

Most of the GNOME packages, including Nautilus, Brasero, Gedit and Totem Movie Player, were updated to the 2.27.1 and 2.27.2 development versions. Pidgin was also updated to version 2.5.6.

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Alpha 2 showcasing Pidgin 2.5.6

What's new in Kubuntu and Xubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2? The good news is that Kubuntu is built on top of the KDE 4.3 Beta 2 desktop environment and Xubuntu is using Xfce 4.6.1.

On October 29th, Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) will be the eleventh release of the Ubuntu operating system. However, until then, we have another version that should catch our attention and invade our computers, Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope). See you again on July 23rd, for the third Alpha release of the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala).

Kubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Alpha 2

The Karmic Koala Release Schedule:

May 14th, 2009 - Alpha 1 release
June 11th, 2009 - Alpha 2 release
July 23rd, 2009 - Alpha 3 release
August 13th, 2009 - Alpha 4 release
September 3rd, 2009 - Alpha 5 release
September 17th, 2009 - Alpha 6 release
October 1st, 2009 - Beta release
October 22nd, 2009 - Release Candidate
October 29th, 2009 - Final release of Ubuntu 9.10

Xubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Alpha 2

Download Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2 (Karmic Koala) right now from Softpedia.

Download Ubuntu Server 9.10 Alpha 2 (Karmic Koala) right now from Softpedia.

Download Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 Alpha 2 (Karmic Koala) right now from Softpedia.

Download Kubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2 (Karmic Koala) right now from Softpedia.

Download Xubuntu 9.10 Alpha 2 (Karmic Koala) 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.