Karmic Koala Alpha 4 has released

Upgrading from Ubuntu 9.04

To upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 on a desktop system, press Alt+F2 and type in "update-manager -d" (without the quotes) into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '9.10' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 9.04 on a server system: install the update-manager-core package if it is not already installed; edit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and set Prompt=normal; launch the upgrade tool with the command sudo do-release-upgrade; and follow the on-screen instructions.

GNOME

Ubuntu Karmic Alpha 4 includes the latest GNOME 2.27.4 development release.

Empathy has replaced Pidgin as the default instant messaging client, introducing the Telepathy framework.

The gdm 2.27.4 login manager is a complete rewrite compared to the version in earlier Ubuntu releases.

Linux kernel 2.6.31

Alpha 4 includes the 2.6.31-5.24 kernel based on 2.6.31-rc5. The kernel ships with Kernel Mode Setting enabled for Intel graphics (see below). linux-restricted-modules is deprecated in favour of DKMS packages.

ext4 by default

The new "ext4" filesystem is used by default for new installations of Karmic; of course, other filesystems are still available via the manual partitioner. Existing filesystems will not be upgraded.

If you have full backups and are confident, you can upgrade an existing ext3 filesystem to ext4 by following directions in the Ext4 Howto (note that the comments on that page at the time of writing about Ubuntu's use of vol_id vs. blkid are out of date and are not applicable to Karmic). Maximum performance will typically only be achieved on new filesystems, not on filesystems that have been upgraded from ext3.

Known issues

As is to be expected at this stage of the release process, there are several known bugs that users are likely to run into with Karmic Alpha 4. We have documented them here for your convenience along with any known workarounds, so that you don't need to spend time reporting these bugs again:

• If you have internal hard disk partitions aside from Ubuntu itself, GNOME will attempt to automatically mount them at startup and ask for your password. Just cancel the dialog, unless you actually want to work with them. (396448)

• The Ubuntu Netbook Launcher crashes on shutdown. (395468)

• The Ubuntu Netbook Launcher is also reported to crash on logout. As a workaround, users can use Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart their systems. (404283)

• When using the OEM installation option, the desktop fails to come up after reboot. Investigation of this issue is ongoing. (403021)

• In Karmic Alpha 4, the "install" option is missing from the Favorites list in Ubuntu Netbook Remix. To install to disk from the USB image, you must navigate to the System->Administration menu instead. (411616)

Reporting bugs

It should come as no surprise that this alpha release of Karmic Koala contains other bugs. Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve future releases. Please report bugs using the tools provided.

If you want to help out with bugs, the Bug Squad is always looking for help.

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) alpha 4 has released, this is a release announcement :

Hello Ubuntu developers,

Welcome to Karmic Koala Alpha 4, which will in time become Ubuntu 9.10.

Pre-releases of Karmic 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 developers and
those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs.

Alpha 4 is the fourth in a series of milestone CD images that will be
released throughout the Karmic development cycle.  The Alpha images are
known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while
representing a very recent snapshot of Karmic. You can download it here:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-4/ (Ubuntu)
http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-4/ (Ubuntu Server UEC)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-4/ (Kubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-4/ (Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/karmic/alpha-4 (Ubuntu Studio)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mythbuntu/releases/karmic/alpha-4/ (Mythbuntu)

See http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mirrors for a list of mirrors.

Alpha 4 introduces the first Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud alpha images for
Karmic.  Information on using these images on your UEC instance or on Amazon
EC2 can be found at the download page at:

http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/alpha-4/

Alpha 4 also includes a number of software updates that are ready for
large-scale testing.  Please refer to
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/alpha4 for information on changes in
Ubuntu.

This is quite an early set of images, so you should expect some bugs.  For a
list of known bugs (that you don't need to report if you encounter), please
see:

http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/karmic/alpha4

If you're interested in following the changes as we further develop
Karmic, have a look at the karmic-changes mailing list:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/karmic-changes

We also suggest that you subscribe to the ubuntu-devel-announce list
if you're interested in following Ubuntu development. This is a
low-traffic list (a few posts a week) carrying announcements of
approved specifications, policy changes, alpha releases, and other
interesting events.

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce

Bug reports should go to the Ubuntu bug tracker:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

Enjoy,
--
Steve Langasek
On behalf of the Ubuntu release team

More information

You can find out more about Ubuntu on the Ubuntu website and Ubuntu wiki.

To sign up for future Ubuntu development announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu's development announcement list at:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce